My memories of my time before I met Jeff are very vague, as I was quite young.  What I do remember the most is having to push and shove my brothers and sisters to get fed because I was the smallest of them.  One day, a strange lady came to play with us.  She picked each of us up and petted us then set us back down.  I was the last one she picked up because I kept trying to hide from her.  I don’t know for sure but maybe that made her like me best.  When she set me back down, I ran over to Momma for some milk.  Feeding always made me feel better when I felt stressed.

Not long after that, I got shoved into a dark box.  That was scary because I couldn’t see anything and everything got bumpy.  I could hear the lady talking to me but I just whimpered and scratched against the side of the box.  She sounded really happy but I was scared.  I just wanted to go back to Momma.

I don’t know how long she kept me in that box but it seemed like forever with all the bumps and shaking. I wished Momma was there with me and I even started missing my brothers and sisters, even though they always picked on me. The lady’s voice was soothing, but she sure didn’t smell like Momma. 

Finally, the bumping stopped and I felt her pick the box up with me in it. Now she was talking more quietly, which calmed me down. I stopped whimpering and just laid down at the bottom of the box. Not too long after, she set the box down and there were a lot more strange voices. Curious, I pressed my nose at the top of the box to try and smell what was going on out there. The voices sounded happy and they were singing something. I didn’t know what singing was back then, but it made me feel better. Maybe Momma would be waiting for me.

Suddenly the top of the box opened and a small pair of hands reached in and lifted me up. That’s when I saw him, my Jeff. He picked me up so gently and stared at me. I looked back at him and studied his face. He looked so happy to see me, but he was crying too so I didn’t know what was wrong. He pulled me close to his chest and hugged me. This made me feel better about my situation so I pushed my way up to his face and licked away the tears I saw running down his face. My tail wagged uncontrollably. I felt happier than I’d ever felt before. I was home.

“Thank you Mom! Oh my god, I love him!” My boy said.

“It’s a girl, Jeff. Look she already loves you.”

“What’s her name?”

“She doesn’t have one yet. Why don’t you give her one?”

Jeff cradled me in his arms and kissed the top of my head between my ears. Gently stroking my back, he gazed into my eyes. “I think I’m going to call her Brooklyn. She’s so cute! Thank you so much!”

The lady looked so happy. She smiled at him and said, “Of course, honey. It’s not every day you turn 12, so I wanted this to be a special day for you. You’re responsible for her, remember that, okay?”

“I will, Mom! I love her so much already!” Jeff held me close and kissed my head some more.

That’s when I realized that the strange lady was Jeff’s Momma. If she was his Momma, then I guess she was mine now. I knew I’d always miss my old Momma, but I felt at home now. I curled into Jeff’s arms and dozed off, finally happy and feeling safe.

March 26, 2026 – The New York Times is reporting today that Iranian strikes against US military installations in the Middle East have rendered them “uninhabitable”. President Trump’s illegal and poorly planned war has resulted in the diminishing of American power in the region as Iran continues its campaign against the US/Israel war machine.

Prior to the start of Operation Epstein Fury, the US had 40,000 service members stationed throughout the Middle East; the Iranian counter-attacks have damaged at least 13 bases across the Middle East so badly that the US has relocated its service members to hotels and civilian office spaces around the region, prompting Iran to accuse the US military of using the civilian workers as human shields. This scattering of military assets will undoubtedly dilute American power and make it much harder to prosecute the war.

Decades of American dominance over the Middle East has blinded the administration to the fact that Iran has spent the last twenty years preparing for exactly this contingency. After the sudden collapse of the Iraqi military in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iran made fundamental changes to its own military. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is now a decentralized military, with each province having its own headquarters and not reliant on a central authority. They operate on a “dead-man’s switch” — their standing orders are to operate autonomously and to attack the enemy if they do not receive instructions from the central government to stand down.

