Dream Boy

Dream Boy By Danny The Witch

"[Visualization if recorded in the present tense an eventual pattern

will form. If you persist in your efforts you can achieve dream control.]

If you open your mind for me you won't rely on open eyes to see [Help me!] The walls you built within come tumblin down and a new world will begin. Living twice and once you learn your safe from pain and the dream remain; A soul set fee to fly. A round trip journey in your head, master of illusion can you realize your dreams alive, You can be the guide, But I will be watching over you. I'm going to help to see you through. I will protect you in the night. I'm smiling next to you."

"When you were little did you dream you were big?

You must have been somethin', a real tiny kid!

Did you wish you were me? I wished I was you!

Don't you wake up and this dream can come true! And every dream has a name and names spell your story.

Do you know who you are? You're the dream operator.

Dream Operator (Talking Heads)

"...When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone. I can not put my finger on it now.

The child has grown and the dream has gone.

And I have become comfortably numb...

-Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)

-Seven-

When I got ready for school it was still dark, being that I actually live outside of the district for the high school I attend, and I need to leave a lot earlier to get to school on time.

I know this is going to sound weird but, if I'm taking a shower and it's dark, I often don't turn on the light. There's a little night-light in the bathroom that my parents put there so I don't have to turn on a light in the middle of the night. After this one time when, after going to the bathroom and dilating my pupils by turning on the light, when I went back to my room I couldn't see where my bed was and flopped myself right on the ground and almost knocked myself out. After that my parents put a night-light in the bathroom and I have discovered that that little light is more than sufficient lighting to see by.

There is also a clock-radio in the bathroom, that my parents put there at my insistence - because I like to listen to music while I take a shower, and I prefer to listen to music in the dark when I can. It's a long story why and a little hard to explain. I had mentioned earlier that I also like to listen to music with the sun shining in my eyes which I especially like, but I also especially like listening to music in the darkness.

So there I am taking a shower in the darkness, and also meditating on the music. I had the station set to "The Mighty Met". You know, "ninety four point seven a little bit of heaven twiddle dee". They played mostly rock and it beat the hell out of "The Mighty Six Ninety and KHJ on the AM band. AM sucked, even when you had the station tuned in good you always get SOME interference from SOMETHING. It doesn't matter, almost everything causes interference on the AM band - A hair dryer from three blocks away, the next door neighbor turning on a mixer, someone starting their car, it doesn't matter, anything electrical causes noise on that stupid band.

FM, however, is pure genius, and my parents must really love me because this model of radio was top--of-the-line. They had first bought me, you know, a regular clock-radio which was AM only, and after listening to it for a little while I complained to them that I thought that listening to it was effecting my brain. No, really, I'm not kidding. After I listen for awhile, I swear, it feels like I have all this static noise running through my head afterwards that takes a long time to go away; like white-noise inside my brain, but IRRITATING white noise that makes me feel like I want to hurt someone or something.

I told my parents that I had this theory, based on some articles I read, that AM radio may actually create psychopathic phenomenon. No, don't laugh, I was really serious about this.

It all started back when that Amityville thing happened. I was just a little kid then, but I remember it really effected me-- it was all over the news, and the thing that REALLY bothered me about what happened, the thing that caused me to obsess about it was that this guy, the guy who killed his whole family, even the dog, man, was his profile. He was just like this regular everyday guy, very likeable, got along with everybody. He wasn't a criminal, and had no history of psychiatric problems, you know? He just goes nuts one night-- wakes up at about two in the morning grabs a shotgun and massacres the whole family. Man, this is hard to explain but I asked my parents why he did it, because I wanted to understand. The thing that really bothered me was, that this guy seemed like a good person until he just flipped out, you know? Went psycho. It occurred to me that if no one could adequately explain HOW it happened, then it could just as well happen to anybody, even my own dad-- and that thought was the thought that was keeping me up at night. If you have no way to guess whose going to go psycho on you, how can you sleep at night??

Well, my parents really couldn't explain satisfactorily to me why this man did this. And I did listen to rumors on television that he was possessed by the devil and it was a haunted house and all that-- give me a break-- that was DEFINATELY NOT a satisfying theory to consider in fact if one goes that route in their mind, it makes things even worse, because then ANYONE can flip out at any moment with absolutely no warning, all that needs to happen is some little bugger demon to get inside of them-- which I already knew being part German that our people think it can happen to you when you sneeze- for God's sakes-- that's why we say, Gesuntheit!! It's supposed to stop a demon from possessing you. No, its true, old German folklore-- they say that your soul is in a vacuum inside your body but when you sneeze the integrity of that vacuum is momentarily disrupted allowing for a demon to fly into you. So, that theory sucked-- would have to make sure my dad never sneezes ever again-- Now don't laugh-- I'm being serious here!!

So, a little while later I'm reading these articles in Popular Psychology that I checked out of the local library, and I start to find out that psychologists had done these studies that showed that noise can actually effect people's behavior; that certain kinds of noises can irritate people and even make them become violent-- and these studies were about noise you can't hear, ok?? So they weren't talking about car's honking their horn and babies crying and crap and stuff like that. No, they were talking about noise above and below frequencies that are audible to humans. Scientists had already discovered that certain inaudible noises can make a dog with absolutely no training instantly become vicious and attack for no reason at all-- even a dog that was always friendly. These articles said that in fact the military was studying a way to make a noise machine that could effect the enemy in just such a way so they kill each other off in some kind of mass psychopathic hysteria.

Anyways, to spare you most of what I read the main point was that scientists believed that STATIC NOISE in the inaudible range can actually cause hostility, violence and psychosis in humans.

And here's what really caused me to freak out: That inaudible interference on the AM band produces a sufficient amount of static noise that when animals such as monkey's and chimps were subjected to it for over an hour, they become aggressive and began fighting with one another and that when they were subjected to the noise for an hour a day, over the period of a month, that some of the monkey's literally went psycho-- now remember I'm talking about sound at a frequency range that supposedly you can't hear.

So I told my parents what I found out and at first they didn't take me seriously but when I showed them the scientific articles and they read them, they started to change their mind. I told them, hey, I've been reading a lot of stuff about this, and as far as the guy from Amityville, I think my theory is as good as any I've heard or read so far-- It sure beats the hell out of the 'possessed by the devil' theory which seemed to be the most popular going around. My parents agreed.

I told them that it probably doesn't effect everybody that way-- but when I listen to it, I DEFINATELY get headaches and feel irritated after, and since I'm related to my dad that it could effect him that way too. My dad says how come it doesn't effect everybody? And I said well, you can subject a hundred people to high levels of radiation and only a few of them will eventually get cancer and die-- But, just because most of them don't get cancer doesn't mean that radiation doesn't cause cancer. My parents agreed, and I was relieved knowing I would be able to sleep at night now.

So that's why I got the new top-of-the-line FM radio in the bathroom which I was listening to now taking my shower.

And, I'm in the dark because the darkness helps me to focus on the music-- kind of like closing your eyes.

And I'm listening to the song "Blinded By The Light" by Manfred Earth Band that was playing while showering in the dim light of the small night light. I love that song, and I still haven't gotten all the lyrics to it yet in my head, and during the song, right at that one line: "I tripped the merry-go-round" I see this small bright red light and then a moment later I see another one.

I watched as they buzzed around me like some kind of bizarre fire flies. I remember because I was standing there in the shower with shampoo on my hair but I had my eyes open being that it was Johnson's baby shampoo that doesn't hurt your eyes, and I was trying to figure out what the hell this one line meant from the song I was listening to: "...With a boulder on my shoulder, feeling kind of older, I tripped the merry-go-round..." I was asking myself, 'What the hell does that mean?' It seemed significant but I seemed unable to get my mind around it.

And that's when I saw them. I happened to be looking up as I shampooed my hair, and I saw them zoom out of the edge of the fluorescent light; at the extreme far end of the tube- where it glowed a slight orange, in fact was still glowing because I had the light on earlier and they continue to glow slightly at the edges for quite a while after you turn them off.

I hate fluorescent lighting. My dad put the tube in the bathroom to conserve electricity because they're more cost efficient, and I understand that, and it's all well and good but I still hate fluorescent lights and this is why- and it's practically the same reason why I hate AM; it gives me a headache. It's irritating because its not natural light - it flickers; it turns off and on and a certain frequency that tricks your senses into believing that it's real light when it isn't. And obviously our brains don't like it. Mine doesn't anyways, like I said it gives me a headache.

It's not only me either, lot's of people are effected adversely by artificial lighting of the fluorescent kind. If I'm in neon lighting for awhile, afterwards I feel like I've got moths fluttering around inside my head trying to get out - Argh- Its just creepy - I hate it. Another reason why I take shower's in the dark.

I know it sounds funny - like paranoid, but really it's true. I've also read scientific articles about the effects of fluorescent lighting on people who are subjected to it for hours at a time like in an office or something like that or a supermarket. One study showed, that not only do some people become irritated and hostile but apparently their I.Q. drops about twenty points after being in fluorescent lighting for two hours. Serious, they gave these people a simple IQ test, then had then walk around a supermarket for two hours, and then gave them another IQ test and afterwards a bunch of them scored just as idiots!!

It reminds me once when I was in seventh grade; poetry class, which I loved by the way, and we we're studying contemporary poetry, which consisted mostly of lyrics from songs - Man that was far out, like a dream come true for me.

So, we we're studying the lyrics to the song "Sounds Of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkle and the teacher, Mr. Preston, asked the class what we thought the poem meant. I raised my hand and was called on first and I said that I wasn't sure what the poem meant for sure, but that I was intrigued by one line that I suspected was the key to understanding the meaning of the whole poem. Mr. Preston asked me which line it was, I think he was curious and I said it was the line that went like this: "...and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made..." He then asked me what I thought the line meant and I said that I could be wrong but I thought that line was referring to television. I said that it makes sense because if everyone's watching TV then that society becomes the land of silence because people don't talk when their watching TV. It's like MY family when we all watch TV, we don't talk to each other hardly at all, because we're all hypnotized by the tube. That's why I think it's so dumb that my dad thinks watching TV is a "family event"-- What? Just sitting there starring at a box- no one talking to each other-- give me a break.

The teacher thought that was interesting and then called on someone else; a boy, and this kid says kind of as a rebuttal, 'cause Mr. Preston asked him, 'Well what do you think about that interpretation' that I had made, and the kid says 'Well, it couldn't be TV because who prays to their TV?'

And then I blurted out a rebuttal to the rebuttal and ended up getting in trouble because I spoke out without being called on. I said, "It's referring to television as an idol. You can put anything on TV and people will believe it, just because its on TV-- Television has become, in our society, an authority, beyond suspicion of deceit; if you hear it on television it must be true, without question. That's idolatry,' I said.

Anyways, the teacher made me stay after school. I don't think he liked the insinuation; because I was in this Christian school at the time (a very short time) and he was supposedly a Christian and didn't very much like the idea that if he put too much credence on television that he was guilty of idolatry and breaking one of the ten commandments. In fact I don't think he liked me after that and he didn't try very hard to hide it. It was kind of a drag being that he was the principal of that middle school. Eventually his hostility towards me became so apparent that although my parents tried to work out by complaining a few times and finally they just told that stupid school to take a big hike off a cliff and pulled me out.

That day after class I developed a bit of an attitude myself-- I mean hey, I wasn't the one who wrote the song, I just offered my interpretation of it-- I remember I came very close to telling Mr. Preston 'Why don't you call Art and Paul and complain to them I didn't write the song!' but I bit my tongue. Besides that I also wasn't the one who decided to have the class study the lyrics of that particular song.

Anyways, back to the red lights. So there I am looking up at the ceiling shampooing my hair thinking all these thoughts and remembering all these remembrances as these two dime-sized laser- bright red objects went flying around in the air around me, apparently having created some kind of a hypnotic effect in my mind as well.

They were obviously intelligent, from their movement I could tell they were aware of me and their environment-- and they were incredibly fast-- almost beyond words. They could zip this way and that faster than my eye could sense them, and then slow down and lazily dance around my head again.

I was watching them as my mind was inundated with all these thoughts and memories that I just shared with you, like I was in a trance so I wasn't afraid, although maybe I should have been. In fact, I wasn't even directly paying attention to them, more focused on my own thoughts and just seeing them peripherally.

Suddenly, one of them flew into my left ear. They were physical, because I could feel the thing- whatever it was- fluttering around in my ear like a little devil fly or something. And, I guess it fixed a position inside of my ear, and then it started making these really high pitched sounds, very quiet though, in proportion to it's size. The sounds were very fast like clicks I could tell that, but too fast to distinguish-- it sounded like the sound of data being transferred over a 110 baud phone modem for your Commodore Pet computer, or TRS-80 which I had some familiarity with.

And the sounds were having an effect on my mind. I think they were trying to communicate with me. Mostly it was flashes of images, you know like pictures going in my head, very rapidly. I saw a lot of images, and I don't know that I could actually explain what was going on exactly even if I wanted to. It seemed maybe, it was mostly going directly into my sub-conscious. I only heard like one clear like sentence said with words-- actual words:

They said to me, "We want to COMMUNE with you."

The next thing I know, I saw one of the red lights fly off into the large mirror that we had in the bathroom and disappear and I felt my apparent trance suddenly lift.

I finished getting ready for school, since I was now a bit behind schedule, and made up for lost time by skipping breakfast which usually consisted of Frosted Mini Wheats Cheerios, or Wheat Chex with a lot of sugar (a LOT of sugar) and I was a little bummed about that since breakfast is my most favorite meal.

I wasn't much in the mood to listen to music on my bicycle ride to school. While I was riding I kept reflecting on this experience I just had in my bathroom this morning. 'Was that for reals?' I asked myself. 'Did that really happen?'

I wondered to myself what those red lights were or who they were. I tried to come up with ideas in my head as to the possibilities, but the only idea that seemed to have credence was that they were aliens. I had heard about people making contact with extra-terrestrials but nothing like this, and believe me, I read a lot, about anything supernatural; ghosts, flying saucers, anything and everything and I could not recall ever once hearing anyone ever describe a duo of bright red lights the size of dimes.

I wondered also to myself, what did they put in my head? Information of some kind, that much I was pretty sure of- I think images; pictures-- but they all flew by me too quick for me to remember any detail about them-- like thousands of images in just that one minute.

I had stopped at an intersection waiting for the green light, incessantly pushing the bicyclist button to make the light turn green while using that same hand to hold myself up on the bicycle without putting a foot down. I often wonder as I'm pushing these bicyclist buttons over and over again do these buttons really do anything or do they just put them there as a kind of placebo to pacify you-- I know the pedestrian buttons make the damn thing say WALK but do they actually make the light turn green any quicker?? I'm not sure that they do. Are the bicyclist buttons actually connected to anything??

I was wondering all this in my head when I noticed there was a man on that same corner a few feet from where I was and he suddenly spoke to me.

He was wearing a black base-ball cap with a picture of a rooster on it predominately displayed which I thought was unusual- - He had really long blond hair almost like he was part Indian it was so long-- I saw dark roots so I figured it was a bleach job. He said to me, "Excuse me, do you know time?"

I looked at my watch, and said, "Um, it's about seven thirty or seven thirty one."

"Thank you," the man replied. He had moved a little closer to me and that's when I noticed that he was wearing a black sweatband on his right wrist with an eyeball on it. I don't mean there was a PICTURE of an eyeball; he had a three dimensional, probably plastic, round eyeball glued or attached to the wrist-band.

With eyes wide open I said, "No prob." At that moment the light turned green, and the man started walking across the street. A few steps from the curb and I noticed that the man had like a manuscript or something stuck in the waste band of his pants in the small of his back. The cover page was torn and sticking out and making like it was going to fall, and sure enough as I watched, the paper tore loose from the binding and fluttered to the street surface; the man seemingly unaware kept walking.

I rode my bicycle into the crosswalk and stopped momentarily, leaned down to pick up the piece of paper. I was intending on giving it to the man but after I picked it up and faced forward again-- the man was gone. I hurried across the street, not to be caught in the intersection when the light turned red, and from the far corner, I stopped, looking this way and that-- the guy disappeared leaving no trace of where he went.

I wrinkled my brow in thought, 'Where in the hell could he have gone?' I looked at the paper-- an eight and a half by eleven sheet of typing paper-- and it turned out my hunch was right-- it was the cover page of apparently a manuscript to a story because on the front of it it read:

'Dream Boy

by

Danny The Witch'

'A witch??' I thought to myself, 'Well that's certainly interesting.' I looked at the paper again, and underneath of the title it also read:

'Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?'

Now I happen to like riddles, especially if it be the mysterious type like one that was written by a supposed witch, so I decided I would keep it, being somewhat intrigued not only by this interesting pseudonym but the mysterious stranger himself and his odd eyeball, quite prominently displayed on his right wrist.

I took a quick glance on the back of the paper and noticed that there was apparently a note, handwritten, but I didn't have time to read it now. I folded up the paper and stuck it in my back pocket, and carried on towards school.

At school, during my first period class; P.E., we we're in the weight room. I was hanging out with my friend Joey as partners working on the leg lifts.

I had decided not to tell Joey about any of this stuff going on with me, it seeming to me to be a bit of a secret or something-- that was my intuition. I would resist the compulsion to talk to someone until I met up with Sean and Tommy again, hopefully at the amp'.

Joey was on the leg machine at the moment, and I was turned away from him, looking up at the ceiling, focused on the fluorescent lights- spacing as they say. I was lost in thought at the moment thinking about those red lights again.

That's when Joey broke my reverie. I turned around and he was standing right next to me.

"What are you looking at?" Joey asked me

"Nothing, " I said, "Why aren't you on the leg machine? Someone'll take it."

"Because-- num nuts over there forced me off. He literally pushed me off the machine! Asshole!" he said as he pointed to an upper classman quite renowned for his bullying of under classman who was currently using OUR machine.

The upper-classman was laying on his stomach, pulling up a freaky amount of weights on his legs; holding them with his legs stretched straight out for about a ten-count before going down and then back up again.

I started to walk over to him and Joey stopped me saying, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go over there and tell him to get the hell off our machine, what do you think I'm going to do?" I said, not concealing my anger very well.

"You think that's a good idea?" he asked.

"I don't know, " I said and I really didn't know, but I hadn't had any problems with bullies yet in this high school, and I already knew that if you allow yourself to be intimidated by them, it only makes you more attractive to bullies when they see that you give in easily.

I walked over to the guy who, like I said, was lying on his stomach on the machine and had his face turned in the other direction away from me so I tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

He let the weights down with his ankles and turned his face towards me.

"May I help you," he said in a slightly mocking tone.

"Me and my friend were using this machine," I said as cool as could be.

"Yea I know, " he said "The key-word is 'WERE'- you and your friend WERE using this machine. Now I'm using it. "

Now, I can put up with a lot of bull shit from people but for some reason and I don't know exactly why I can not stand to be condescended. At even the slightest hint of a patronizing attitude and I start to immediately boil in anger.

"Oh, and by the way, " the bully added, as he looked me straight in the eyes, "If either one of you two homo's ever touch me again I'll kill you."

I didn't know how to respond. I have to admit, although I'd run into bullies every now and again at school, I'd never had anyone threaten my life before. I was trembling slightly, trying to think of something to say or do and I never had the chance actually because just at that same moment after he said what he said, I saw a red light.

It zoomed in from one of the large windows that are set high near the ceiling. Even in the day light, these suckers were so bright their red glow was clearly visible. I saw the light the instant it flew in to the room near the window, and I watched as the dime- sized object descended quicker than shit, even doing a few loop-de- loop's as it went, eventually flying right through the cable that was holding the weights that the bully was holding up with his ankles; his legs stretched straight out, locked at the knees, holding them steady for a ten-count.

The instant that the red light flew threw the cable it snapped. Frayed cable immediately flying upwards and downwards at the same time in a horrifying, terrifying sound that is completely indescribable unless you've actually heard it when one snaps like that. The dude was lifting a crap-load of weights on it at that moment and the tension on the cable was extreme at the instant it broke.

And what I witnessed in the next instant has got to be the most bizarre accident I had ever seen before in my entire life. The whole arm mechanism that was attached to the ankle lifts which the dude had his ankles under, reacted to the snapping cable by going strait down, at incredible torque. The bully's ankles went down with it, bending his legs backwards at the knees and everyone heard both of his legs snap-- I mean it was LOUD.

All I could do was stand there and stare. The guy didn't cry or anything. He just stared, like maybe he was in shock or something. One of the coaches ran over and tried to talk to him, but all he would do was stare, he wouldn't talk or answer any questions. He didn't yell or scream or anything-- he looked perfectly calm for both of his legs just snapping the way they just did.

They called the paramedics, and they took him away in an ambulance. That was the most excitement of anything to happen in the school since the start of the school year-- and from the way the coaches were talking to each other-- this was the first time they remembered a student ever being taken away by ambulance.

Joey and I were standing near the back of the group of kids that had gathered to watch the entire drama unfold of the emergency team and all that.

"Joey, " I said.

"Yea, " he responded not taking his eyes off of the action.

"Did you see that red light?" I asked slightly intrepid.

Joey turned and looked at me, "You know what that was?" he asked rhetorically, "That was divine justice-- instant divine justice! I've heard about it, I've been studying about it all my life in synagogue but I have to be honest and say I never really believed it."

"Joey-- what are you talking about?-- I asked you if you saw that red light go through the cable?"

But he again just ignored my question, "That kid got exactly what he deserved-- I bet he thinks twice before he ever tells someone he's going to kill them!" And then he turned his attention back to the emergency technicians who were just then in the process of applying a splint.

'Oh well,' I thought to myself, Joey was off in his own little world and was not at the moment capable of having an intelligent conversation.

During my second period English class I pretty much couldn't even concentrate on anything that was going on in class- I hardly even remembered being in that class.

About half way through my third period algebra class, while we were all working on quadratic equations, some kid came in the classroom and handed the teacher a note. The teacher then motioned me to come up to his desk and after going through the whole 'Who me?' routine, I finally approached and he told me to take the note and go to the office.

I was thinking to myself 'Sent to the principal's office again-- What now??' I looked at the note it read: 'DERECK R. ALGEBRA 3RD PERIOD - PLEASE REPORT TO THE SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST.'

I'm thinking to myself, 'Wow, never went there before-- I've got a free ticket out of math-- cool.'

When I got to the psychologists office the door was closed so I knocked and I don't why but I was surprised that it was a lady-- I guess I always imagined head shrinks to be guys. She introduced herself to me as Cynthia and shook my hand and told me to have a seat.

I really liked her office-- very plush-- even better than the principal's office. It was also air-conditioned, as the whole office was, and I had always wondered if that's right for the adults to AC themselves in like royal bliss while the whole student body suffers, where its supposed to be just fine that the windows are open.

I sat down and for a few moments we just looked at each other in silence. Man, that's some kind of a head trip there, I didn't like it-- that's damn uncomfortable.

Finally she broke the silence when she said, "Do you know why you're here?"

"Yea-- because the office told me to come here." I said.

"No, I mean, do you know why the office called you here?"

"No," I said.

"There was an accident in your gym class today, we we're told that you observed the entire accident-- and well, I would like to ENCOUAGE you to talk about it." She said.

"What's there to talk about? The cable snapped and so did his legs." I said.

And now here was another awful silence-- man, this was unnerving. I gave her a few moments without responding because she seemed to be considering something.

Then she said, "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," I lied.

"Look Dereck, witnessing such an accident, can cause a significant amount of stress, whether you feel it right now or not-- sometimes there's a delayed reaction. "

"Okay," I said.

"And talking about it can prevent that delayed stress reaction. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," I said.

"I was told that you were conversing with this boy while he was injured-- are you friends?"

I laughed out loud just then, a nervous kind of laugh. I couldn't help it; two big laughs before I was able to restrain myself, "No." I said.

"I was also told that you had been using that same machine a few minutes earlier, how does that make you feel?" She asked me.

"Damn lucky-- oops, sorry" I said.

"Its okay, I'm not here to get you in trouble, in fact I appreciate it that you just talk like your regular self while your talking to me."

"Okay-- it made me feel damn lucky--" I said.

"Because--"

This was something else I guess about head shrinks, insisting that you state the obvious.

"Because," I said, "the thing could have broke on ME."

"And how does that make you feel?" She asked.

And did I mention this about shrinks just from my own observations-- they have a slight tendency to be redundant.

"Like I said, it makes me feel lucky." I said.

"I see," said the psychologist.

"Are you SURE about that?" I said.

"Humm??" She responded, and for the first time sounding like a half-way genuine response.

"Never mind," I said.

"Listen, Dereck, the principal wants to talk to you about this also, and I'm going to release you for now but I want you to come back here after your done speaking with him."

"Why?" I asked.

"I'll tell you when you get back?" She said and that was really the only thing she said in the conversation that really made me think she was cool.

She kindly escorted me to the door, gently placing a hand on my shoulder which surprised me a little bit. I felt a good vibe too; a genuine, caring professional that DOES care about kids-- a lot. That was kind of funny though, nothing she said made me feel that way about her, it was just that momentary, touch, disguised as casual.

I smiled at her, and then I exited the shrinks office on my way to the principal's office, which I didn't need any directions too, being quite familiar with where it was.

When I got to the principal's office the door was open, I knocked twice and let myself in.

"Hi Mr. Moore," I said.

"Have a seat Dereck, " Mr. Moore said sounding unusually serious.

I sat down, "What's wrong?" I asked, "Am I in some kind of trouble?"

"I don't think so, but I need to clear something up about what happened in your gym class this morning." he said.

"Okay, " I said and for some reason, I felt nervous-- very nervous, and Mr. Moore's short stature didn't even help lighten things up for me one little bit.

"First of all, were you and this kid having some kind of an altercation just before the accident?"

"Altercation? No, it was more like an ass- I mean a jerk being a jerk to me and my friend Joe."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"We we're using the machine, and Chad just came over and pushed Joe off the machine, and then started using it for himself, so I went over there and tried to VERY Politely explain to him that we we're using it."

"And then what?"

"And then..., he called me and Joe a couple of homo's and threatened to kill me if I ever touched him."

"Now why would he do that?"

"You got to be kidding me Mr. Moore-- Ask anyone in the whole school they'll tell you that Chad is the biggest J-E-R-K in the entire school, AND a bully."

"I'll look into that." Mr. Moore said. "And that's all that happened?"

"Yes. Anything else?" I asked.

"Why, are you in a hurry to leave?" asked Mr. Moore.

"No, but I feel like I'm being interrogated here, and more or less I think me and my friend Joe are the victim's here."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just exactly what I said-- I don't have any sympathy for Chad-- It was an accident, but at the same time, well, I don't feel sorry for him and quite frankly I don't think you should feel sorry for him either-- He's nothing but the hugest a-hole to ever come down the pike, and he causes nothing but trouble, and usually picks fights with kids that don't even have pubic hair yet."

"If you had the opportunity Dereck to harm Chad, would you?" Mr. Moore asked me.

"No, but at the same time, I feel like he got what he deserved."

"There are some other boys that have told me that they saw a bright red laser light focused on the cable just a moment before it snapped-- did you see anything like that?"

"No, " I lied.

"Have any idea what these other kid's saw?"

"I don't know-- maybe a reflection of the sun shining through the windows? I don't know."

"You don't happen to own a laser do you?"

"A laser!! No. What are you thinking, that somebody pointed a laser at that cable?"

"More or less, " he said.

"Well, I'm no expert, but I do believe if you consult with the heads of the physics department they will literally laugh at your idea of a laser causing that cable to snap."

"And why is that?"

"Well, first of all, you're talking about a hot-laser, and for a hot-laser to have the kind of power to burn through that cable, I'm just estimating here but well, in order to be portable it would need a battery and nothing less that a 12-amp car battery. I suppose I was hiding a car battery in my gym shorts. And of course, for all of the amplification circuits, you're probably talking about a device that would be more or less the size of a bazooka."

Mr. Moore looked at me incredulously.

"Of course, instead of the car battery you could always opt for a much more portable electroitic capacitor, which could hold a charge probably for up to twenty minutes, and provide the necessary electrical power to run a laser hot enough to burn through steal, but only for about three seconds before its fully discharged. Which would mean, that I would have to pull a bazooka sized laser gun out of gym shorts, take aim, and hit the cable in less than three seconds. Did anyone see me holding a shot-gun sized laser rifle?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"And there's one other problem." I said.

"Tell me,"

"Even if the laser was trained on the steel cable for the entire three seconds of capacitor discharge, I highly doubt that would be enough time for the laser to burn through the cable. Probably, it would take at least thirty to forty seconds is my guess."

"Thanks for answering my questions honestly Dereck,"

"Anytime Mr. Moore-- I have to hand it to you-- That was one interesting theory you came up with-- I suppose the soviets might be able to do it though-- I've heard they've got hot-laser's in space maybe they fired from a satellite OR--"

"Or what? " Mr. Moore said sounding as though he had been letting me ramble but was nearing impatience with me.

"Never mind," I said., "Anything else?"

"Just curious-- how is it you know so much about electrical things?"

"I read a lot of magazines from the library-- One of my favorites is 'Popular Electronics' which I've read every month since I was ten. Anything else?" I said impatiently-- I was feeling very stressed at the moment and a little angry.

"No, you can go back to class now,"

"Back to class?? No, no, I don't think so-- that psychologist lady she wants to talk to me some more too-- maybe she had an inkling that you were going to ACCUSE me of something totally ridiculous!!"

My anger was now showing just a wee bit-- I couldn't help it- - It was true, I was under a lot of stress-- I usually didn't talk to adults this way. What was the matter with me?

"Maybe," Mr. Moore said.

I left and immediately went back to the psychologists office. I suddenly DID feel a need to talk. When I got there I knocked on the door and was relieved when she opened it up thinking for some reason she might not be there.

"I'm stressed now!" I said.

I stayed and talked to the nice psychologist lady for a long time-- Don't worry I didn't reveal any secrets to her and she really did help me-- she told me I was experiencing a LOT more stress than I thought and it comes out in funny ways-- best thing of all She gave me a free pass to come talk to her anytime I want for the next two weeks so I can skip out on any class I want.

We talked even a few minutes into the lunch period. When I finally got out of there I went right to the amp''. Sean and Tommy were already there waiting for me.

"Man, Everyone's talking about you," Sean said to me as I sat down.

"What are they saying?" I asked.

"That you're some kind of witch or something," Tommy said.

"Why would they think that-- witches don't exist-- remember?"

"They're saying that you made that cable snap." Sean said.

"Well I didn't. " I said.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked.

"Yes I'm sure!! I've never harmed anyone in my life-- and I'm not going to ever harm anyone."

"You seem a little angry-- you forget we're you're friends." Tommy said.

I looked at Tommy and then over at Sean who had this really serious but awfully cute and innocent expression on his face, my heart sank.

"Sorry- the psychologist says I'm under a lot of stress because of this thing."

"Did you know what's the best cure for stress?" Sean asked.

"Humm?" I said.

"Sex!!"

Tommy suddenly changed the subject, "Here I've got something for you." He reached inside his backpack, and pulled out an LP. He handed it to me. I looked at the jacket cover-- It was the soundtrack for the motion picture "A Clockwork Orange" and while looking at the art design which showed A triangle with a knife coming out of it and a boy inside the triangle who was holding the knife, what I noticed immediately was the eyeball on his right sleeve.

"You'll like this version of Number Nine," Tommy said.

I pointed to the eye ball, "Look," I said showing the two of them. "See this?"

"The eyeball?" They asked.

"Yea-- I saw this same thing on a guy this morning on my way to school-- he asked me if I knew the time. Don't you think that's weird?"

"Yup, definitely. Definitely weird," said Sean.

Then I changed the subject, "Have you guys ever seen red lights?"

"Yea," Sean said, "All the time, on my way to school at almost every intersection."

"I'm being serious!" I told him. "Bright red, about the size of a dime that fly around."

Tommy and Sean exchanged curious glances at each other.

"Should I tell him, or do you want to?" Tommy said to Sean.

"I'll tell him," Sean said and then looking at me he said, "Those are your guardians."

"Guardians?" I asked incredulously

"Guardians," Tommy said.

I looked back and forth at Tommy and Sean.

After a momentary pregnant pause Tommy spoke, "They protect you-- They're your guardians."

"And they hurt people to protect me?" I asked.

"Only if they're trying to harm you," Sean said.

"Well Chad wasn't trying to harm me." I said,

"The guardians did that?" Tommy asked.

"Yes," I said.

"He must have threatened you then," said Sean.

"Well yes," I said, "He said he was going to kill me."

"Well there you go," Tommy said, "If anyone tries to harm you or even threatens you, they react immediately and without hesitation. They judge what is or is not a serious threat by your emotional and intellectual reaction.

"Wow!" I said.

"You're one of us now, " said Sean, "We all have them."

"Just don't abuse them," Tommy said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"By deliberately placing yourself in a potentially dangerous situation-- like trying to rob a bank or something-- they'll protect you to a point, but if you abuse them, you could wake up one day and discover that they've gone, and I think you might want these guys around," Tommy explained.

"What are they?" I asked.

Sean looked at Tommy as if to ask permission and then turned to me and said, "Well let's put it this way. They're NOT human."

"You're not going to tell me that they're Martians are you?"

Tommy and Sean glanced at each other again. Then Tommy said, "Martians, what makes you ask that?"

"Just tell me-- are they Martians?"

"No-- well, we don't know," Sean said.

"We don't know where they come from-- I think they've always been here." Tommy said.

Sean added, "They call themselves 'Eons'-- Hey did you know they can communicate with you?"

"Yes, I'm finding that out."

"What else do they do besides protect you?"

"They can time travel," Sean said.

Tommy turned to Sean, "How do you know that??"

"Because they told me," Sean said.

"They actually can time travel??" I asked.

"That's what they told me!" Sean said.

Then Tommy asked, "Why did you want to know if they were Martians?"

"Because I've had two dreams about Mars in two nights."

"Oh," Tommy said.

"Well they COULD be from Mars-- as far as we know-- It would make a lot of sense actually," Sean said.

"How's that?" I asked.

"It's a long story-- Sean can tell you about it after school." Tommy said.

"Okay," I said and then suddenly I remembered, "Hey-- Remember when I was telling you about when Chris did what he does with me, and he said, 'Your only missing one'?"

"Yes," Sean said his eyes wide and so were Tommy's.

"I think I know who it is," I said.

"Its a who?" Sean asked.

"Yes, but first I have to ask you a question?"

"Okay," Sean said.

"Does Pete have a little brother?" I asked.

"Pete? You mean Chris' brother's friend Pete?" Tommy asked.

"Yes."

"Yea, he does but we've never met him." Sean said.

"But Chris HAS met him-- I'm sure of it-- He's the one were missing." I said.

Tommy and Sean stared at me blankly.

"Remember when Chris said he knew two brothers that had a 'd' mark and 'b' mark?" I asked.

"Yea," Sean said.

"Well, 'b' is for breath meaning air or wind." I said.

"Yea," Tommy said, "So"

"So, Air is the only one were missing. Do you get it?" I asked.

"I get it," Sean said.

Tommy contemplated a moment, and then said, "Oh-- OH-- You mean--"

"Yea-- All five elements," I said.

"We were only missing one," Sean said amused, "That's Genius!! How did you figure it out?" Sean asked excitedly.

"I dreamed about him last night." I said.

"But you've never met him," Sean said.

"Yea, well I never met you when I dreamed about YOU either," I said. "What's his name anyways?"

"I don't know," Sean said.

I looked at Tommy.

"Don't know either, like Sean said, we've never met him." Tommy responded.

"You'll have to ask Chris-- he probably knows," Sean said.

I watched as Sean and Tommy made ANOTHER curious glance at each other.

"What??" I asked.

"Well-," Sean started, "I don't know exactly how to tell you this."

"Just tell me,"

"Pete's younger brother- um- well-" Sean stumbled out.

"What?? Pete's younger brother- what?" I asked.

Tommy then spoke, "I think what Sean is trying to say is that the reason we've never met Pete's younger brother or even know his name is that he- um, he disappeared."

"He disappeared?"

"Yea-- like abducted or something-- we don't know much because his whole family doesn't like to talk about it."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "But-- I saw him in the dream-- I'm sure of it-- when did this happen?" I asked.