Despite the claims by the administration that US military operations are having a deleterious effect on Iranian strength, the war is not going well for the US. Two decades of preparation against American aggression have left Iran with stockpiles of advanced weaponry hidden throughout the mountainous country that the US wasn’t even aware they possessed. Iran fired two ballistic missiles toward Diego Garcia on March 20, demonstrating that they have the capability of striking targets as far away as Europe. Iranian officials have consistently claimed that they are currently using old stockpiles and have not yet begun using their more advanced technology. If their claims are true, then that does not bode well for the US’s ambitions of effecting regime change in Iran.

Trump has been claiming that his administration is in talks with Tehran over ending the conflict, a claim that Iranian officials deny. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian Foreign Minister, said on state television, “[The US ceasefire proposals] have been passed onto the country’s senior authorities,” but that Iran “had no intention of negotiating for now.” Iran has rejected the US peace proposal and responded with a five-point plan of its own, stating that it would “end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met”. Specifically, the Iranian conditions for ending the war are:

• the acts of aggression against Iran coming to an end
• ensuring the war will not recur
• payment of war damages and reparations
• the ending of the war on all fronts involving all resistance groups
• Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz

It is unlikely that the US/Israeli alliance will agree to any of these conditions.

March 25, 2026 – Ever since the discovery of the first Neanderthal fossil in 1856, scientists have pondered their extinction and put forward a number of different hypotheses, such as that they just weren’t fit enough to survive, that we (Homo sapiens) outcompeted them, that we drove them to extinction, and most recently, that we absorbed them into our own populations. Neanderthals emerged in Eurasia about 500,000 years ago and ranged from the Iberian peninsula in the west, the Altai Mountains in the east, and as far south as Israel.

Excavations that took place in southern Germany between 1968 and 1970 uncovered about a dozen tiny Neanderthal bones, but they went unexamined until the 1990s. After some study, Thomas Rathgeber, a German paleontologist, announced in 2006 that the 55,000 years old bones belonged to an unborn Neanderthal fetus. Most recently, a group of researchers extracted DNA from these ancient bones and determined that this fetus belonged to an old branch of the Neanderthal family tree, rather than the most recent branch that lived in Europe about 40,000 years ago. This genetic study pinpointed a population crash which greatly reduced Neanderthal genetic diversity and may have led to their extinction.

The species went through a genetic bottleneck about 65,000 years ago and may have been caused by massive ice sheets that forced the Neanderthals into southwestern France, which was mostly ice-free at the time. Once the ice sheets retreated, they once again spread throughout Europe and their populations rebounded, but they were all genetically uniform as a result of the bottleneck. They continued to survive for tens of thousands of years, but a number of different factors reduced their numbers over time.

Some of these factors may have been their low genetic variation, the return of the ice sheets, as well as competition and interbreeding with H. sapiens. Ultimately, the species went extinct between 35,000 and 24,000 years ago with the final population dying out in Gibraltar.

Because of their extinction, the Neanderthals have long been regarded as a branch of the human lineage that was intellectually stunted with no cultural significance. Indeed, they have been mocked by scientists and popular culture for over a century. In recent decades however, a different story has emerged. We now know that these were people who had a complex culture, who cared for their injured and dead, and who clearly held beliefs about what happens to people after death as evidenced from their funerary practices. They manufactured glue from birch tar, they butchered megafauna at sites using assembly line practices, they painted on cave walls, and they constructed what may have been a “temple” of sorts deep inside a cave in France.

Despite all of these advantages, they were tragically unable to overcome the factors that led to their extinction. Imagine what human society would be like today if they had survived and modern-day Earth had not one, but two, human species sharing resources and scientific knowledge.

March 24, 2026 – Rob Bonta, Attorney General for the State of California, filed a petition with the Fourth Appellate District in a bid to stop Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco from recounting the ballots from the November 2025 special election. In its rejection, the court ruled that AG Bonta should have filed the petition with the Riverside County Court.

Sheriff Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, seized 650,000 ballots from the November election, characterizing his unprecedented move as a “fact-finding mission.” His office has ignored demands from the Attorney General’s office to provide information that would explain the basis of the investigation. “The Sheriff has not identified any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone — a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is not equipped nor legally authorized to play the role of elections monitor,” says a statement from the AG office.