"Like a couple of years ago or something," Sean explained. You'll have to ask Chris-- "

"Do you know how or when he disappeared?" I asked.

"Not sure they ever told us," Tommy said.

"I think Pete told me it happened in the middle of the night-- I THINK," Sean said.

"That's horrible," I said.

There was a long but not uncomfortable silence as Sean and Tommy allowed me time to digest this rather undesirable information.

Finally Tommy said, "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Go ahead-- what were you going to say?"

"Christmas vacation starts this Friday-- You have any plans?"

"No," I responded.

"Do you think your parents will let you spend a week with us- - We're going on a kind of a camp for a week-- Chris'll be there too, and his brother."

"Maybe," I said.

"Its the week after Christmas," Sean said, "You have to go with us-- our parents are going to be doing some ceremonies-- they want to do one with you," Sean said.

"A baptism?" I asked.

"Of course," Sean said.

"Let me ask my parents," I said.

"Cool," Sean said.

"Cool," Tommy said.

"Hey-- Tommy still has band practice after school, but I get out at regular time for the rest of the week-- Do you want to do something fun after school today-- and then I can tell you what I know about Mars, okay?" Sean asked.

"Like what do you want to do?" I asked.

"He wants to teach you how to be invisible," Tommy said.

"You like outdoor sex??" Sean asked.

I raised my eyebrows.

"We would teach you here, but Tommy thought it would be better if you learned how to do it where there was no one there that KNOWS you."

"Okay," I said.

"You'll find out-- Outdoor sex is WAY BETTER than indoors!" Sean exclaimed.

"I'll have to take your word for that." I said.

"I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about it," Sean said as he rubbed his crotch.

Just then the period bell rang. We all got up to go.

"Meet me here, three-fifteen."

"Okay," I said.

My fifth period class was Social Studies-- which I absolutely hated-- I don't think because the subject matter was boring just the teacher-- Oh my God!! Monotone voice; absolutely no reflection what-so-ever to make his long drawn out lectures seem interesting. To make matter's worse, he kept his head down while he was talking the entire time, so he rarely made eye contact with anyone, something I learned that is very important when reading something out-loud to people-- doing that draws people to you and what your saying-- This guy could care less, it seemed, that any of us were even there. At the start of the period he'd start his lecture, two seconds after the bell rang (which wasn't really a bell it was more like a tone-- they should call it 'the tone' instead of 'the bell') and lecture all the way to the end of the class.

Since the beginning of the semester some of the students had gotten rather bold. first one, and now two kids would pull out a hand-held Mattel Video game, the sound turned off of course, and just play their Mattel football or baseball game, whatever the hell it was, and the teacher totally didn't even care. Other kids would write, or read a novel during class. Some of the girls would pull out their little mirror's and put on eye shadow or foundation, or polish their nails-- Let me tell you, it was weird!!

The weirdest thing about it was that nothing he even lectured about was even important because it was all more or less in the text, which of course I had already read. I'll be honest with you, most of the time I tried to listen, but he was just so damn boring, most of the time I had to fight the impulse to just go and take a little nappy poo right there on my desk, which was what about half the class did every damn day during this class. I wasn't that bold though, I had this suspicion that this teacher was going to wait until no one was listening and then present information that wasn't in the text that you could bet your rear end was going to show up on the final-- So, I always had one ear not really listening but MONITORING the teacher's lecture for anything that I hadn't already read in advance.

So, instead of laying my head down, which is what I usually did, I decided to pull out that paper out of my back pocket that the mysterious stranger dropped who was wearing that crazy 3-D eye- ball, very similar to the one on the cover of the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange.

I laid the paper out in front of me on the desk and read it again:

"Dream Boy

By

Danny The Witch

Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?"

And then I turned it over and took a close look at the handwritten note-- Now I have to say that handwritten notes always interest me because they're so much more personal than a typed note. It read:

"Dear Cousin Bill,

I'm glad I'm come-

ing to the city to

see you. Bobby

can't come cause

he has to do

the chores. Well

see you soon

OK

(indiscernible signature)"

Now, I kept looking at the two sides of the paper, turning it over and over and reading a re-reading each thing, and my intuition was telling me that I was looking at some kind of a cipher. Now in order for you to understand why I was thinking that way, I have to tell you about my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Curtain.

Mr. Curtain was by far the coolest teacher I ever had in elementary school. He used to tell us that the so-called experts-- he was always using the expression-- 'the so-called experts' he was a riot, he used to tell us:

'The so-called experts' think that your I.Q.; that is your intelligence quotient is set at birth, and that some of you can learn easily and for others it will be more difficult, and that will never change-- but I happen to know that's a bunch of cow manure-- you know bull-shitzky!! If you want to be smart-- I can show you how.'

And he had us all believing-- like I said, he was absolutely the coolest-- and more than a little unconventional-- but it worked, almost every single kid in his class got A's on every test and not because he was easy-- I think mostly his trick was two things-- One, he kept the class interesting, and two, he made us believe that he was telling us secrets, and that got us to listen-- which he said was the key to being smart. In fact, he would say that all the time, 'I'm going to let you in on a little secret' or 'most people don't know this because it's a secret' etc... as a result, I remember almost everything the guy every said, everything he taught us.

I think one of the things that made him so interesting is that he actually had been a military officer-- he used to work for The Office Of Naval Intelligence when he was in the Navy and he used to work on ciphers-- Not the usual sort of ciphers that you would imagine, like electronic ciphers that turn the coded message into gobbly-gook; those are what he called obvious cipher's and the navy hired math wizards to work on those; the kind he worked on were cipher's that were DISGUISED as ordinary things, like notes, and things like that. And he didn't actually work on breaking them. He told us that the navy chose him and a bunch of other recruits because they showed a natural aptitude to be able to discern what was likely a cipher and what wasn't--

He said that he was told that certain people can just look at something; a note, a line of text, a paragraph from a book, and they can detect or intuit in a matter of seconds whether its likely to be a cipher, and they're usually right over ninety percent of the time. So that was his job; the navy would give him notes and messages, letter's to G.I.'s, letter's from G.I.'s, etc... and he'd scan them and if his intuition registered that it was a cipher, he'd put it in a special slot. He told us that every time he suspected it was a cipher it turned out to be one.

After he left the Navy he became a private eye-- mostly to find missing kids and stuff like that-- AND he was very successful. He used to tell us, 'Do any of you have ANY idea how people just DISSAPEAR every year in this country??-- He'd tell us and all I remember is that the statistics were absolutely staggering. Not just kids but adults too- and not just woman-- but just as many men!! Without a trace-- and nobody ever knows what happened to them. After he retired, he went back to school and became a school teacher-- because he said he wanted to pass on his secrets to the smart kids of the next generation.

Mr. Curtain was a trip-- he used to tell us that there's cipher's everywhere-- all around us, and most of us don't even know it-- all disguised as something else-- personal ad's in the classified section of the newspaper or magazines, notes on index cards pinned up at your local laundry-mat, lost dog posters, etc..

He never actually told us WHY people would encode secret messages this way or for what purpose but he would give us hints saying that there's all kinds of secrets-- secret things going on all around us, right under our noses AND, we were all invited to participate-- but only if we could decipher the messages. I remember he used to tell us that heaven itself is probably right under our noses and the invitations are probably ciphered messages posted to telephone poles, and stuck to bulletin boards, and in the personals.

I remember the weirdest thing he ever told us was when he was still is the navy and he was scanning notes for ciphers, and he had nine guys under his command in his office, that's all they did all day long was scan texts for likely ciphers-- he told us this story how just for a joke, he put a copy of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in wonderland' in the stack of papers for them all to scan. He said that every single one of them stamped with the red-inker CIPHER, and signed it and put it in the cipher slot. He told us he never heard from 'upstairs' any more about it, but after he left the navy, he was convinced that the old mathematician who wrote that story under a pseudonym HAD actually incorporated a cipher into it. Mr. Curtain said to us:

'Now I wonder what secrets a guy who photographed children in the nude might have to tell?'

Because, he told us, that Carroll was also a photographer back when the camera was like almost just invented, and that he photographed young children in the buff-- and this is no secret-- the photos were put on the professional market; some people say he was the first professional kiddie-porner. Anyways, Mr. Curtain CLAIMED that he did decipher the story BUT he would write the clues on his headstone IF HE EVER DIED. And I always wondered what that meant.

Now, let me get to the point, because this was the most interesting part. Mr. Curtain actually tried to teach us how to do what he did. He would put different types of notes and personal ad's up on the over-head, and he would ask us-- Is it a cipher or isn't it? Notes like: 'Don't forget to stop by the dry-cleaners on your way to work hon-- thanks' stuff like that or 'Please help me to find my lost kitten-- his name is Barney and he is small and black with white stripes' stuff like that.

Most of the kids just hunched their shoulders but a few of us, me included, man, we could spot those suckers!! Mr. Curtain was right-- it was easy, once you got the hang of it-- he would say to us- - let your sub-conscious do all the work-- anyways, man it was crazy, he would show us a very simple message, like a one or two line message, and then he'd show us how to decode it, and the decoded messages were often as long as the original message and often times longer. It was very impressive. He used to tell us that 99.9 percent of these types of cipher's are more reliable than highly complex crypto because most of the time they escape suspicion because their disguised as ordinary notes and stuff.

So, that is why when I was looking at these two messages or notes, or what ever you want to call them-- The first thing I did was look at them, like Mr. Curtain showed me I knew how to do, to let my sub-conscious do the work-- Is this a cipher?-- and my intuition was sending me very strong signals BING BING these are ciphers!!

The harder part was trying to break them. I studied the first one very carefully.

Now, learning some of the 'tricks' that Mr. Curtain had taught me, I let me mind go black and just stared at the message:

Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?

And the first thing I noticed is that there were eight capitalized words. I grabbed a number two pencil and wrote them down:

Author's Riddle I Barry The Spirit Of Man

And I had a hunch it was a crossword anagram. Then I wrote down the first letter of each capitalized word:

A R I B T S O M

"This is definitely a cipher," I whispered to myself excitedly but my hunch was it wasn't enough letter's to spell out a lengthy message of any kind. And then I thought, what about the first AND last letter of each capitalized word?

A R I B T S O M N F T E Y I E S

I looked at the jumble of letter's. Damn, my intuition was strong on this one-- these letters were no accident- I could immedietely make out words in them. I worked on it for the rest of the period-- by the end of class I was able to spell out several different words that could be sentence fragments. They were:

IF MOST TEEN BOYS ARE

A NIFTY STORY

FREEMASON

Humm, I was definitely intrigued. My hunch was this was a tri-level crossword anagram cipher with a question embodied within it. I folded up my papers and stuck them hurriedly in my back pocket as I trotted off to my last period.

After school I met Sean at the 'amp.

"Ready?" Sean asked.

"Yup," I said.

We walked over to the bike racks and on the way I showed Sean the page I had found and that I thought they were cipher's.

"Well, that IS interesting," Sean said. "Crossword anagram, hummm. You know what would make it easier then?"

"What?" I asked.

"Take a pack of playing cards, and write each of the letters on a different card. Then you can spread them out on the floor and re- arrange them and stuff in different crossword layouts and see if you can make out the whole message."

"Got it! Good idea," I said.

When we got to our ten-speeds Sean said, "Follow me," and pulled out in front of me.

"Where we going?" I asked, a little nervous but excited at the same time.

"Seventh Street Park-- You been there?" he asked.

"No, just rode by," I replied.

"Dude, It's the coolest park. I'll show you."

Seventh Street Park was only about a mile away from the school, but being that I didn't live in this particular city but in an adjoining city on the north side, I wasn't too familiar with the different parks in this area.

It was a nice park-- and big, with a forest area, and a stream and a lake. Sean stopped and got off of his bicycle and began locking it up at one of the bicycle racks they had there and I followed suit.

"Come on, "He said motioning me with his hand as he was already trotting off towards the forest part.

I had to jog to catch up.

"This is going to be fun," he said, cracking that adorable smile of his which hinted at something naughty.

When we got to the forest, I followed Sean inside some bushes and a little trail that eventually lead to a clearing, completely concealed from the outside by all the brush and trees. The clearing was about 60 feet in diameter and you could see the evidence of other people who had been here, probably teen-ager's making out and stuff after dark. There were empty Coke can's and candy wrappers and the like spewed out all over the clearing.

When we both got inside of the clearing, and we were standing more or less directly in the center, I looked at Sean and said, "Now what?"

"Now-- we become invisible," he said as he started taking his shoes off.

"How? By taking our shoes off?"

"No, " he replied, "To become COMPLETELY invisible one has to become COMPLETELY naked!!"

"But we've already been completely naked?" I replied.

"BUT that was indoors-- This is outdoors--"

"Oh," I said kind of confused.

"Just trust me. Take off all your clothes." Sean said.

I kicked off my shoes, and pulled my socks off. I looked over at Sean who already had his shirt off and was undoing the button on his white O.P. shorts.

I pulled my shirt up over my head and by the time I could see again, Sean was just kicking off his underwear and standing there with a boner that he flicked a couple of times with his finger, I guess to free it from ball-stick, reminding me more or less of Chris.

I was a little hesitant, stopping for a moment at the snap of my Tuff-Skins, and making eye contact with Sean. Sean nodded, and I unsnapped them-- peeling them off, along with my briefs at the same time.

There we were both completely naked, in broad daylight, outside, in a public park. I have to say that the ambiance of the forest was a huge turn on. It was like I was part of nature-- I mean after all, all the trees and the squirrels, and rabbits and such were all naked, and it almost seemed that by the simple act of discarding all of my clothes, the sense was, that I had somehow in that same instant slipped out of the world of humans and was now a part of the world of nature; the animals and the trees my brothers and sister's. It didn't seem wrong at all-- in fact, it seemed perfectly right.

I looked at my clothes lying there on the ground in a pile, and I had this strange thought that if I simply refused to put them back on again, if I refused to possess them, they might just disappear and so would I, to the world of humans and I would remain invisible to them in nature forever.

"Well congratulations!! You're invisible." Sean said with a chuckle.

"Shut up," I said.

"There's only one thing left to do now."

"What's that?"

"To prove it. " Sean said, "Come on nature boy, follow me," and he trotted off along the trail that we had come by and me, having no clue what he was up to, tagging along behind like the proverbial puppy-dog.

When we got to the exit of the forest, Sean just boldly stepped out into the outside. I was behind him, but still hiding just inside the mouth of the forest. My first reaction was to turn around and run. What was he crazy?? Someone would see him.

Sean turned around and I think he sensed I was about to scurry back to my clothes. his boner was still quite proud while mine had shrunk looking like the peeled off part of a tomato. My balls were like completely gone-- it looked like all I had was a dick attached to my lower abdomen and that was it.

Sean smiled, "We're invisible-- Do you trust me?"

I nodded.

Sean took my hand, and lead me out of the forest. When I stepped out and Sean moved out of my way-- I could hardly believe my eyes. It seemed like all the people, and all evidence of the modern world disappeared. All the adults, who had been walking their dogs, and jogging, and doing whatever we're gone. All the phone booth's, all the telephone poles, all the electrical wires-- the parking lots, everything was gone.

The lake was still there along with the stream, although it looked different, and the geese and ducks and squirrels and rabbits were still there but everything else was gone, all the grown-ups and their children-- everyone with clothes disappeared.

And I saw all kinds of naked children playing everywhere. Little boys, and little girls, and older boys and older girls. They were all naked. Some were playing in the stream, some were playing tag on the grass. Some of the older boy's were wrestling with each other. The park was filled with the laughter of kids having fun. There must have been two or three score of them.

Sean tugged at my hand and pulled me out a little further.

"Welcome to paradise," he said with a smile.

"Heaven?" I asked. "Here on earth?"

"Call it what you want, " Sean responded. His smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat's-- A sincere and innocent smile, not the naughty one of his particular infamy, "Listen Dereck, this is really important- This world has inspired just about every ancient and modern concept of heaven and paradise there is-- However, although each religion or legend incorporates symbols and concepts representing at least one element of this land, these concepts are very inaccurate. So don't be surprised, that you'll be surprised."

"So it IS heaven?" I asked.

He continued saying, "Xanadu De Kubla Kahn."

"Hu?" I said barely listening, taking in this fantastic sight.

Sean continued, "Never Never Land, Arcadia, The Invisible Kingdom, The Incredible Macro-Magiverse..."

I looked around as Sean lead me more out into the open. I noticed that although there were some girls playing, it seemed that predominately it was boys.

Sean continued with his diatribe, "Sugar Mountain, Avalon, Honalee, The Nether Lands..."

'Why are their so many boys and not as many girls?" I asked interrupting him.

"I'll explain that," Sean said.

I looked around, off in the distance I could see what looked like a magical creature of some kind playing a flute. There was a circle of children dancing around him. Suddenly I noticed movement coming nearby from our right; I turned to look, there was a boy chasing another boy, all in fun but as they neared us and ran by I was startled by how beautiful one of them was. He looked so attractive, it was funny seeing it on a boy-- like pretty-- a prettyboy. Stunning, is more like it. The boy I was looking at was about twelve, and seemed more than a little amorous as he chased after the boy ahead of him.

"Wow!!" I exclaimed to Sean, "Did you see how pretty that boy was?"

"There's a lot like that here," Sean said and pointed to another boy not too far away from where we were walking now.

'Wow, you're right-- he's just as pretty as the other." I responded in awe. When the boy saw me looking at him, he pointed to his dick, which was hard, with one hand and then blew me a kiss with the other hand. "That one seems to be a little randy," I commented.

I looked in another direction and was amazed to see what looked like an exotic animal; large, rolling around on the grass with several children playing with it. I wasn't sure but it looked like a Bengal tiger; bright orange with wide black stripes. My guess about fifteen hundred pounds of wild cat, looking just as friendly and playful as could be. None of the children were afraid of it-- and you could tell that it was extremely gentile-- being very careful with himself, with all that weight in a way that seemed- well, wise. I was absolutely mesmerized by this sight-- it was incredible.