Voter fraud is extremely rare in California and nationwide. The Heritage Foundation maintains a database which shows only 71 cases of voter fraud convictions in the past 32 years. Sheriff Bianco himself admits that his office has not found any cases of “mass fraud” during a years-long probe into the county election systems.

I’ve been asked, “How do you know when your Adjustable Field of Consciousness is about to expand?”

The answer is that it never happens all at once. It unfolds in three distinct stages, each one building upon the last in a way that is both subtle and unmistakable once you’ve experienced it.

The first stage is contraction.

It begins quietly, almost invisibly, as I narrow my attention onto a single thought. There is nothing theatrical about it, no trance, no dramatic shift, only a deliberate gathering of mental focus. It feels like drawing the edges of my awareness inward, organizing scattered thoughts into a tighter formation. Sometimes the trigger is something mundane, like working through a paragraph or solving a small problem. But beneath the surface, something more fundamental is happening: the field is compressing.

The second stage is what I call pinpointing.

This is where the narrowing becomes intense. The external world does not disappear, but it recedes, muted, distant, almost irrelevant. Sounds dull. Movement loses urgency. Even direct speech can fail to register. My wife will sometimes repeat herself, not because I didn’t hear her, but because my awareness has collapsed so completely onto the task at hand that everything else becomes background noise.

In this phase, consciousness feels less like a broad field and more like a focused beam which is precise, controlled, and singular. There is clarity here, but it comes at the cost of everything else.

Then, without warning, the third stage begins.

Expansion.

It happens the moment the mental task on which I was working resolves, when the thought reaches its conclusion or the problem finds its answer. The release is immediate. Awareness, which had been compressed to a point, rebounds outward.

And when it does, the world returns, but not as it was.

It arrives heightened. Refreshed. New. Bright. Almost unfamiliar.

There is often a physical sensation that accompanies it: the faint rise of the hairs along the back of my neck, a subtle current along my arms, as if the body itself is registering the shift. Then the sensory field opens fully.

Colors sharpen. Light feels more present. Surfaces that once appeared flat reveal texture, patterns begin to emerge where none seemed to exist before. At times those patterns appear to move, to shimmer, to carry a quiet internal rhythm.

If I’m around other people, the effect deepens.

Faces become extraordinarily readable. Micro-expression, those fleeting, often invisible signals, stand out with unusual clarity. I don’t quite hear thoughts, but I can sense emotional direction with striking accuracy. It becomes less about what people are saying and more about what they are experiencing beneath the surface.

And if I allow the field to widen further, the entire environment transforms.

The room becomes a layered composition of simultaneous realities: one person quietly withdrawn into themselves, another radiating laughter, a third scanning the room for connection. Each individual occupies their own emotional orbit, yet all of it unfolds at once, in a kind of living mosaic.

It is, at times, overwhelming.

Not chaotic, but dense.

A heightened awareness of everything happening at once, as if perception has lost its filters and now admits the full complexity of the moment. The experience can feel almost unreal, like an intensified present where sight, sound, emotion, and intuition converge into something difficult to fully articulate.

And it is exhausting.

Sustaining that level of awareness comes at a cost. Eventually, I have to step away, to a quieter space, a hallway, even a restroom, somewhere the field can begin to settle again. The descent is gradual.

I think of it like a feather pillow that has burst open.

At first, everything is in motion, light, chaotic, suspended. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the smallest feathers begin to fall. One by one, they return to rest.

So it is with the mind.

This is what it feels like, at least for me, to experience an Adjustable Field of Consciousness.

If you have ever felt your awareness open beyond its usual limits, if you have sensed the world sharpen, deepen, or momentarily reveal more than it normally does, you may already recognize the edges of this phenomenon.

But there is something worth understanding.

Expansion is not inherently benign.

There are thresholds beyond which clarity becomes overload, and insight becomes disorientation. The same mechanism that reveals more can also destabilize what you thought was fixed.

So if you find yourself approaching that edge, proceed with caution and intention.

Because once the field expands far enough, you may begin to see not only the world differently…

…but the structures that hold it together.

And not all of them welcome being seen.