Sean got my attention and pointed around some more and I spotted several other boy's that were so stunningly visually attractive-- it was almost beyond my imagination. They almost didn't look real. They were like perfect-- beyond perfection; as though they were painted on canvas by an artist so renown you couldn't buy one of these paintings for anything less than a million dollars. They seemed to range in age from between eleven and fourteen. Most seemed to be preoccupied with the normal looking kids, mostly boys, who didn't seem to mind-- the were getting a lot of attention, and seemed to enjoy it, even though it seemed their attention was a bit lustful, which seemed odd to me, but like I said, none of the boy's they were playing with seemed to mind the attention being given them. It seemed to me it should be the other way around; any one of these prettyboy's could easily get me chasing after them, not the other way around.

I continued to look around and I spotted more and more like that. It became apparent that there were two different kinds of persons here-- regular kids; both boy's and girl's AND these prettyboy's which were very abundant, mixed in with them. That's why, apparently, the boy's seemed to far out-number the girls.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Who-- the really pretty boys?" Sean responded.

"Yes, " I said, my voice still filled with awe.

"Well who do you think they are? They're the heavenly host."

My eyes grew wide. I turned to look at Sean, "Angels?" I asked shocked.

"Call them what you will," Sea said.

They were all over the place, now that I took notice of them, at least half of everybody here were this type.

"Why are they all boys?" I asked. "Why are there no girl angels?"

"I'm not sure that their angels, first of all, " Sean said, "They could be what people's concepts of angels originated from though I suppose, as well as the inspiration that may explain the origin of many legends including fairies and elves, etc..."

"I thought fairies were really tiny?" I asked.

"Actually, they didn't become 'really tiny' until Shakespeare portrayed them that way in A Midsummer Night's Comedy. Before then, fairies were always regarded as being 'A little smaller' than adults but not tiny, and as you can see THEY ARE a little smaller than adults. And as to answering your question-- they aren't all boy's."

I looked around again, now that we were in the center of the park it was lots easier to see them.

"They're not?" I asked confused.

"No, they're not."

I watched amazed and a little frightened as Sean signaled one of these hosts who seemed to have taken particular notice of either Sean or me; he had been glancing in our direction since I first noticed him. Sean winked at him, and he came walking towards us. I was a little scared although they all seemed playful enough, playing with all the kids the way they were.

The boy walked over to where we were then standing. He looked to be about eleven years old but it was hard to tell. As he approached, I realized that his face seemed very familiar to me but it was a vague familiarity-- as though I had seen him in a dream or something. He had bright bright green eyes that were brilliant and beautiful in the way eyes only seem to be that are possessed by the very young.

"Hello there," the host said.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," Sean said to him, "My name is Sean and this is my friend Dereck"

"You-- we already know," he said to Sean, and then turning to me said, "It's very nice to meet you Dereck." And then he winked at me-- I couldn't believe it-- he actually winked at me.

He had kind of longish, dark sandy-blond hair, just above the shoulders. And was the most attractive boy I had ever seen. Perfection personified. He also had a boner.

"What is your name?" I asked him.

"Well, my real name is Mich-- Some call me Michelle, some call me Michael-- You may call me which ever you prefer or all three if you like.

"You're not Michael the Archangel are you?" I asked.

"The one who legend has it threw Lucifer out of heaven?" Mich asked.

"Yea," I said.

"Oh heavens no but THAT IS an interesting rumor-- I am not an Archangel. I am just a heavenly host."

"Oh," I said.

Sean suddenly spoke, "Mich- Dereck here seems to be under the impression that you, as well as the other's like yourself, are all boy's."

"You mean exclusively male?" Mich said.

Sean nodded.

"Oh," Mich said, " I understand, "Well, have a look for yourself," he said.

I watched in amazement and a little embarrassment as Mich turned around and bent over, spreading his legs.

""Well, " Sean said to me, "have a look, he said to have a look."

I moved a little closer, and then stopped. Mich motioned me even closer with his hand from behind, which looked obscene in the position he was in, being leaned over sticking his ass up in the air. And so I leaned over and well what can I say-- I had a look, and what I saw, I had not expected. There was clearly between Mich's butt-hole, and testicals, a clearly discernable vagina.

"You're a-"

"Perfect hermaphrodite." Sean said.

"Wow!" I said, as Mitch stood back up. I was a little embarrassed that I was sportin' a boner seeing Mitch bent over like that; even though Mitch had the girl part, which I guessed might have been like a package deal-- but he still looked 'all-boy' to me.

"Would you like to play? " Mitch asked.

"Thanks, maybe later," Sean said.

And Mitch trotted off towards some other kids who were playing by the stream where he had been before Sean signaled him over to us. When he got there, he immediately started wrestling with an older looking regular boy, who was getting groped quite a bit in the wrestling, but the boy didn't seem to mind at all- laughing as though he were having the time of his life.

Sean said to me, "They are a perfect balance of masculinity and femininity. Their faces, their expressions, their movements, even the sound of their voices. The reason they all appear as boy's to you is because your mind is tweaking-- Your mind always tries to identify the sex of someone you see-- attempting to determine are they male or are they female. Your subconscious uses a variety of clues to make this determination. Sometimes they look like girl's or appear as girl's other times as boy's to different people and even to the same person when they see them from a different angle. They can even look as though they keep changing back and forth with different glances, actually physically. They are not changing physically at all, it's just because your mind may at one moment perceive what they are to be male and at another moment female-- kind of like those optical illusions they have like you can see two different images in them like the old lady and the young lady-- you know that one?"

"Yes, I know that one," I said.

"Anyways, at first you'll see one image but if your blink your eyes or turn away for a moment and look back you may see the other image. You may even think the picture is actually changing physically but it is not-- Its kind of like that. It's just that your mind is programmed to identify sex-- it tweaks on a perfect hermaphrodite. Girls usually think they're girls, boy's usually think they're boy's. They looked like boy's to you because your mind homed in on the masculine characteristics and identified them as male obviously because they were naked but if they were clothed it would be harder for your mind to make up its mind.

I was watching Mitch wrestling with that other boy by the stream, and I had to say if I didn't know any better it was looking very sexual. "Sean, are they gay?"

"You see Dereck-- There really is no such thing as "gay" to the heavenly host. They see sexual attraction to others as a natural expression of beauty however it may express itself."

"You mean they have sex?" I asked astonished.

"Well of course-- heaven wouldn't be any fun if everyone was kick-ass beautiful and you could never touch! Really, I don't understand these concepts that a lot of people have like you don't even have bodies in heaven-- totally ridiculous," Sean said.

"Who are the others-- the regular looking kids?" I suddenly asked.

"There just like you and me-- they're just regular people who found heaven-- they come and go as they like, others just decide to stay here and become the fairies of heaven."

"I can come and go?"

"Yes."

"You have to go through that forest-- that's the portal?" I asked a little confused.

"No, this is just one park-- heaven is across all of the earth-- this is just one little piece of heaven. Heaven is wherever there is nature-- even if it's just a plot of grass with a tree and a bird and a little water, wherever all four elements meet-- on the other side of it is heaven."

"But how did we get here?" I asked.

"Don't you know? When you become invisible-- the world disappears, and you see heaven."

"Wow!" I said.

I noticed someone though, off to our left that didn't look to be child-like; he was in fact looking very much like an adult.

"Sean what about that guy-- he's not a kid."

"Oh him?" Sean pointed.

"Yea, and there's another one I saw earlier, I forgot to ask you about."

"Adults can find heaven too. They come and go also or stay depending-- Usually they transform but sometimes they prefer to become catchers-- that one there and the other you saw-- they're catchers." Sean said.

"Catchers?"

"It's hard to explain-- Did you ever read Catcher In The Rye?"

"No."

"You'll find out more about them, it's hard to explain right now." Sean said.

"My mind left that be for now and wondered back to what we had been talking about before I saw the man. "Do, the heavenly host have sex with - "

"With regular people-- like us?"

"Yea."

"All the time-- You know Mitch did not miss the fact that you were strongly sexually attracted to him I think that's the reason he decided to show you his sex parts the way he did."

"Wow!" I exclaimed.

"Anybody can do anything they want in heaven Dereck-- There's only one law here."

"What?"

"The law of love; ...As long as it harm no one..."

"Incredible," I said.

"Really Dereck-- God giving you sexual organs and the capability of enjoying sex, and then forbidding you, would be like God giving the birds wings, and forbidding them to fly."

"Oh," I said.

"Can we have sex with Mitch," I asked.

"If you want, but don't ask me-- ask Mitch!"

"But you too?" I asked.

"I think I'll just watch on your first time," I said.

I was very shy, so Sean grabbed my hand and we ran over to where Mitch was playing with another host and several regular boys.

Mitch immediately came right up to me as soon as he saw us approach, his face no more than a foot away from me.

"Hi Dereck," Mitch said.

"Hi," I said.

Sean nudged me from behind just a little closer to Mitch.

"Um, " I stuttered, thinking of something to say, I decide to be honest, "You're beautiful."

"Thank You, and you are more beautiful than I, although you don't see it," said Mitch.

Another silence. Our eyes were in steady contact. His, the loveliest shade of emerald green. His hair was dark blond and was just a little shorter than his shoulders.

Sean nudged me again. I leaned forward. Our noses touched. Than our lips. He wrapped his arms around me, and I his, he grabbed my ass as he was kissing me, and I grabbed his-- pushing on each other's asses, forcing us closer, making the kiss closer, tighter. I could feel his passion in his tongue, his arms pulling me tighter, closer, and I doing the same. He was so beautiful.

A little crowd of boys and host started to congregate around us, eager to watch this natural expression of love and beauty, the host, all of them so beautiful; about ten of them began to chant as we kissed, their energy encompassing us, increasing the passion.

"Eros Eros Eros Eros," they chanted, "Eros Eros Eros Eros,"

My hands meandered down his legs, to the inner thighs and then back up towards his dick. His hands followed the same path at the same time. And together we both grabbed each other's erections.

"Eros Eros Eros Eros, the love of beauty and the beauty of love"

And as we kissed and fondled one another, they began to sing the most beautiful, sounds I had ever heard, it sounded better than the Vienna Boy's Choir.

And they sang, "...The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

I bent my knees and slowly descended. Our kiss broke, and Mitch gently guided my head down towards his dick. His abdomen was as smooth as silk. His arms and legs were covered in a fine white angel hair; the kind that some boy's have. It's almost invisible; up close you could see it- a moderate amount of hair, but from further than three feet away, his skin looked perfectly smooth. I focused on his dick. I tried to delay putting it in my mouth, to create more excitement, but I devoured it the moment my lips barely touched it. Uncircumcised and although not very big around, it was skinny but surprisingly long about five and half inches totally erect and having a very interesting sharp upwards curve to it which was fascinating.

His hands gently caressed my cheeks as I sucked on his dick. Out of my right eye, I saw a mark on his wrist. I turned to look. It was the letter "b" in black magic marker style.

I whispered, "Your-"

"Shhhhh," he said, pulling my mouth back towards his dick.

I was thinking to myself, 'This is the boy from my dream-- but, how is that possible-- I had so many questions,' and then with Mitch caressing my cheeks as I sucked him, I got lost in the moment.

The crowd around us was getting larger-- boys mostly, but a few girls were watching excitedly. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Sean was stroking his dick, apparently not jealous but enjoying the show. I noticed a couple of other boy's playing with themselves also as they watched.

The pretty-boy's were still chanting, "Eros Eros Eros, the love of beauty and the beauty of love in those heavenly voices that were all in perfect harmony."

Mitch, pulled me up to my feet again and turned me around. He started kissing my neck from behind me and whispering in my ear, "I want you-- I want all of you," as he was stroking my cock. I was falling in love. I looked all around, and we two seemed to be the center of attention. although now most of the boy's were all apparently sexually stimulated, they were mostly watching us and masturbating themselves-- the other host as well.

Mitch probed my anus with his pointy, upwards curved dick seeking entrance. With one hand on the back of my head gently pushing it downwards, a que to bend over-- I looked at Sean with questioning eyes that said I want to, but I don't want you to be jealous.

Sean came over to where I was, stood in front of me, his dick fully hard and said to me, "Bend over, and suck my dick."

I bent over, and that gave Mitch the access that he desired. I gobbled up Sean's dick, all the way to his balls, as I felt Mitch enter me. Once all the way in, I suddenly discovered the advantage of that curve that he had-- I couldn't think as it was perfect to stimulate my prostate, and the way he moved, perfect-- I couldn't think-- all I could do to react was to moan and suck Sean's dick all the harder.

They started getting into a synchronized rhythm with each other. Sean pulling me forward and then pushing me back with both hands on my shoulders as Mitch had both of his arms securely on my hips, pushing me away from him at the same time Sean was pulling me towards himself. Then Sean would push me away as Mitch pulled on my hips puling me back towards him.

I couldn't touch my own dick from the position I was in, and I didn't even care. Mitch's magical stimulation of my prostate was better than any kind of a hand job I could give myself. I felt myself steadily getting closer and closer to orgasm, without even touching myself at all.

Sean and Mitch were picking up the pace and I felt like I was some kind of a human volleyball being passed back and forth like a hot potato.

Mitch was slapping his pelvis into my ass now and alternately my head was bouncing off of Sean's lower belly.

I could hardly stand it-- somebody has to come, and the way I was feeling, it might just be me.

Just then Sean let out a squeal, and I felt his familiar taste in my mouth-- I didn't release my lips from his dick though until I had every drop.

During Sean's orgasm, Mitch stopped pumping me, and now was riding me like a horse. Curved dick literally scraping against my inner organ, dancing around it in a circle, probing it.

He went fast and faster, and I yelled, "I'm gona cum."

Sean suddenly dropped to his knees, and in one perfect motion, my cock head went right down his throat. I spurted and spurted and spurted. And for the second time Mitch stopped humping me to allow my orgasm.

After I was done, Mitch started fucking me again, hard and fast. In another minute I had that feeling again-- it was incredible. Mich suddenly let out a small groan and grabbed my hips hard and forced me back so hard I almost fell on top of him. He buried his dick as far up into me as it could go-- Pressing that dick head HARD right against my prostate, and holding it there, and started stabbing it in extremely short quick stabs like a rabbit humping.

Oh shit, I was going to cum again. I could tell Mitch was holding back an orgasm, waiting for me. I started to moan loudly. I felt like I was being jacked off from the inside-- Oh damn-- "I'm gona cum again!," I said.

I felt Sean's lips instantly engulf my dick again, this time just sucking on the head.

Mitch then humped the hell out of me, trying to catch up to his own orgasm once again. As Mitch felt my orgasm start, he pushed his dick all the way up once again and held me tight and holding me like that with his dick there against my prostate again-- this time I could feel his own orgasm; each throb, each squirt right there on that fantastic spot. Sean was sucking HARD on the head of my dick, literally sucking the cum right out of me-- another few powerful squirts.

Afterwards, I collapsed on the grass by the stream, and Sean immediately laid on top of me, kissing me on the mouth. He released for a moment, "How silly, that you thought I'd be jealous-- and have you miss it-- this whole trip was for you." He then put his lips on mine again, turning his head sideways so his tongue could get good entrance to my mouth.

We kissed for another minute or so, and I felt like I was getting turned on again.

"We better stop, " Sean said, taking notice of my growing member.

"You might want to save some of that-- When we meet up with Tommy."

Sean said that we had to go it was getting late and we both gave Mitch a kiss on the mouth.

Finally Mitch said, "I hope to see you again, soon."

After Mitch went trotting off down river a bit, Sean said to me, "Come on, Tommy's probably waiting for us-- "

"Where?" I asked.

"By our clothes-- come on-- ," he said as he ran ahead and I as usual followed, hey its worked for me so far.

When we got back to our clothes, Tommy was there waiting.

"Damn Dereck!! Your glowing like a friggin angel--"

"Hu?"

"AND-- you look a little younger too-- and more attractive-- NOT that you weren't a god already!"

I looked to Sean, "What is he talking about?"

"Sean said to Tommy, "Well-- I guess he could pass for twelve now."

Tommy pointed to my abdomen. I looked down, and all the pubes were gone-- not that there were that many there to begin with-- but even those were gone now.

"How tall are you?" Sean asked me.

"Pretty tall, like five foot two," I said.

"I don't think, no not any more," Sean said.

"Come stand next to me, " Tommy said, "I'm Five-three."

I did, and I was over a half-foot shorter than Tommy. I said, 'What the hell?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone just had sex with a fairy!" Tommy said.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on!!" I yelled.

Tommy said, "Fairy cum Dereck-- didn't you know-- It's the fountain of Youth."

"Do you think my parents will notice?" I asked in shock.

"That you're six inches shorter or that your two years younger?" Sean asked.

"Both!!"

"Humm," Tommy said, "Hard to say-- I think you can play it off."

"I got to get to a mirror!" Dereck said.

"Well let's go then--- Geesh, I was waiting for you guys for like ever!" Tommy said as he grabbed his backpack.

"We weren't there for very long I don't think?" I said.

"Fairy time is different, time passes by more quickly here," Sean said.

I looked at my watch, "Shit-- you're right!"

"Come on-- let's go," Sean said following Tommy, "You were still randy remember?"

I nodded.

"While we walk Tommy back to the house, " Sean said, "We'll tell you what we know about Mars-- and your guardians."

I followed Sean and Tommy out of the forest and back into the world of modesty.

"Love, devotion, feel it, emotion,

Don't be afraid to be weak

Don't be too proud to be strong

Just look into your heart my friend That will be the return to yourself; the return to innocence.

The return to innocence

If you want then start to laugh

If you must then start to cry

Be yourself don't tire just believe in destiny

Don't care what people say just follow your own way Don't give up and lose the chance to return to innocence!

That's not the beginning of the end that's a return to yourself. The return to innocence."

-The Return To Innocence (Enigma)

"...Some are like water some are like the heat,

Some are a melody some are the beat

Sooner or later they all will be gone,

Why don't they stay young? It's so hard to get old without a cause..., Youths are like diamonds in the sun

And diamonds are forever... So many dreams swinging out of the blue-

Let 'em come true!

Forever young I want to be forever young.

Do you really want to live forever? Forever and ever,

forever young I want to be forever young.

Do you really want to live forever? Forever young.

-Forever Young (Alphaville)

Author: You're e-mails are very encouraging and this story is evolving

and much of its evolution is based on your feedback.

Please send comments and suggstions to darronthewitch@yahoo.com

I hope you liked Chapter Seven.

Darron The Witch.