March 23, 2026 – Nearly five years after a trial court overturned his 2018 conviction for sexual assault, disgraced comedian Bill Cosby has been found liable for sexual assault in a lawsuit first filed in 2023. He is accused of sexual battery on a woman who was serving him in a restaurant back in 1972. Donna Motsinger, the woman who filed suit against him, was awarded over $59 million in damages. She alleged that he followed her home from work, invited her to one of his stand-up shows, and then drugged her in his limo.

Cosby, once the beloved TV dad from The Cosby Show as well as the voice of Fat Albert, was convicted in 2018 of drugging and sexually assaulting a Temple University employee in 2004. Over 60 women came forward with similar allegations against Cosby, shining a light on his dark side as a serial sexual predator. In 2021, a court ruled that his right against self-incrimination had been violated and overturned his conviction. Cosby served just over two years in prison when he was released.

Sweat soaked through my shirt from the sweltering heat of the day when I stepped into the house to cool off and put on a dry shirt. Jacob, my twelve year-old grandson, stared at my back as I peeled it off. Thinking back on it, I believe that was the first time he’d ever seen the scars. That’s not surprising, however, as I am a bit self-conscious about them, so I rarely let anyone see me without a shirt.

Ever the inquisitive one, Jacob asked, “Grandpa, what happened to your back?”

I turned and faced him. Short for his age, Jacob barely reached my shoulders. His blond hair fell over bright blue eyes that watched me with curiosity. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him the story of how I got the scars, but then I realized that if anyone could handle it, it would be Jacob. He was constantly reading books that would give anyone else nightmares.

I pulled a t-shirt down over my head and raised an eyebrow. “It’s not really something I like to talk about too much, Jake.”

He glanced downward, obviously disappointed. “I’m sorry Grandpa. I just never saw it before.”

“No, it’s okay,” I reassured him. “I’ll tell you. But I have to warn you, the story isn’t for kids.”

“But, I’m almost a teenager!” he protested. “I’m not a kid anymore. I bet it happened in the war, didn’t it?”

I smiled; the perspective of age sure is an amazing thing. As far as I was concerned, Jacob’s father was still a kid; and here was his son insisting that he wasn’t a kid anymore. Jacob sat cross-legged (or “criss-cross applesauce” as he likes to call it) on my bed, so I took a seat next to him and began my story…

Sixty Years Ago

It was the summer of 1941 and I had just turned seventeen years old. Though the war was distant and only an occasional headline in the paper, I figured it was inevitable that the United States would be drawn into the conflict; I was eager to fight Hitler’s army on the battlefields of Europe. I imagined myself as the hero of glorious battles from which my platoon would emerge bloodied but victorious.

That July, I traveled across the state to visit my grandfather. He lived alone in an old house that was once a plantation. The property wasn’t as large as it used to be; much of the land had been sold or seized over the years. A small creek leading into the nearby woods ran behind the house. The land was beautiful and when I was a small child, I loved to explore it and pretend that I was Davey Crockett on the run from hostile Indians.

At night, thousands of fireflies lit up the dark and owls hooted in the distance. The house was far enough from the city for a person to look up at the sky and still see the brilliance of the Milky Way shining down on him. Moonlight would cast spooky shadows across the meadow. None of this ever bothered me though. It was the inside of the house that frightened me.

The last time I’d stayed at my grandfather’s house, I was ten and always insisted on sleeping with the bedroom door open so the light from the hall would shine in. However, I’d long since outgrown my fear of the dark; so the first night I was in the house that summer, I shut the door completely.

As I lay in the antique wrought-iron bed, I closed my eyes and listened to the chirping of the crickets outside my window. I left it open to let in the cool night air and the thin curtains billowed gently each time a breeze blew in. Due to the distance from the city —or even the nearest major road— the quiet of the night was uninterrupted by the sounds of civilization. Nature’s symphony reigned at my grandfather’s home.

You know when you’re in that state when you’re falling asleep, but you’re still aware of what’s going on around you? That’s how I was when I heard something heavy slam onto the floor. My eyes shot open and I looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The moon had not yet risen that night, so it was still fairly dark in the room. All I could see were the shadows and outlines of the furniture. I decided that I’d either imagined the sound or that my grandfather had dropped something, so I rolled over, tucked a hand underneath the old worn pillow, and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t take long.

Bright sunlight shone into my room when I awakened. The clock told me that it was barely nine o’clock. On the wall opposite my bed, a great mirror reflected the morning sunlight onto my sheets. I sat up and squinted in the blinding light. A heavy book lay on the floor next to my father’s old rolltop desk. As the fog lifted from my mind, I realized that the sound I’d heard the previous night must have been from the book falling to the floor.

“That’s odd,” I said to no one in particular, “how’d it fall?” Wiping the crust from my eyes, I shrugged and climbed out of the bed. I had some chores to do before I could go into town. I picked up the book then quickly dropped it in disgust. A thin coat of slime covered it. I shoved the book into a corner with a toe and walked into the kitchen before I started on my chores.

I heard the sizzling of bacon and its aroma made my mouth water. The last time I’d eaten anything was when I rode the Greyhound yesterday morning. My grandfather stood by the gas stove. Born shortly before the Civil War, he was in his early eighties and could be quite stern. This morning, however, he was actually very genial. He flashed a toothless smile at me. I hated when he didn’t put his teeth in.

“I thought you was goin’ to sleep the day away, boy.” He always called me ‘boy’.

I sat at the kitchen table where he’d already set a plate and glass. “No sir, it’s only nine o’clock.”

He scraped a couple of slices of bacon onto the plate from the pan, the grease still sizzling on the cast-iron. “In my day, young ‘ins got up with the rooster’s crow to do mornin’ chores.” He gave me a hard look before continuing, “When can I expect you to finish your chores, boy?”

I shrugged and hungrily shoved the bacon into my mouth. “I’ll get ’em done by noon, Granddad. I wanta go into town later on too.”

Granddad sat and placed the pan in front of himself. He always ate last and always directly from the pan. I asked him once why he did that, and he told me that bacon was best eaten that way. It stayed hot and you could sop up the grease with bread before it coagulated.

“Into town, huh? You ain’t even here a full day and you’re already wantin’ to get away from the old man.”

“No, Granddad. It ain’t nothin’ like that,” I protested. “I jus’ wanna see it. I won’t be more than an hour or so.” I ate the second piece of bacon slowly so I could savor its flavor.

Granddad sliced a hunk of bread from a loaf and handed it to me. “Well then, boy. You’d best get to eatin’. You’re too thin and it ain’t healthy. You city boys never eat enough. Look at you, you’re all pasty too. Doncha know that a little sun and hard work never hurt nobody?”

I nodded in agreement. Several years had passed since I last stayed here, but I still knew that the best thing to do when Granddad started lecturing was just to agree with whatever he said. After a short spell, we finished eating and it was time to get to work.

After long day, I lay in bed about the day’s events. I met a pretty girl in town and we promised to see each other at church on Sunday. Only three days away, yet the wait seemed to me to be an eternity. I closed my eyes and thought of her sweet scent and vivacious personality. I didn’t know any girls back home as prettier as her. A smile slowly spread across my face as I reached my hand into my pajamas. That’s when I heard it.

It was a cough. I jerked my hand out from under the blanket and opened my eyes, fully expecting to see Granddad with his expression of disapproval he liked to wear. The man was old-fashioned and didn’t approve of modern attitudes toward, well, everything. However, I was alone in the room.

Puzzled, I sat up and looked around. I’d definitely heard someone cough, but there was nobody else around. A sudden movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention and I swung my head toward it. I could see nothing. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what there was — nothing. The night was still… almost too still. Even the crickets were silent.

Then from the corner of my eye, there was another movement. Instead of turning toward it this time, I tried to watch it with my peripheral vision. I could almost see it, but it was indistinct. I had the sense that it was near the mirror though, so I looked at it. I saw the reflection of the trees outside and realized that I must have seen deer through the mirror. I relaxed and lay back down and quickly fell asleep.