Dream Boy By Danny The Witch

"[Visualization if recorded in the present tense an eventual pattern

will form. If you persist in your efforts you can achieve dream control.]

If you open your mind for me you won't rely on open eyes to see [Help me!] The walls you built within come tumblin down and a new world will begin. Living twice and once you learn your safe from pain and the dream remain; A soul set fee to fly. A round trip journey in your head, master of illusion can you realize your dreams alive, You can be the guide, But I will be watching over you. I'm going to help to see you through. I will protect you in the night. I'm smiling next to you."

"When you were little did you dream you were big?

You must have been somethin', a real tiny kid!

Did you wish you were me? I wished I was you!

Don't you wake up and this dream can come true! And every dream has a name and names spell your story.

Do you know who you are? You're the dream operator.

Dream Operator (Talking Heads)

"...When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone. I can not put my finger on it now.

The child has grown and the dream has gone.

And I have become comfortably numb...

-Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)

-Seven-

When I got ready for school it was still dark, being that I actually live outside of the district for the high school I attend, and I need to leave a lot earlier to get to school on time.

I know this is going to sound weird but, if I'm taking a shower and it's dark, I often don't turn on the light. There's a little night-light in the bathroom that my parents put there so I don't have to turn on a light in the middle of the night. After this one time when, after going to the bathroom and dilating my pupils by turning on the light, when I went back to my room I couldn't see where my bed was and flopped myself right on the ground and almost knocked myself out. After that my parents put a night-light in the bathroom and I have discovered that that little light is more than sufficient lighting to see by.

There is also a clock-radio in the bathroom, that my parents put there at my insistence - because I like to listen to music while I take a shower, and I prefer to listen to music in the dark when I can. It's a long story why and a little hard to explain. I had mentioned earlier that I also like to listen to music with the sun shining in my eyes which I especially like, but I also especially like listening to music in the darkness.

So there I am taking a shower in the darkness, and also meditating on the music. I had the station set to "The Mighty Met". You know, "ninety four point seven a little bit of heaven twiddle dee". They played mostly rock and it beat the hell out of "The Mighty Six Ninety and KHJ on the AM band. AM sucked, even when you had the station tuned in good you always get SOME interference from SOMETHING. It doesn't matter, almost everything causes interference on the AM band - A hair dryer from three blocks away, the next door neighbor turning on a mixer, someone starting their car, it doesn't matter, anything electrical causes noise on that stupid band.

FM, however, is pure genius, and my parents must really love me because this model of radio was top--of-the-line. They had first bought me, you know, a regular clock-radio which was AM only, and after listening to it for a little while I complained to them that I thought that listening to it was effecting my brain. No, really, I'm not kidding. After I listen for awhile, I swear, it feels like I have all this static noise running through my head afterwards that takes a long time to go away; like white-noise inside my brain, but IRRITATING white noise that makes me feel like I want to hurt someone or something.

I told my parents that I had this theory, based on some articles I read, that AM radio may actually create psychopathic phenomenon. No, don't laugh, I was really serious about this.

It all started back when that Amityville thing happened. I was just a little kid then, but I remember it really effected me-- it was all over the news, and the thing that REALLY bothered me about what happened, the thing that caused me to obsess about it was that this guy, the guy who killed his whole family, even the dog, man, was his profile. He was just like this regular everyday guy, very likeable, got along with everybody. He wasn't a criminal, and had no history of psychiatric problems, you know? He just goes nuts one night-- wakes up at about two in the morning grabs a shotgun and massacres the whole family. Man, this is hard to explain but I asked my parents why he did it, because I wanted to understand. The thing that really bothered me was, that this guy seemed like a good person until he just flipped out, you know? Went psycho. It occurred to me that if no one could adequately explain HOW it happened, then it could just as well happen to anybody, even my own dad-- and that thought was the thought that was keeping me up at night. If you have no way to guess whose going to go psycho on you, how can you sleep at night??

Well, my parents really couldn't explain satisfactorily to me why this man did this. And I did listen to rumors on television that he was possessed by the devil and it was a haunted house and all that-- give me a break-- that was DEFINATELY NOT a satisfying theory to consider in fact if one goes that route in their mind, it makes things even worse, because then ANYONE can flip out at any moment with absolutely no warning, all that needs to happen is some little bugger demon to get inside of them-- which I already knew being part German that our people think it can happen to you when you sneeze- for God's sakes-- that's why we say, Gesuntheit!! It's supposed to stop a demon from possessing you. No, its true, old German folklore-- they say that your soul is in a vacuum inside your body but when you sneeze the integrity of that vacuum is momentarily disrupted allowing for a demon to fly into you. So, that theory sucked-- would have to make sure my dad never sneezes ever again-- Now don't laugh-- I'm being serious here!!

So, a little while later I'm reading these articles in Popular Psychology that I checked out of the local library, and I start to find out that psychologists had done these studies that showed that noise can actually effect people's behavior; that certain kinds of noises can irritate people and even make them become violent-- and these studies were about noise you can't hear, ok?? So they weren't talking about car's honking their horn and babies crying and crap and stuff like that. No, they were talking about noise above and below frequencies that are audible to humans. Scientists had already discovered that certain inaudible noises can make a dog with absolutely no training instantly become vicious and attack for no reason at all-- even a dog that was always friendly. These articles said that in fact the military was studying a way to make a noise machine that could effect the enemy in just such a way so they kill each other off in some kind of mass psychopathic hysteria.

Anyways, to spare you most of what I read the main point was that scientists believed that STATIC NOISE in the inaudible range can actually cause hostility, violence and psychosis in humans.

And here's what really caused me to freak out: That inaudible interference on the AM band produces a sufficient amount of static noise that when animals such as monkey's and chimps were subjected to it for over an hour, they become aggressive and began fighting with one another and that when they were subjected to the noise for an hour a day, over the period of a month, that some of the monkey's literally went psycho-- now remember I'm talking about sound at a frequency range that supposedly you can't hear.

So I told my parents what I found out and at first they didn't take me seriously but when I showed them the scientific articles and they read them, they started to change their mind. I told them, hey, I've been reading a lot of stuff about this, and as far as the guy from Amityville, I think my theory is as good as any I've heard or read so far-- It sure beats the hell out of the 'possessed by the devil' theory which seemed to be the most popular going around. My parents agreed.

I told them that it probably doesn't effect everybody that way-- but when I listen to it, I DEFINATELY get headaches and feel irritated after, and since I'm related to my dad that it could effect him that way too. My dad says how come it doesn't effect everybody? And I said well, you can subject a hundred people to high levels of radiation and only a few of them will eventually get cancer and die-- But, just because most of them don't get cancer doesn't mean that radiation doesn't cause cancer. My parents agreed, and I was relieved knowing I would be able to sleep at night now.

So that's why I got the new top-of-the-line FM radio in the bathroom which I was listening to now taking my shower.

And, I'm in the dark because the darkness helps me to focus on the music-- kind of like closing your eyes.

And I'm listening to the song "Blinded By The Light" by Manfred Earth Band that was playing while showering in the dim light of the small night light. I love that song, and I still haven't gotten all the lyrics to it yet in my head, and during the song, right at that one line: "I tripped the merry-go-round" I see this small bright red light and then a moment later I see another one.

I watched as they buzzed around me like some kind of bizarre fire flies. I remember because I was standing there in the shower with shampoo on my hair but I had my eyes open being that it was Johnson's baby shampoo that doesn't hurt your eyes, and I was trying to figure out what the hell this one line meant from the song I was listening to: "...With a boulder on my shoulder, feeling kind of older, I tripped the merry-go-round..." I was asking myself, 'What the hell does that mean?' It seemed significant but I seemed unable to get my mind around it.

And that's when I saw them. I happened to be looking up as I shampooed my hair, and I saw them zoom out of the edge of the fluorescent light; at the extreme far end of the tube- where it glowed a slight orange, in fact was still glowing because I had the light on earlier and they continue to glow slightly at the edges for quite a while after you turn them off.

I hate fluorescent lighting. My dad put the tube in the bathroom to conserve electricity because they're more cost efficient, and I understand that, and it's all well and good but I still hate fluorescent lights and this is why- and it's practically the same reason why I hate AM; it gives me a headache. It's irritating because its not natural light - it flickers; it turns off and on and a certain frequency that tricks your senses into believing that it's real light when it isn't. And obviously our brains don't like it. Mine doesn't anyways, like I said it gives me a headache.

It's not only me either, lot's of people are effected adversely by artificial lighting of the fluorescent kind. If I'm in neon lighting for awhile, afterwards I feel like I've got moths fluttering around inside my head trying to get out - Argh- Its just creepy - I hate it. Another reason why I take shower's in the dark.

I know it sounds funny - like paranoid, but really it's true. I've also read scientific articles about the effects of fluorescent lighting on people who are subjected to it for hours at a time like in an office or something like that or a supermarket. One study showed, that not only do some people become irritated and hostile but apparently their I.Q. drops about twenty points after being in fluorescent lighting for two hours. Serious, they gave these people a simple IQ test, then had then walk around a supermarket for two hours, and then gave them another IQ test and afterwards a bunch of them scored just as idiots!!

It reminds me once when I was in seventh grade; poetry class, which I loved by the way, and we we're studying contemporary poetry, which consisted mostly of lyrics from songs - Man that was far out, like a dream come true for me.

So, we we're studying the lyrics to the song "Sounds Of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkle and the teacher, Mr. Preston, asked the class what we thought the poem meant. I raised my hand and was called on first and I said that I wasn't sure what the poem meant for sure, but that I was intrigued by one line that I suspected was the key to understanding the meaning of the whole poem. Mr. Preston asked me which line it was, I think he was curious and I said it was the line that went like this: "...and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made..." He then asked me what I thought the line meant and I said that I could be wrong but I thought that line was referring to television. I said that it makes sense because if everyone's watching TV then that society becomes the land of silence because people don't talk when their watching TV. It's like MY family when we all watch TV, we don't talk to each other hardly at all, because we're all hypnotized by the tube. That's why I think it's so dumb that my dad thinks watching TV is a "family event"-- What? Just sitting there starring at a box- no one talking to each other-- give me a break.

The teacher thought that was interesting and then called on someone else; a boy, and this kid says kind of as a rebuttal, 'cause Mr. Preston asked him, 'Well what do you think about that interpretation' that I had made, and the kid says 'Well, it couldn't be TV because who prays to their TV?'

And then I blurted out a rebuttal to the rebuttal and ended up getting in trouble because I spoke out without being called on. I said, "It's referring to television as an idol. You can put anything on TV and people will believe it, just because its on TV-- Television has become, in our society, an authority, beyond suspicion of deceit; if you hear it on television it must be true, without question. That's idolatry,' I said.

Anyways, the teacher made me stay after school. I don't think he liked the insinuation; because I was in this Christian school at the time (a very short time) and he was supposedly a Christian and didn't very much like the idea that if he put too much credence on television that he was guilty of idolatry and breaking one of the ten commandments. In fact I don't think he liked me after that and he didn't try very hard to hide it. It was kind of a drag being that he was the principal of that middle school. Eventually his hostility towards me became so apparent that although my parents tried to work out by complaining a few times and finally they just told that stupid school to take a big hike off a cliff and pulled me out.

That day after class I developed a bit of an attitude myself-- I mean hey, I wasn't the one who wrote the song, I just offered my interpretation of it-- I remember I came very close to telling Mr. Preston 'Why don't you call Art and Paul and complain to them I didn't write the song!' but I bit my tongue. Besides that I also wasn't the one who decided to have the class study the lyrics of that particular song.

Anyways, back to the red lights. So there I am looking up at the ceiling shampooing my hair thinking all these thoughts and remembering all these remembrances as these two dime-sized laser- bright red objects went flying around in the air around me, apparently having created some kind of a hypnotic effect in my mind as well.

They were obviously intelligent, from their movement I could tell they were aware of me and their environment-- and they were incredibly fast-- almost beyond words. They could zip this way and that faster than my eye could sense them, and then slow down and lazily dance around my head again.

I was watching them as my mind was inundated with all these thoughts and memories that I just shared with you, like I was in a trance so I wasn't afraid, although maybe I should have been. In fact, I wasn't even directly paying attention to them, more focused on my own thoughts and just seeing them peripherally.

Suddenly, one of them flew into my left ear. They were physical, because I could feel the thing- whatever it was- fluttering around in my ear like a little devil fly or something. And, I guess it fixed a position inside of my ear, and then it started making these really high pitched sounds, very quiet though, in proportion to it's size. The sounds were very fast like clicks I could tell that, but too fast to distinguish-- it sounded like the sound of data being transferred over a 110 baud phone modem for your Commodore Pet computer, or TRS-80 which I had some familiarity with.

And the sounds were having an effect on my mind. I think they were trying to communicate with me. Mostly it was flashes of images, you know like pictures going in my head, very rapidly. I saw a lot of images, and I don't know that I could actually explain what was going on exactly even if I wanted to. It seemed maybe, it was mostly going directly into my sub-conscious. I only heard like one clear like sentence said with words-- actual words:

They said to me, "We want to COMMUNE with you."

The next thing I know, I saw one of the red lights fly off into the large mirror that we had in the bathroom and disappear and I felt my apparent trance suddenly lift.

I finished getting ready for school, since I was now a bit behind schedule, and made up for lost time by skipping breakfast which usually consisted of Frosted Mini Wheats Cheerios, or Wheat Chex with a lot of sugar (a LOT of sugar) and I was a little bummed about that since breakfast is my most favorite meal.

I wasn't much in the mood to listen to music on my bicycle ride to school. While I was riding I kept reflecting on this experience I just had in my bathroom this morning. 'Was that for reals?' I asked myself. 'Did that really happen?'

I wondered to myself what those red lights were or who they were. I tried to come up with ideas in my head as to the possibilities, but the only idea that seemed to have credence was that they were aliens. I had heard about people making contact with extra-terrestrials but nothing like this, and believe me, I read a lot, about anything supernatural; ghosts, flying saucers, anything and everything and I could not recall ever once hearing anyone ever describe a duo of bright red lights the size of dimes.

I wondered also to myself, what did they put in my head? Information of some kind, that much I was pretty sure of- I think images; pictures-- but they all flew by me too quick for me to remember any detail about them-- like thousands of images in just that one minute.

I had stopped at an intersection waiting for the green light, incessantly pushing the bicyclist button to make the light turn green while using that same hand to hold myself up on the bicycle without putting a foot down. I often wonder as I'm pushing these bicyclist buttons over and over again do these buttons really do anything or do they just put them there as a kind of placebo to pacify you-- I know the pedestrian buttons make the damn thing say WALK but do they actually make the light turn green any quicker?? I'm not sure that they do. Are the bicyclist buttons actually connected to anything??

I was wondering all this in my head when I noticed there was a man on that same corner a few feet from where I was and he suddenly spoke to me.

He was wearing a black base-ball cap with a picture of a rooster on it predominately displayed which I thought was unusual- - He had really long blond hair almost like he was part Indian it was so long-- I saw dark roots so I figured it was a bleach job. He said to me, "Excuse me, do you know time?"

I looked at my watch, and said, "Um, it's about seven thirty or seven thirty one."

"Thank you," the man replied. He had moved a little closer to me and that's when I noticed that he was wearing a black sweatband on his right wrist with an eyeball on it. I don't mean there was a PICTURE of an eyeball; he had a three dimensional, probably plastic, round eyeball glued or attached to the wrist-band.

With eyes wide open I said, "No prob." At that moment the light turned green, and the man started walking across the street. A few steps from the curb and I noticed that the man had like a manuscript or something stuck in the waste band of his pants in the small of his back. The cover page was torn and sticking out and making like it was going to fall, and sure enough as I watched, the paper tore loose from the binding and fluttered to the street surface; the man seemingly unaware kept walking.

I rode my bicycle into the crosswalk and stopped momentarily, leaned down to pick up the piece of paper. I was intending on giving it to the man but after I picked it up and faced forward again-- the man was gone. I hurried across the street, not to be caught in the intersection when the light turned red, and from the far corner, I stopped, looking this way and that-- the guy disappeared leaving no trace of where he went.

I wrinkled my brow in thought, 'Where in the hell could he have gone?' I looked at the paper-- an eight and a half by eleven sheet of typing paper-- and it turned out my hunch was right-- it was the cover page of apparently a manuscript to a story because on the front of it it read:

'Dream Boy

by

Danny The Witch'

'A witch??' I thought to myself, 'Well that's certainly interesting.' I looked at the paper again, and underneath of the title it also read:

'Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?'

Now I happen to like riddles, especially if it be the mysterious type like one that was written by a supposed witch, so I decided I would keep it, being somewhat intrigued not only by this interesting pseudonym but the mysterious stranger himself and his odd eyeball, quite prominently displayed on his right wrist.

I took a quick glance on the back of the paper and noticed that there was apparently a note, handwritten, but I didn't have time to read it now. I folded up the paper and stuck it in my back pocket, and carried on towards school.

At school, during my first period class; P.E., we we're in the weight room. I was hanging out with my friend Joey as partners working on the leg lifts.

I had decided not to tell Joey about any of this stuff going on with me, it seeming to me to be a bit of a secret or something-- that was my intuition. I would resist the compulsion to talk to someone until I met up with Sean and Tommy again, hopefully at the amp'.

Joey was on the leg machine at the moment, and I was turned away from him, looking up at the ceiling, focused on the fluorescent lights- spacing as they say. I was lost in thought at the moment thinking about those red lights again.

That's when Joey broke my reverie. I turned around and he was standing right next to me.

"What are you looking at?" Joey asked me

"Nothing, " I said, "Why aren't you on the leg machine? Someone'll take it."

"Because-- num nuts over there forced me off. He literally pushed me off the machine! Asshole!" he said as he pointed to an upper classman quite renowned for his bullying of under classman who was currently using OUR machine.

The upper-classman was laying on his stomach, pulling up a freaky amount of weights on his legs; holding them with his legs stretched straight out for about a ten-count before going down and then back up again.

I started to walk over to him and Joey stopped me saying, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go over there and tell him to get the hell off our machine, what do you think I'm going to do?" I said, not concealing my anger very well.

"You think that's a good idea?" he asked.

"I don't know, " I said and I really didn't know, but I hadn't had any problems with bullies yet in this high school, and I already knew that if you allow yourself to be intimidated by them, it only makes you more attractive to bullies when they see that you give in easily.

I walked over to the guy who, like I said, was lying on his stomach on the machine and had his face turned in the other direction away from me so I tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

He let the weights down with his ankles and turned his face towards me.

"May I help you," he said in a slightly mocking tone.

"Me and my friend were using this machine," I said as cool as could be.

"Yea I know, " he said "The key-word is 'WERE'- you and your friend WERE using this machine. Now I'm using it. "

Now, I can put up with a lot of bull shit from people but for some reason and I don't know exactly why I can not stand to be condescended. At even the slightest hint of a patronizing attitude and I start to immediately boil in anger.

"Oh, and by the way, " the bully added, as he looked me straight in the eyes, "If either one of you two homo's ever touch me again I'll kill you."

I didn't know how to respond. I have to admit, although I'd run into bullies every now and again at school, I'd never had anyone threaten my life before. I was trembling slightly, trying to think of something to say or do and I never had the chance actually because just at that same moment after he said what he said, I saw a red light.

It zoomed in from one of the large windows that are set high near the ceiling. Even in the day light, these suckers were so bright their red glow was clearly visible. I saw the light the instant it flew in to the room near the window, and I watched as the dime- sized object descended quicker than shit, even doing a few loop-de- loop's as it went, eventually flying right through the cable that was holding the weights that the bully was holding up with his ankles; his legs stretched straight out, locked at the knees, holding them steady for a ten-count.

The instant that the red light flew threw the cable it snapped. Frayed cable immediately flying upwards and downwards at the same time in a horrifying, terrifying sound that is completely indescribable unless you've actually heard it when one snaps like that. The dude was lifting a crap-load of weights on it at that moment and the tension on the cable was extreme at the instant it broke.

And what I witnessed in the next instant has got to be the most bizarre accident I had ever seen before in my entire life. The whole arm mechanism that was attached to the ankle lifts which the dude had his ankles under, reacted to the snapping cable by going strait down, at incredible torque. The bully's ankles went down with it, bending his legs backwards at the knees and everyone heard both of his legs snap-- I mean it was LOUD.

All I could do was stand there and stare. The guy didn't cry or anything. He just stared, like maybe he was in shock or something. One of the coaches ran over and tried to talk to him, but all he would do was stare, he wouldn't talk or answer any questions. He didn't yell or scream or anything-- he looked perfectly calm for both of his legs just snapping the way they just did.

They called the paramedics, and they took him away in an ambulance. That was the most excitement of anything to happen in the school since the start of the school year-- and from the way the coaches were talking to each other-- this was the first time they remembered a student ever being taken away by ambulance.

Joey and I were standing near the back of the group of kids that had gathered to watch the entire drama unfold of the emergency team and all that.

"Joey, " I said.

"Yea, " he responded not taking his eyes off of the action.

"Did you see that red light?" I asked slightly intrepid.

Joey turned and looked at me, "You know what that was?" he asked rhetorically, "That was divine justice-- instant divine justice! I've heard about it, I've been studying about it all my life in synagogue but I have to be honest and say I never really believed it."

"Joey-- what are you talking about?-- I asked you if you saw that red light go through the cable?"

But he again just ignored my question, "That kid got exactly what he deserved-- I bet he thinks twice before he ever tells someone he's going to kill them!" And then he turned his attention back to the emergency technicians who were just then in the process of applying a splint.

'Oh well,' I thought to myself, Joey was off in his own little world and was not at the moment capable of having an intelligent conversation.

During my second period English class I pretty much couldn't even concentrate on anything that was going on in class- I hardly even remembered being in that class.

About half way through my third period algebra class, while we were all working on quadratic equations, some kid came in the classroom and handed the teacher a note. The teacher then motioned me to come up to his desk and after going through the whole 'Who me?' routine, I finally approached and he told me to take the note and go to the office.

I was thinking to myself 'Sent to the principal's office again-- What now??' I looked at the note it read: 'DERECK R. ALGEBRA 3RD PERIOD - PLEASE REPORT TO THE SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST.'

I'm thinking to myself, 'Wow, never went there before-- I've got a free ticket out of math-- cool.'

When I got to the psychologists office the door was closed so I knocked and I don't why but I was surprised that it was a lady-- I guess I always imagined head shrinks to be guys. She introduced herself to me as Cynthia and shook my hand and told me to have a seat.

I really liked her office-- very plush-- even better than the principal's office. It was also air-conditioned, as the whole office was, and I had always wondered if that's right for the adults to AC themselves in like royal bliss while the whole student body suffers, where its supposed to be just fine that the windows are open.

I sat down and for a few moments we just looked at each other in silence. Man, that's some kind of a head trip there, I didn't like it-- that's damn uncomfortable.

Finally she broke the silence when she said, "Do you know why you're here?"

"Yea-- because the office told me to come here." I said.

"No, I mean, do you know why the office called you here?"

"No," I said.

"There was an accident in your gym class today, we we're told that you observed the entire accident-- and well, I would like to ENCOUAGE you to talk about it." She said.

"What's there to talk about? The cable snapped and so did his legs." I said.

And now here was another awful silence-- man, this was unnerving. I gave her a few moments without responding because she seemed to be considering something.

Then she said, "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," I lied.

"Look Dereck, witnessing such an accident, can cause a significant amount of stress, whether you feel it right now or not-- sometimes there's a delayed reaction. "

"Okay," I said.

"And talking about it can prevent that delayed stress reaction. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," I said.

"I was told that you were conversing with this boy while he was injured-- are you friends?"

I laughed out loud just then, a nervous kind of laugh. I couldn't help it; two big laughs before I was able to restrain myself, "No." I said.

"I was also told that you had been using that same machine a few minutes earlier, how does that make you feel?" She asked me.

"Damn lucky-- oops, sorry" I said.

"Its okay, I'm not here to get you in trouble, in fact I appreciate it that you just talk like your regular self while your talking to me."

"Okay-- it made me feel damn lucky--" I said.

"Because--"

This was something else I guess about head shrinks, insisting that you state the obvious.

"Because," I said, "the thing could have broke on ME."

"And how does that make you feel?" She asked.

And did I mention this about shrinks just from my own observations-- they have a slight tendency to be redundant.

"Like I said, it makes me feel lucky." I said.

"I see," said the psychologist.

"Are you SURE about that?" I said.

"Humm??" She responded, and for the first time sounding like a half-way genuine response.

"Never mind," I said.

"Listen, Dereck, the principal wants to talk to you about this also, and I'm going to release you for now but I want you to come back here after your done speaking with him."

"Why?" I asked.

"I'll tell you when you get back?" She said and that was really the only thing she said in the conversation that really made me think she was cool.

She kindly escorted me to the door, gently placing a hand on my shoulder which surprised me a little bit. I felt a good vibe too; a genuine, caring professional that DOES care about kids-- a lot. That was kind of funny though, nothing she said made me feel that way about her, it was just that momentary, touch, disguised as casual.

I smiled at her, and then I exited the shrinks office on my way to the principal's office, which I didn't need any directions too, being quite familiar with where it was.

When I got to the principal's office the door was open, I knocked twice and let myself in.

"Hi Mr. Moore," I said.

"Have a seat Dereck, " Mr. Moore said sounding unusually serious.

I sat down, "What's wrong?" I asked, "Am I in some kind of trouble?"

"I don't think so, but I need to clear something up about what happened in your gym class this morning." he said.

"Okay, " I said and for some reason, I felt nervous-- very nervous, and Mr. Moore's short stature didn't even help lighten things up for me one little bit.

"First of all, were you and this kid having some kind of an altercation just before the accident?"

"Altercation? No, it was more like an ass- I mean a jerk being a jerk to me and my friend Joe."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"We we're using the machine, and Chad just came over and pushed Joe off the machine, and then started using it for himself, so I went over there and tried to VERY Politely explain to him that we we're using it."

"And then what?"

"And then..., he called me and Joe a couple of homo's and threatened to kill me if I ever touched him."

"Now why would he do that?"

"You got to be kidding me Mr. Moore-- Ask anyone in the whole school they'll tell you that Chad is the biggest J-E-R-K in the entire school, AND a bully."

"I'll look into that." Mr. Moore said. "And that's all that happened?"

"Yes. Anything else?" I asked.

"Why, are you in a hurry to leave?" asked Mr. Moore.

"No, but I feel like I'm being interrogated here, and more or less I think me and my friend Joe are the victim's here."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just exactly what I said-- I don't have any sympathy for Chad-- It was an accident, but at the same time, well, I don't feel sorry for him and quite frankly I don't think you should feel sorry for him either-- He's nothing but the hugest a-hole to ever come down the pike, and he causes nothing but trouble, and usually picks fights with kids that don't even have pubic hair yet."

"If you had the opportunity Dereck to harm Chad, would you?" Mr. Moore asked me.

"No, but at the same time, I feel like he got what he deserved."

"There are some other boys that have told me that they saw a bright red laser light focused on the cable just a moment before it snapped-- did you see anything like that?"

"No, " I lied.

"Have any idea what these other kid's saw?"

"I don't know-- maybe a reflection of the sun shining through the windows? I don't know."

"You don't happen to own a laser do you?"

"A laser!! No. What are you thinking, that somebody pointed a laser at that cable?"

"More or less, " he said.

"Well, I'm no expert, but I do believe if you consult with the heads of the physics department they will literally laugh at your idea of a laser causing that cable to snap."

"And why is that?"

"Well, first of all, you're talking about a hot-laser, and for a hot-laser to have the kind of power to burn through that cable, I'm just estimating here but well, in order to be portable it would need a battery and nothing less that a 12-amp car battery. I suppose I was hiding a car battery in my gym shorts. And of course, for all of the amplification circuits, you're probably talking about a device that would be more or less the size of a bazooka."

Mr. Moore looked at me incredulously.

"Of course, instead of the car battery you could always opt for a much more portable electroitic capacitor, which could hold a charge probably for up to twenty minutes, and provide the necessary electrical power to run a laser hot enough to burn through steal, but only for about three seconds before its fully discharged. Which would mean, that I would have to pull a bazooka sized laser gun out of gym shorts, take aim, and hit the cable in less than three seconds. Did anyone see me holding a shot-gun sized laser rifle?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"And there's one other problem." I said.

"Tell me,"

"Even if the laser was trained on the steel cable for the entire three seconds of capacitor discharge, I highly doubt that would be enough time for the laser to burn through the cable. Probably, it would take at least thirty to forty seconds is my guess."

"Thanks for answering my questions honestly Dereck,"

"Anytime Mr. Moore-- I have to hand it to you-- That was one interesting theory you came up with-- I suppose the soviets might be able to do it though-- I've heard they've got hot-laser's in space maybe they fired from a satellite OR--"

"Or what? " Mr. Moore said sounding as though he had been letting me ramble but was nearing impatience with me.

"Never mind," I said., "Anything else?"

"Just curious-- how is it you know so much about electrical things?"

"I read a lot of magazines from the library-- One of my favorites is 'Popular Electronics' which I've read every month since I was ten. Anything else?" I said impatiently-- I was feeling very stressed at the moment and a little angry.

"No, you can go back to class now,"

"Back to class?? No, no, I don't think so-- that psychologist lady she wants to talk to me some more too-- maybe she had an inkling that you were going to ACCUSE me of something totally ridiculous!!"

My anger was now showing just a wee bit-- I couldn't help it- - It was true, I was under a lot of stress-- I usually didn't talk to adults this way. What was the matter with me?

"Maybe," Mr. Moore said.

I left and immediately went back to the psychologists office. I suddenly DID feel a need to talk. When I got there I knocked on the door and was relieved when she opened it up thinking for some reason she might not be there.

"I'm stressed now!" I said.

I stayed and talked to the nice psychologist lady for a long time-- Don't worry I didn't reveal any secrets to her and she really did help me-- she told me I was experiencing a LOT more stress than I thought and it comes out in funny ways-- best thing of all She gave me a free pass to come talk to her anytime I want for the next two weeks so I can skip out on any class I want.

We talked even a few minutes into the lunch period. When I finally got out of there I went right to the amp''. Sean and Tommy were already there waiting for me.

"Man, Everyone's talking about you," Sean said to me as I sat down.

"What are they saying?" I asked.

"That you're some kind of witch or something," Tommy said.

"Why would they think that-- witches don't exist-- remember?"

"They're saying that you made that cable snap." Sean said.

"Well I didn't. " I said.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked.

"Yes I'm sure!! I've never harmed anyone in my life-- and I'm not going to ever harm anyone."

"You seem a little angry-- you forget we're you're friends." Tommy said.

I looked at Tommy and then over at Sean who had this really serious but awfully cute and innocent expression on his face, my heart sank.

"Sorry- the psychologist says I'm under a lot of stress because of this thing."

"Did you know what's the best cure for stress?" Sean asked.

"Humm?" I said.

"Sex!!"

Tommy suddenly changed the subject, "Here I've got something for you." He reached inside his backpack, and pulled out an LP. He handed it to me. I looked at the jacket cover-- It was the soundtrack for the motion picture "A Clockwork Orange" and while looking at the art design which showed A triangle with a knife coming out of it and a boy inside the triangle who was holding the knife, what I noticed immediately was the eyeball on his right sleeve.

"You'll like this version of Number Nine," Tommy said.

I pointed to the eye ball, "Look," I said showing the two of them. "See this?"

"The eyeball?" They asked.

"Yea-- I saw this same thing on a guy this morning on my way to school-- he asked me if I knew the time. Don't you think that's weird?"

"Yup, definitely. Definitely weird," said Sean.

Then I changed the subject, "Have you guys ever seen red lights?"

"Yea," Sean said, "All the time, on my way to school at almost every intersection."

"I'm being serious!" I told him. "Bright red, about the size of a dime that fly around."

Tommy and Sean exchanged curious glances at each other.

"Should I tell him, or do you want to?" Tommy said to Sean.

"I'll tell him," Sean said and then looking at me he said, "Those are your guardians."

"Guardians?" I asked incredulously

"Guardians," Tommy said.

I looked back and forth at Tommy and Sean.

After a momentary pregnant pause Tommy spoke, "They protect you-- They're your guardians."

"And they hurt people to protect me?" I asked.

"Only if they're trying to harm you," Sean said.

"Well Chad wasn't trying to harm me." I said,

"The guardians did that?" Tommy asked.

"Yes," I said.

"He must have threatened you then," said Sean.

"Well yes," I said, "He said he was going to kill me."

"Well there you go," Tommy said, "If anyone tries to harm you or even threatens you, they react immediately and without hesitation. They judge what is or is not a serious threat by your emotional and intellectual reaction.

"Wow!" I said.

"You're one of us now, " said Sean, "We all have them."

"Just don't abuse them," Tommy said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"By deliberately placing yourself in a potentially dangerous situation-- like trying to rob a bank or something-- they'll protect you to a point, but if you abuse them, you could wake up one day and discover that they've gone, and I think you might want these guys around," Tommy explained.

"What are they?" I asked.

Sean looked at Tommy as if to ask permission and then turned to me and said, "Well let's put it this way. They're NOT human."

"You're not going to tell me that they're Martians are you?"

Tommy and Sean glanced at each other again. Then Tommy said, "Martians, what makes you ask that?"

"Just tell me-- are they Martians?"

"No-- well, we don't know," Sean said.

"We don't know where they come from-- I think they've always been here." Tommy said.

Sean added, "They call themselves 'Eons'-- Hey did you know they can communicate with you?"

"Yes, I'm finding that out."

"What else do they do besides protect you?"

"They can time travel," Sean said.

Tommy turned to Sean, "How do you know that??"

"Because they told me," Sean said.

"They actually can time travel??" I asked.

"That's what they told me!" Sean said.

Then Tommy asked, "Why did you want to know if they were Martians?"

"Because I've had two dreams about Mars in two nights."

"Oh," Tommy said.

"Well they COULD be from Mars-- as far as we know-- It would make a lot of sense actually," Sean said.

"How's that?" I asked.

"It's a long story-- Sean can tell you about it after school." Tommy said.

"Okay," I said and then suddenly I remembered, "Hey-- Remember when I was telling you about when Chris did what he does with me, and he said, 'Your only missing one'?"

"Yes," Sean said his eyes wide and so were Tommy's.

"I think I know who it is," I said.

"Its a who?" Sean asked.

"Yes, but first I have to ask you a question?"

"Okay," Sean said.

"Does Pete have a little brother?" I asked.

"Pete? You mean Chris' brother's friend Pete?" Tommy asked.

"Yes."

"Yea, he does but we've never met him." Sean said.

"But Chris HAS met him-- I'm sure of it-- He's the one were missing." I said.

Tommy and Sean stared at me blankly.

"Remember when Chris said he knew two brothers that had a 'd' mark and 'b' mark?" I asked.

"Yea," Sean said.

"Well, 'b' is for breath meaning air or wind." I said.

"Yea," Tommy said, "So"

"So, Air is the only one were missing. Do you get it?" I asked.

"I get it," Sean said.

Tommy contemplated a moment, and then said, "Oh-- OH-- You mean--"

"Yea-- All five elements," I said.

"We were only missing one," Sean said amused, "That's Genius!! How did you figure it out?" Sean asked excitedly.

"I dreamed about him last night." I said.

"But you've never met him," Sean said.

"Yea, well I never met you when I dreamed about YOU either," I said. "What's his name anyways?"

"I don't know," Sean said.

I looked at Tommy.

"Don't know either, like Sean said, we've never met him." Tommy responded.

"You'll have to ask Chris-- he probably knows," Sean said.

I watched as Sean and Tommy made ANOTHER curious glance at each other.

"What??" I asked.

"Well-," Sean started, "I don't know exactly how to tell you this."

"Just tell me,"

"Pete's younger brother- um- well-" Sean stumbled out.

"What?? Pete's younger brother- what?" I asked.

Tommy then spoke, "I think what Sean is trying to say is that the reason we've never met Pete's younger brother or even know his name is that he- um, he disappeared."

"He disappeared?"

"Yea-- like abducted or something-- we don't know much because his whole family doesn't like to talk about it."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "But-- I saw him in the dream-- I'm sure of it-- when did this happen?" I asked.