The next afternoon, after sweating my balls off chopping wood, I took a break and went fishing in the pond in the woods when a shirtless boy joined me. He took a position near mine and silently cast his own line into the water. His red hair complemented his freckled face. “New around here?” he finally asked.

“Visitin’ my granddad. Ain’t seen him since I was a little kid.” I replied.

The boy looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite identify. “Old Man Harvey? He’s your granddad?”

I gave my line a tug to attract the fish to the worm on the hook. “Yep. I’m stayin’ wit’ him for a coupla weeks.”

“Wow,” he said in awe. “I wouldn’t never dream of stayin’ in that house. Doncha know it’s haunted?”

“Haunted? Yea right,” I scoffed. “It’s just an old house.”

“Yea, but it’s still haunted. There ain’t enough money in the world to get me to go anywhere nears it. You ain’t heard about all the negroes that died there?”

“Yea I know there used to be slaves ’round these parts. I ain’t surprised that negroes died. Lotsa slaves lived and died before the was finally freed.”

The boy gazed at me again with that strange look, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t even know his name. I was about to ask him what it was when he spoke. “Yea, but these negroes were diff’rent. Before the war, one slave by the name of Jeremiah decided that he ain’t gonna work no more. He tol’ his master that it ain’t right to make him work in the fields like that. That same night, Jeremiah got lynched from that tree over yonder.” He pointed to the ancient oak in front of Granddad’s house that never seemed to grow leaves yet refused to die.

“Now,” he continued, “his woman, she were a witch and she cried and begged the men not to kill Jeremiah. One of them slapped her to the ground while Jeremiah was bein’ dragged up the tree by a rope ’round his neck. They whipped him as he hung there chokin’ and dyin’. After he was finally dead, she put a curse on the master. He was found dead as a doornail a week later!”

“How’d he die?” I asked. In spite of my skepticism, I found myself fascinated at his story.

“He was all tore up! Like some beast got him and decided he didn’t taste none too good. They says the beast is still in the house.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “I’ve stayed in my granddad’s house lots of times when I was little. I never saw no beast.”

He reeled in his line and scrutinized me. “Just be careful, you hear? I live over yonder if you gotta get somewheres safe.” He pointed into the woods then started walking in that direction.

“Hey, what’s your name?” I called after him.

“Call me Tom.” he said with a shrug before disappearing into the trees.

I puzzled over the strange boy the rest of the day, but didn’t bring up the story he’d told me to Granddad. I figured the kid was just trying to spook me. The full moon rose early, shining its pale light through my window. No strange noises bothered me that evening, and I nodded off as soon and my head hit the pillow.

A wet shuffling sound awakened me several hours later. I opened my eyes but didn’t raise my head from the pillow. I looked over at the old clock on the nightstand; the glow of the radium-painted hands told me that it was shortly after one in the morning. The moon must have already set because the room was pitch dark.

Holding my breath, I listened intently. There was a noise coming from the far end of the room. It was difficult to describe, but it seemed to be a cross between the shambling of a wino and a snake’s slither over dead leaves. Whatever it was, it moved quickly across the room. My heart raced; I never had to deal with a prowler before.

I reached into the nightstand and grabbed the flashlight I kept in case I needed to use the toilet at night. Pulling myself into a sitting position, I shined the light toward the sound, but didn’t see anything. The light reflected off the mirror and I thought I saw something moving in it. I quickly climbed out of bed and dashed to the window. Nothing stirred outside.

My heart pounded in my chest. I knew that there had been someone in the room with me, but now there was no sign of him. I began to wonder if Tom’s warning actually had some merit. My flashlight flickered twice then suddenly cut off; I slapped it a couple of times, but my efforts to get it working again were in vain. I was left standing alone in the dark. The skin on the back of my neck crawled.

That’s when I heard it behind me. I swung around, holding the flashlight like a weapon. That shuffling-slithering sound was coming from near my bed. I struggled to see through the dark but could only see vague shapes. Unbelievably, the room actually seemed to be growing darker. I carefully walked toward the source of the sound, taking slow and measured breaths as I approached.