"Like a couple of years ago or something," Sean explained. You'll have to ask Chris-- "

"Do you know how or when he disappeared?" I asked.

"Not sure they ever told us," Tommy said.

"I think Pete told me it happened in the middle of the night-- I THINK," Sean said.

"That's horrible," I said.

There was a long but not uncomfortable silence as Sean and Tommy allowed me time to digest this rather undesirable information.

Finally Tommy said, "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Go ahead-- what were you going to say?"

"Christmas vacation starts this Friday-- You have any plans?"

"No," I responded.

"Do you think your parents will let you spend a week with us- - We're going on a kind of a camp for a week-- Chris'll be there too, and his brother."

"Maybe," I said.

"Its the week after Christmas," Sean said, "You have to go with us-- our parents are going to be doing some ceremonies-- they want to do one with you," Sean said.

"A baptism?" I asked.

"Of course," Sean said.

"Let me ask my parents," I said.

"Cool," Sean said.

"Cool," Tommy said.

"Hey-- Tommy still has band practice after school, but I get out at regular time for the rest of the week-- Do you want to do something fun after school today-- and then I can tell you what I know about Mars, okay?" Sean asked.

"Like what do you want to do?" I asked.

"He wants to teach you how to be invisible," Tommy said.

"You like outdoor sex??" Sean asked.

I raised my eyebrows.

"We would teach you here, but Tommy thought it would be better if you learned how to do it where there was no one there that KNOWS you."

"Okay," I said.

"You'll find out-- Outdoor sex is WAY BETTER than indoors!" Sean exclaimed.

"I'll have to take your word for that." I said.

"I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about it," Sean said as he rubbed his crotch.

Just then the period bell rang. We all got up to go.

"Meet me here, three-fifteen."

"Okay," I said.

My fifth period class was Social Studies-- which I absolutely hated-- I don't think because the subject matter was boring just the teacher-- Oh my God!! Monotone voice; absolutely no reflection what-so-ever to make his long drawn out lectures seem interesting. To make matter's worse, he kept his head down while he was talking the entire time, so he rarely made eye contact with anyone, something I learned that is very important when reading something out-loud to people-- doing that draws people to you and what your saying-- This guy could care less, it seemed, that any of us were even there. At the start of the period he'd start his lecture, two seconds after the bell rang (which wasn't really a bell it was more like a tone-- they should call it 'the tone' instead of 'the bell') and lecture all the way to the end of the class.

Since the beginning of the semester some of the students had gotten rather bold. first one, and now two kids would pull out a hand-held Mattel Video game, the sound turned off of course, and just play their Mattel football or baseball game, whatever the hell it was, and the teacher totally didn't even care. Other kids would write, or read a novel during class. Some of the girls would pull out their little mirror's and put on eye shadow or foundation, or polish their nails-- Let me tell you, it was weird!!

The weirdest thing about it was that nothing he even lectured about was even important because it was all more or less in the text, which of course I had already read. I'll be honest with you, most of the time I tried to listen, but he was just so damn boring, most of the time I had to fight the impulse to just go and take a little nappy poo right there on my desk, which was what about half the class did every damn day during this class. I wasn't that bold though, I had this suspicion that this teacher was going to wait until no one was listening and then present information that wasn't in the text that you could bet your rear end was going to show up on the final-- So, I always had one ear not really listening but MONITORING the teacher's lecture for anything that I hadn't already read in advance.

So, instead of laying my head down, which is what I usually did, I decided to pull out that paper out of my back pocket that the mysterious stranger dropped who was wearing that crazy 3-D eye- ball, very similar to the one on the cover of the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange.

I laid the paper out in front of me on the desk and read it again:

"Dream Boy

By

Danny The Witch

Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?"

And then I turned it over and took a close look at the handwritten note-- Now I have to say that handwritten notes always interest me because they're so much more personal than a typed note. It read:

"Dear Cousin Bill,

I'm glad I'm come-

ing to the city to

see you. Bobby

can't come cause

he has to do

the chores. Well

see you soon

OK

(indiscernible signature)"

Now, I kept looking at the two sides of the paper, turning it over and over and reading a re-reading each thing, and my intuition was telling me that I was looking at some kind of a cipher. Now in order for you to understand why I was thinking that way, I have to tell you about my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Curtain.

Mr. Curtain was by far the coolest teacher I ever had in elementary school. He used to tell us that the so-called experts-- he was always using the expression-- 'the so-called experts' he was a riot, he used to tell us:

'The so-called experts' think that your I.Q.; that is your intelligence quotient is set at birth, and that some of you can learn easily and for others it will be more difficult, and that will never change-- but I happen to know that's a bunch of cow manure-- you know bull-shitzky!! If you want to be smart-- I can show you how.'

And he had us all believing-- like I said, he was absolutely the coolest-- and more than a little unconventional-- but it worked, almost every single kid in his class got A's on every test and not because he was easy-- I think mostly his trick was two things-- One, he kept the class interesting, and two, he made us believe that he was telling us secrets, and that got us to listen-- which he said was the key to being smart. In fact, he would say that all the time, 'I'm going to let you in on a little secret' or 'most people don't know this because it's a secret' etc... as a result, I remember almost everything the guy every said, everything he taught us.

I think one of the things that made him so interesting is that he actually had been a military officer-- he used to work for The Office Of Naval Intelligence when he was in the Navy and he used to work on ciphers-- Not the usual sort of ciphers that you would imagine, like electronic ciphers that turn the coded message into gobbly-gook; those are what he called obvious cipher's and the navy hired math wizards to work on those; the kind he worked on were cipher's that were DISGUISED as ordinary things, like notes, and things like that. And he didn't actually work on breaking them. He told us that the navy chose him and a bunch of other recruits because they showed a natural aptitude to be able to discern what was likely a cipher and what wasn't--

He said that he was told that certain people can just look at something; a note, a line of text, a paragraph from a book, and they can detect or intuit in a matter of seconds whether its likely to be a cipher, and they're usually right over ninety percent of the time. So that was his job; the navy would give him notes and messages, letter's to G.I.'s, letter's from G.I.'s, etc... and he'd scan them and if his intuition registered that it was a cipher, he'd put it in a special slot. He told us that every time he suspected it was a cipher it turned out to be one.

After he left the Navy he became a private eye-- mostly to find missing kids and stuff like that-- AND he was very successful. He used to tell us, 'Do any of you have ANY idea how people just DISSAPEAR every year in this country??-- He'd tell us and all I remember is that the statistics were absolutely staggering. Not just kids but adults too- and not just woman-- but just as many men!! Without a trace-- and nobody ever knows what happened to them. After he retired, he went back to school and became a school teacher-- because he said he wanted to pass on his secrets to the smart kids of the next generation.

Mr. Curtain was a trip-- he used to tell us that there's cipher's everywhere-- all around us, and most of us don't even know it-- all disguised as something else-- personal ad's in the classified section of the newspaper or magazines, notes on index cards pinned up at your local laundry-mat, lost dog posters, etc..

He never actually told us WHY people would encode secret messages this way or for what purpose but he would give us hints saying that there's all kinds of secrets-- secret things going on all around us, right under our noses AND, we were all invited to participate-- but only if we could decipher the messages. I remember he used to tell us that heaven itself is probably right under our noses and the invitations are probably ciphered messages posted to telephone poles, and stuck to bulletin boards, and in the personals.

I remember the weirdest thing he ever told us was when he was still is the navy and he was scanning notes for ciphers, and he had nine guys under his command in his office, that's all they did all day long was scan texts for likely ciphers-- he told us this story how just for a joke, he put a copy of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in wonderland' in the stack of papers for them all to scan. He said that every single one of them stamped with the red-inker CIPHER, and signed it and put it in the cipher slot. He told us he never heard from 'upstairs' any more about it, but after he left the navy, he was convinced that the old mathematician who wrote that story under a pseudonym HAD actually incorporated a cipher into it. Mr. Curtain said to us:

'Now I wonder what secrets a guy who photographed children in the nude might have to tell?'

Because, he told us, that Carroll was also a photographer back when the camera was like almost just invented, and that he photographed young children in the buff-- and this is no secret-- the photos were put on the professional market; some people say he was the first professional kiddie-porner. Anyways, Mr. Curtain CLAIMED that he did decipher the story BUT he would write the clues on his headstone IF HE EVER DIED. And I always wondered what that meant.

Now, let me get to the point, because this was the most interesting part. Mr. Curtain actually tried to teach us how to do what he did. He would put different types of notes and personal ad's up on the over-head, and he would ask us-- Is it a cipher or isn't it? Notes like: 'Don't forget to stop by the dry-cleaners on your way to work hon-- thanks' stuff like that or 'Please help me to find my lost kitten-- his name is Barney and he is small and black with white stripes' stuff like that.

Most of the kids just hunched their shoulders but a few of us, me included, man, we could spot those suckers!! Mr. Curtain was right-- it was easy, once you got the hang of it-- he would say to us- - let your sub-conscious do all the work-- anyways, man it was crazy, he would show us a very simple message, like a one or two line message, and then he'd show us how to decode it, and the decoded messages were often as long as the original message and often times longer. It was very impressive. He used to tell us that 99.9 percent of these types of cipher's are more reliable than highly complex crypto because most of the time they escape suspicion because their disguised as ordinary notes and stuff.

So, that is why when I was looking at these two messages or notes, or what ever you want to call them-- The first thing I did was look at them, like Mr. Curtain showed me I knew how to do, to let my sub-conscious do the work-- Is this a cipher?-- and my intuition was sending me very strong signals BING BING these are ciphers!!

The harder part was trying to break them. I studied the first one very carefully.

Now, learning some of the 'tricks' that Mr. Curtain had taught me, I let me mind go black and just stared at the message:

Author's Riddle:

I said, hey there Barry what was that you said about The Spirit Of Man?

And the first thing I noticed is that there were eight capitalized words. I grabbed a number two pencil and wrote them down:

Author's Riddle I Barry The Spirit Of Man

And I had a hunch it was a crossword anagram. Then I wrote down the first letter of each capitalized word:

A R I B T S O M

"This is definitely a cipher," I whispered to myself excitedly but my hunch was it wasn't enough letter's to spell out a lengthy message of any kind. And then I thought, what about the first AND last letter of each capitalized word?

A R I B T S O M N F T E Y I E S

I looked at the jumble of letter's. Damn, my intuition was strong on this one-- these letters were no accident- I could immedietely make out words in them. I worked on it for the rest of the period-- by the end of class I was able to spell out several different words that could be sentence fragments. They were:

IF MOST TEEN BOYS ARE

A NIFTY STORY

FREEMASON

Humm, I was definitely intrigued. My hunch was this was a tri-level crossword anagram cipher with a question embodied within it. I folded up my papers and stuck them hurriedly in my back pocket as I trotted off to my last period.

After school I met Sean at the 'amp.

"Ready?" Sean asked.

"Yup," I said.

We walked over to the bike racks and on the way I showed Sean the page I had found and that I thought they were cipher's.

"Well, that IS interesting," Sean said. "Crossword anagram, hummm. You know what would make it easier then?"

"What?" I asked.

"Take a pack of playing cards, and write each of the letters on a different card. Then you can spread them out on the floor and re- arrange them and stuff in different crossword layouts and see if you can make out the whole message."

"Got it! Good idea," I said.

When we got to our ten-speeds Sean said, "Follow me," and pulled out in front of me.

"Where we going?" I asked, a little nervous but excited at the same time.

"Seventh Street Park-- You been there?" he asked.

"No, just rode by," I replied.

"Dude, It's the coolest park. I'll show you."

Seventh Street Park was only about a mile away from the school, but being that I didn't live in this particular city but in an adjoining city on the north side, I wasn't too familiar with the different parks in this area.

It was a nice park-- and big, with a forest area, and a stream and a lake. Sean stopped and got off of his bicycle and began locking it up at one of the bicycle racks they had there and I followed suit.

"Come on, "He said motioning me with his hand as he was already trotting off towards the forest part.

I had to jog to catch up.

"This is going to be fun," he said, cracking that adorable smile of his which hinted at something naughty.

When we got to the forest, I followed Sean inside some bushes and a little trail that eventually lead to a clearing, completely concealed from the outside by all the brush and trees. The clearing was about 60 feet in diameter and you could see the evidence of other people who had been here, probably teen-ager's making out and stuff after dark. There were empty Coke can's and candy wrappers and the like spewed out all over the clearing.

When we both got inside of the clearing, and we were standing more or less directly in the center, I looked at Sean and said, "Now what?"

"Now-- we become invisible," he said as he started taking his shoes off.

"How? By taking our shoes off?"

"No, " he replied, "To become COMPLETELY invisible one has to become COMPLETELY naked!!"

"But we've already been completely naked?" I replied.

"BUT that was indoors-- This is outdoors--"

"Oh," I said kind of confused.

"Just trust me. Take off all your clothes." Sean said.

I kicked off my shoes, and pulled my socks off. I looked over at Sean who already had his shirt off and was undoing the button on his white O.P. shorts.

I pulled my shirt up over my head and by the time I could see again, Sean was just kicking off his underwear and standing there with a boner that he flicked a couple of times with his finger, I guess to free it from ball-stick, reminding me more or less of Chris.

I was a little hesitant, stopping for a moment at the snap of my Tuff-Skins, and making eye contact with Sean. Sean nodded, and I unsnapped them-- peeling them off, along with my briefs at the same time.

There we were both completely naked, in broad daylight, outside, in a public park. I have to say that the ambiance of the forest was a huge turn on. It was like I was part of nature-- I mean after all, all the trees and the squirrels, and rabbits and such were all naked, and it almost seemed that by the simple act of discarding all of my clothes, the sense was, that I had somehow in that same instant slipped out of the world of humans and was now a part of the world of nature; the animals and the trees my brothers and sister's. It didn't seem wrong at all-- in fact, it seemed perfectly right.

I looked at my clothes lying there on the ground in a pile, and I had this strange thought that if I simply refused to put them back on again, if I refused to possess them, they might just disappear and so would I, to the world of humans and I would remain invisible to them in nature forever.

"Well congratulations!! You're invisible." Sean said with a chuckle.

"Shut up," I said.

"There's only one thing left to do now."

"What's that?"

"To prove it. " Sean said, "Come on nature boy, follow me," and he trotted off along the trail that we had come by and me, having no clue what he was up to, tagging along behind like the proverbial puppy-dog.

When we got to the exit of the forest, Sean just boldly stepped out into the outside. I was behind him, but still hiding just inside the mouth of the forest. My first reaction was to turn around and run. What was he crazy?? Someone would see him.

Sean turned around and I think he sensed I was about to scurry back to my clothes. his boner was still quite proud while mine had shrunk looking like the peeled off part of a tomato. My balls were like completely gone-- it looked like all I had was a dick attached to my lower abdomen and that was it.

Sean smiled, "We're invisible-- Do you trust me?"

I nodded.

Sean took my hand, and lead me out of the forest. When I stepped out and Sean moved out of my way-- I could hardly believe my eyes. It seemed like all the people, and all evidence of the modern world disappeared. All the adults, who had been walking their dogs, and jogging, and doing whatever we're gone. All the phone booth's, all the telephone poles, all the electrical wires-- the parking lots, everything was gone.

The lake was still there along with the stream, although it looked different, and the geese and ducks and squirrels and rabbits were still there but everything else was gone, all the grown-ups and their children-- everyone with clothes disappeared.

And I saw all kinds of naked children playing everywhere. Little boys, and little girls, and older boys and older girls. They were all naked. Some were playing in the stream, some were playing tag on the grass. Some of the older boy's were wrestling with each other. The park was filled with the laughter of kids having fun. There must have been two or three score of them.

Sean tugged at my hand and pulled me out a little further.

"Welcome to paradise," he said with a smile.

"Heaven?" I asked. "Here on earth?"

"Call it what you want, " Sean responded. His smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat's-- A sincere and innocent smile, not the naughty one of his particular infamy, "Listen Dereck, this is really important- This world has inspired just about every ancient and modern concept of heaven and paradise there is-- However, although each religion or legend incorporates symbols and concepts representing at least one element of this land, these concepts are very inaccurate. So don't be surprised, that you'll be surprised."

"So it IS heaven?" I asked.

He continued saying, "Xanadu De Kubla Kahn."

"Hu?" I said barely listening, taking in this fantastic sight.

Sean continued, "Never Never Land, Arcadia, The Invisible Kingdom, The Incredible Macro-Magiverse..."

I looked around as Sean lead me more out into the open. I noticed that although there were some girls playing, it seemed that predominately it was boys.

Sean continued with his diatribe, "Sugar Mountain, Avalon, Honalee, The Nether Lands..."

'Why are their so many boys and not as many girls?" I asked interrupting him.

"I'll explain that," Sean said.

I looked around, off in the distance I could see what looked like a magical creature of some kind playing a flute. There was a circle of children dancing around him. Suddenly I noticed movement coming nearby from our right; I turned to look, there was a boy chasing another boy, all in fun but as they neared us and ran by I was startled by how beautiful one of them was. He looked so attractive, it was funny seeing it on a boy-- like pretty-- a prettyboy. Stunning, is more like it. The boy I was looking at was about twelve, and seemed more than a little amorous as he chased after the boy ahead of him.

"Wow!!" I exclaimed to Sean, "Did you see how pretty that boy was?"

"There's a lot like that here," Sean said and pointed to another boy not too far away from where we were walking now.

'Wow, you're right-- he's just as pretty as the other." I responded in awe. When the boy saw me looking at him, he pointed to his dick, which was hard, with one hand and then blew me a kiss with the other hand. "That one seems to be a little randy," I commented.

I looked in another direction and was amazed to see what looked like an exotic animal; large, rolling around on the grass with several children playing with it. I wasn't sure but it looked like a Bengal tiger; bright orange with wide black stripes. My guess about fifteen hundred pounds of wild cat, looking just as friendly and playful as could be. None of the children were afraid of it-- and you could tell that it was extremely gentile-- being very careful with himself, with all that weight in a way that seemed- well, wise. I was absolutely mesmerized by this sight-- it was incredible.

Sean got my attention and pointed around some more and I spotted several other boy's that were so stunningly visually attractive-- it was almost beyond my imagination. They almost didn't look real. They were like perfect-- beyond perfection; as though they were painted on canvas by an artist so renown you couldn't buy one of these paintings for anything less than a million dollars. They seemed to range in age from between eleven and fourteen. Most seemed to be preoccupied with the normal looking kids, mostly boys, who didn't seem to mind-- the were getting a lot of attention, and seemed to enjoy it, even though it seemed their attention was a bit lustful, which seemed odd to me, but like I said, none of the boy's they were playing with seemed to mind the attention being given them. It seemed to me it should be the other way around; any one of these prettyboy's could easily get me chasing after them, not the other way around.

I continued to look around and I spotted more and more like that. It became apparent that there were two different kinds of persons here-- regular kids; both boy's and girl's AND these prettyboy's which were very abundant, mixed in with them. That's why, apparently, the boy's seemed to far out-number the girls.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Who-- the really pretty boys?" Sean responded.

"Yes, " I said, my voice still filled with awe.

"Well who do you think they are? They're the heavenly host."

My eyes grew wide. I turned to look at Sean, "Angels?" I asked shocked.

"Call them what you will," Sea said.

They were all over the place, now that I took notice of them, at least half of everybody here were this type.

"Why are they all boys?" I asked. "Why are there no girl angels?"

"I'm not sure that their angels, first of all, " Sean said, "They could be what people's concepts of angels originated from though I suppose, as well as the inspiration that may explain the origin of many legends including fairies and elves, etc..."

"I thought fairies were really tiny?" I asked.

"Actually, they didn't become 'really tiny' until Shakespeare portrayed them that way in A Midsummer Night's Comedy. Before then, fairies were always regarded as being 'A little smaller' than adults but not tiny, and as you can see THEY ARE a little smaller than adults. And as to answering your question-- they aren't all boy's."

I looked around again, now that we were in the center of the park it was lots easier to see them.

"They're not?" I asked confused.

"No, they're not."

I watched amazed and a little frightened as Sean signaled one of these hosts who seemed to have taken particular notice of either Sean or me; he had been glancing in our direction since I first noticed him. Sean winked at him, and he came walking towards us. I was a little scared although they all seemed playful enough, playing with all the kids the way they were.

The boy walked over to where we were then standing. He looked to be about eleven years old but it was hard to tell. As he approached, I realized that his face seemed very familiar to me but it was a vague familiarity-- as though I had seen him in a dream or something. He had bright bright green eyes that were brilliant and beautiful in the way eyes only seem to be that are possessed by the very young.

"Hello there," the host said.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," Sean said to him, "My name is Sean and this is my friend Dereck"

"You-- we already know," he said to Sean, and then turning to me said, "It's very nice to meet you Dereck." And then he winked at me-- I couldn't believe it-- he actually winked at me.

He had kind of longish, dark sandy-blond hair, just above the shoulders. And was the most attractive boy I had ever seen. Perfection personified. He also had a boner.

"What is your name?" I asked him.

"Well, my real name is Mich-- Some call me Michelle, some call me Michael-- You may call me which ever you prefer or all three if you like.

"You're not Michael the Archangel are you?" I asked.

"The one who legend has it threw Lucifer out of heaven?" Mich asked.

"Yea," I said.

"Oh heavens no but THAT IS an interesting rumor-- I am not an Archangel. I am just a heavenly host."

"Oh," I said.

Sean suddenly spoke, "Mich- Dereck here seems to be under the impression that you, as well as the other's like yourself, are all boy's."

"You mean exclusively male?" Mich said.

Sean nodded.

"Oh," Mich said, " I understand, "Well, have a look for yourself," he said.

I watched in amazement and a little embarrassment as Mich turned around and bent over, spreading his legs.

""Well, " Sean said to me, "have a look, he said to have a look."

I moved a little closer, and then stopped. Mich motioned me even closer with his hand from behind, which looked obscene in the position he was in, being leaned over sticking his ass up in the air. And so I leaned over and well what can I say-- I had a look, and what I saw, I had not expected. There was clearly between Mich's butt-hole, and testicals, a clearly discernable vagina.

"You're a-"

"Perfect hermaphrodite." Sean said.

"Wow!" I said, as Mitch stood back up. I was a little embarrassed that I was sportin' a boner seeing Mitch bent over like that; even though Mitch had the girl part, which I guessed might have been like a package deal-- but he still looked 'all-boy' to me.

"Would you like to play? " Mitch asked.

"Thanks, maybe later," Sean said.

And Mitch trotted off towards some other kids who were playing by the stream where he had been before Sean signaled him over to us. When he got there, he immediately started wrestling with an older looking regular boy, who was getting groped quite a bit in the wrestling, but the boy didn't seem to mind at all- laughing as though he were having the time of his life.

Sean said to me, "They are a perfect balance of masculinity and femininity. Their faces, their expressions, their movements, even the sound of their voices. The reason they all appear as boy's to you is because your mind is tweaking-- Your mind always tries to identify the sex of someone you see-- attempting to determine are they male or are they female. Your subconscious uses a variety of clues to make this determination. Sometimes they look like girl's or appear as girl's other times as boy's to different people and even to the same person when they see them from a different angle. They can even look as though they keep changing back and forth with different glances, actually physically. They are not changing physically at all, it's just because your mind may at one moment perceive what they are to be male and at another moment female-- kind of like those optical illusions they have like you can see two different images in them like the old lady and the young lady-- you know that one?"

"Yes, I know that one," I said.

"Anyways, at first you'll see one image but if your blink your eyes or turn away for a moment and look back you may see the other image. You may even think the picture is actually changing physically but it is not-- Its kind of like that. It's just that your mind is programmed to identify sex-- it tweaks on a perfect hermaphrodite. Girls usually think they're girls, boy's usually think they're boy's. They looked like boy's to you because your mind homed in on the masculine characteristics and identified them as male obviously because they were naked but if they were clothed it would be harder for your mind to make up its mind.

I was watching Mitch wrestling with that other boy by the stream, and I had to say if I didn't know any better it was looking very sexual. "Sean, are they gay?"

"You see Dereck-- There really is no such thing as "gay" to the heavenly host. They see sexual attraction to others as a natural expression of beauty however it may express itself."

"You mean they have sex?" I asked astonished.

"Well of course-- heaven wouldn't be any fun if everyone was kick-ass beautiful and you could never touch! Really, I don't understand these concepts that a lot of people have like you don't even have bodies in heaven-- totally ridiculous," Sean said.

"Who are the others-- the regular looking kids?" I suddenly asked.

"There just like you and me-- they're just regular people who found heaven-- they come and go as they like, others just decide to stay here and become the fairies of heaven."

"I can come and go?"

"Yes."

"You have to go through that forest-- that's the portal?" I asked a little confused.

"No, this is just one park-- heaven is across all of the earth-- this is just one little piece of heaven. Heaven is wherever there is nature-- even if it's just a plot of grass with a tree and a bird and a little water, wherever all four elements meet-- on the other side of it is heaven."

"But how did we get here?" I asked.

"Don't you know? When you become invisible-- the world disappears, and you see heaven."

"Wow!" I said.

I noticed someone though, off to our left that didn't look to be child-like; he was in fact looking very much like an adult.

"Sean what about that guy-- he's not a kid."

"Oh him?" Sean pointed.

"Yea, and there's another one I saw earlier, I forgot to ask you about."

"Adults can find heaven too. They come and go also or stay depending-- Usually they transform but sometimes they prefer to become catchers-- that one there and the other you saw-- they're catchers." Sean said.

"Catchers?"

"It's hard to explain-- Did you ever read Catcher In The Rye?"

"No."

"You'll find out more about them, it's hard to explain right now." Sean said.

"My mind left that be for now and wondered back to what we had been talking about before I saw the man. "Do, the heavenly host have sex with - "

"With regular people-- like us?"

"Yea."

"All the time-- You know Mitch did not miss the fact that you were strongly sexually attracted to him I think that's the reason he decided to show you his sex parts the way he did."

"Wow!" I exclaimed.

"Anybody can do anything they want in heaven Dereck-- There's only one law here."

"What?"

"The law of love; ...As long as it harm no one..."

"Incredible," I said.

"Really Dereck-- God giving you sexual organs and the capability of enjoying sex, and then forbidding you, would be like God giving the birds wings, and forbidding them to fly."

"Oh," I said.

"Can we have sex with Mitch," I asked.

"If you want, but don't ask me-- ask Mitch!"

"But you too?" I asked.

"I think I'll just watch on your first time," I said.

I was very shy, so Sean grabbed my hand and we ran over to where Mitch was playing with another host and several regular boys.

Mitch immediately came right up to me as soon as he saw us approach, his face no more than a foot away from me.

"Hi Dereck," Mitch said.

"Hi," I said.

Sean nudged me from behind just a little closer to Mitch.

"Um, " I stuttered, thinking of something to say, I decide to be honest, "You're beautiful."

"Thank You, and you are more beautiful than I, although you don't see it," said Mitch.

Another silence. Our eyes were in steady contact. His, the loveliest shade of emerald green. His hair was dark blond and was just a little shorter than his shoulders.

Sean nudged me again. I leaned forward. Our noses touched. Than our lips. He wrapped his arms around me, and I his, he grabbed my ass as he was kissing me, and I grabbed his-- pushing on each other's asses, forcing us closer, making the kiss closer, tighter. I could feel his passion in his tongue, his arms pulling me tighter, closer, and I doing the same. He was so beautiful.

A little crowd of boys and host started to congregate around us, eager to watch this natural expression of love and beauty, the host, all of them so beautiful; about ten of them began to chant as we kissed, their energy encompassing us, increasing the passion.

"Eros Eros Eros Eros," they chanted, "Eros Eros Eros Eros,"

My hands meandered down his legs, to the inner thighs and then back up towards his dick. His hands followed the same path at the same time. And together we both grabbed each other's erections.

"Eros Eros Eros Eros, the love of beauty and the beauty of love"

And as we kissed and fondled one another, they began to sing the most beautiful, sounds I had ever heard, it sounded better than the Vienna Boy's Choir.

And they sang, "...The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

I bent my knees and slowly descended. Our kiss broke, and Mitch gently guided my head down towards his dick. His abdomen was as smooth as silk. His arms and legs were covered in a fine white angel hair; the kind that some boy's have. It's almost invisible; up close you could see it- a moderate amount of hair, but from further than three feet away, his skin looked perfectly smooth. I focused on his dick. I tried to delay putting it in my mouth, to create more excitement, but I devoured it the moment my lips barely touched it. Uncircumcised and although not very big around, it was skinny but surprisingly long about five and half inches totally erect and having a very interesting sharp upwards curve to it which was fascinating.

His hands gently caressed my cheeks as I sucked on his dick. Out of my right eye, I saw a mark on his wrist. I turned to look. It was the letter "b" in black magic marker style.

I whispered, "Your-"

"Shhhhh," he said, pulling my mouth back towards his dick.

I was thinking to myself, 'This is the boy from my dream-- but, how is that possible-- I had so many questions,' and then with Mitch caressing my cheeks as I sucked him, I got lost in the moment.

The crowd around us was getting larger-- boys mostly, but a few girls were watching excitedly. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Sean was stroking his dick, apparently not jealous but enjoying the show. I noticed a couple of other boy's playing with themselves also as they watched.

The pretty-boy's were still chanting, "Eros Eros Eros, the love of beauty and the beauty of love in those heavenly voices that were all in perfect harmony."

Mitch, pulled me up to my feet again and turned me around. He started kissing my neck from behind me and whispering in my ear, "I want you-- I want all of you," as he was stroking my cock. I was falling in love. I looked all around, and we two seemed to be the center of attention. although now most of the boy's were all apparently sexually stimulated, they were mostly watching us and masturbating themselves-- the other host as well.

Mitch probed my anus with his pointy, upwards curved dick seeking entrance. With one hand on the back of my head gently pushing it downwards, a que to bend over-- I looked at Sean with questioning eyes that said I want to, but I don't want you to be jealous.

Sean came over to where I was, stood in front of me, his dick fully hard and said to me, "Bend over, and suck my dick."

I bent over, and that gave Mitch the access that he desired. I gobbled up Sean's dick, all the way to his balls, as I felt Mitch enter me. Once all the way in, I suddenly discovered the advantage of that curve that he had-- I couldn't think as it was perfect to stimulate my prostate, and the way he moved, perfect-- I couldn't think-- all I could do to react was to moan and suck Sean's dick all the harder.

They started getting into a synchronized rhythm with each other. Sean pulling me forward and then pushing me back with both hands on my shoulders as Mitch had both of his arms securely on my hips, pushing me away from him at the same time Sean was pulling me towards himself. Then Sean would push me away as Mitch pulled on my hips puling me back towards him.

I couldn't touch my own dick from the position I was in, and I didn't even care. Mitch's magical stimulation of my prostate was better than any kind of a hand job I could give myself. I felt myself steadily getting closer and closer to orgasm, without even touching myself at all.

Sean and Mitch were picking up the pace and I felt like I was some kind of a human volleyball being passed back and forth like a hot potato.

Mitch was slapping his pelvis into my ass now and alternately my head was bouncing off of Sean's lower belly.

I could hardly stand it-- somebody has to come, and the way I was feeling, it might just be me.

Just then Sean let out a squeal, and I felt his familiar taste in my mouth-- I didn't release my lips from his dick though until I had every drop.

During Sean's orgasm, Mitch stopped pumping me, and now was riding me like a horse. Curved dick literally scraping against my inner organ, dancing around it in a circle, probing it.

He went fast and faster, and I yelled, "I'm gona cum."

Sean suddenly dropped to his knees, and in one perfect motion, my cock head went right down his throat. I spurted and spurted and spurted. And for the second time Mitch stopped humping me to allow my orgasm.

After I was done, Mitch started fucking me again, hard and fast. In another minute I had that feeling again-- it was incredible. Mich suddenly let out a small groan and grabbed my hips hard and forced me back so hard I almost fell on top of him. He buried his dick as far up into me as it could go-- Pressing that dick head HARD right against my prostate, and holding it there, and started stabbing it in extremely short quick stabs like a rabbit humping.

Oh shit, I was going to cum again. I could tell Mitch was holding back an orgasm, waiting for me. I started to moan loudly. I felt like I was being jacked off from the inside-- Oh damn-- "I'm gona cum again!," I said.

I felt Sean's lips instantly engulf my dick again, this time just sucking on the head.

Mitch then humped the hell out of me, trying to catch up to his own orgasm once again. As Mitch felt my orgasm start, he pushed his dick all the way up once again and held me tight and holding me like that with his dick there against my prostate again-- this time I could feel his own orgasm; each throb, each squirt right there on that fantastic spot. Sean was sucking HARD on the head of my dick, literally sucking the cum right out of me-- another few powerful squirts.

Afterwards, I collapsed on the grass by the stream, and Sean immediately laid on top of me, kissing me on the mouth. He released for a moment, "How silly, that you thought I'd be jealous-- and have you miss it-- this whole trip was for you." He then put his lips on mine again, turning his head sideways so his tongue could get good entrance to my mouth.

We kissed for another minute or so, and I felt like I was getting turned on again.

"We better stop, " Sean said, taking notice of my growing member.

"You might want to save some of that-- When we meet up with Tommy."

Sean said that we had to go it was getting late and we both gave Mitch a kiss on the mouth.

Finally Mitch said, "I hope to see you again, soon."

After Mitch went trotting off down river a bit, Sean said to me, "Come on, Tommy's probably waiting for us-- "

"Where?" I asked.

"By our clothes-- come on-- ," he said as he ran ahead and I as usual followed, hey its worked for me so far.

When we got back to our clothes, Tommy was there waiting.

"Damn Dereck!! Your glowing like a friggin angel--"

"Hu?"

"AND-- you look a little younger too-- and more attractive-- NOT that you weren't a god already!"

I looked to Sean, "What is he talking about?"

"Sean said to Tommy, "Well-- I guess he could pass for twelve now."

Tommy pointed to my abdomen. I looked down, and all the pubes were gone-- not that there were that many there to begin with-- but even those were gone now.

"How tall are you?" Sean asked me.

"Pretty tall, like five foot two," I said.

"I don't think, no not any more," Sean said.

"Come stand next to me, " Tommy said, "I'm Five-three."

I did, and I was over a half-foot shorter than Tommy. I said, 'What the hell?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone just had sex with a fairy!" Tommy said.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on!!" I yelled.

Tommy said, "Fairy cum Dereck-- didn't you know-- It's the fountain of Youth."

"Do you think my parents will notice?" I asked in shock.

"That you're six inches shorter or that your two years younger?" Sean asked.

"Both!!"

"Humm," Tommy said, "Hard to say-- I think you can play it off."

"I got to get to a mirror!" Dereck said.

"Well let's go then--- Geesh, I was waiting for you guys for like ever!" Tommy said as he grabbed his backpack.

"We weren't there for very long I don't think?" I said.

"Fairy time is different, time passes by more quickly here," Sean said.

I looked at my watch, "Shit-- you're right!"

"Come on-- let's go," Sean said following Tommy, "You were still randy remember?"

I nodded.

"While we walk Tommy back to the house, " Sean said, "We'll tell you what we know about Mars-- and your guardians."

I followed Sean and Tommy out of the forest and back into the world of modesty.

"Love, devotion, feel it, emotion,

Don't be afraid to be weak

Don't be too proud to be strong

Just look into your heart my friend That will be the return to yourself; the return to innocence.

The return to innocence

If you want then start to laugh

If you must then start to cry

Be yourself don't tire just believe in destiny

Don't care what people say just follow your own way Don't give up and lose the chance to return to innocence!

That's not the beginning of the end that's a return to yourself. The return to innocence."

-The Return To Innocence (Enigma)

"...Some are like water some are like the heat,

Some are a melody some are the beat

Sooner or later they all will be gone,

Why don't they stay young? It's so hard to get old without a cause..., Youths are like diamonds in the sun

And diamonds are forever... So many dreams swinging out of the blue-

Let 'em come true!

Forever young I want to be forever young.

Do you really want to live forever? Forever and ever,

forever young I want to be forever young.

Do you really want to live forever? Forever young.

-Forever Young (Alphaville)

Author: You're e-mails are very encouraging and this story is evolving

and much of its evolution is based on your feedback.

Please send comments and suggstions to darronthewitch@yahoo.com

I hope you liked Chapter Seven.

Darron The Witch.