I could hear my heart thudding in my ears. My hands shook with primal fear. I struggled with the light again. Something by the bed sighed loudly. I tried to call out for Granddad, but my voice got caught in my throat; instead, only a tiny squeak escaped. I could now see a shadow looming over my bed. I stopped and stared at it. My mind screamed at me to leave the room, and to run from it now; but, I was frozen to the spot.

From within the shadow, I spied a pair of red glowing embers. They appeared to be too small to be eyes, but that’s what they must have been. It turned toward me and growled quietly. I warm liquid flowed down my pajama pants; I ignored the piss. The … thing started toward me. Its malevolent eyes bore into mine and I found myself unable to break its gaze as it approached. I felt a wave of pure hated flow over me from its direction.

I stood stock still. It was only a few feet away and I could still not make out what it was. It stayed in the shadows where it remained completely invisible. It circled me, but I heard no footfalls. It seemed to be slithering around me. I had the impression that it was sizing me up. After a while, I could no longer hear it moving around.

I could still hear the thing’s heavy breathing and feel its evil eyes upon me. Its watchful gaze felt tangible against my skin. I wasn’t sure where it was, but it seemed to be near the mirror. My thumb flicked desperately at the switch on the flashlight as I tried in vain to turn it back on. The thing growled at me just as the bulb’s weak light finally ripped through the darkness.

I swung the light toward the thing, but saw only the mirror on the wall. I looked around the room but found nothing. I was alone. The only thing I saw was a shiny trail of slime where the thing had been slithering. The trail circled me and led to the mirror.

That was the final straw for me. I rushed to the wall and turned on the light. The light was dim, but I felt safer within its glow. I began packing my bags; I absolutely was not going to spend another night in this house. I would leave a note for Granddad and go straight to the bus station. I’d wait there all night if necessary.

The light suddenly went out with a quiet pop while I was putting on my shoes and the darkness once again engulfed the room. Struggling to maintain control of my sanity, I sat on the edge of my bed and listened intently. It wasn’t long before the slithering sound returned. Now I was terrified beyond all belief, and I bolted toward the door. Safety lay beyond it.

The thing leapt onto me before I reached the door. I screamed in agony as it shredded my back with unseen claws. I collapsed to the floor and the thing wrapped itself around my body. The touch of its slimy skin burned like a hot poker. Blood poured freely from my back where it was still attacking me. My shrieks shattered the silence of the night.

I felt it constricting me, forcing the breath from my lungs. I felt my ribs snapping like twigs. I was soon unable to breathe. A putrid miasma overwhelmed my nostrils. A demonic face appeared in front of mine. The stench oozed from its fanged and drooling mouth. It had no nose — just a pair of slits that opened and closed as it breathed. A clawed hand swung down and slashed open my chest. My lungs burned for lack of air and my vision began to dim.

Suddenly, a bright light shined on me and the creature howled with fury as it suddenly vanished. I lay trembling in a pool of my blood. The fire was cool and sweet as I hungrily gulped it in. The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was a red-haired boy standing by my window.

Present Day

Jacob sat on my bed, transfixed. His jaw hung open in disbelief and his face had gone pale. “What happened then, Grandpa?” he whispered.

“I woke up a week later in the hospital. A pretty nurse was washing my face when I came to. She was the first thing I saw, so I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I later married her, and she’s over there in the kitchen. She’s your grandmother.”

“What did she say about the monster?”

I leaned toward Jacob conspiratorially and whispered, “I never told her. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

“That’s freaky, Grandpa. Did you ever find out what it was?”

I shook my head. “It hasn’t been seen since. I think whatever that old witch summoned went back to wherever it came from.”

That was a lie. I sometimes still hear strange sounds coming from the room in which Jacob sleeps when I sit outside his door with a flashlight just in case.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 10, 2008 AT WRITING.COM
(c) 2008, CHRISTOPHER CAMACHO, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

March 21, 2026 – A second meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in mid-air over the US today. Earlier this week, a small asteroid broke up over Ohio whereas today’s meteor did so over southeast Texas around 4:40pm. One Houston resident reported a possible meteorite which broke through her roof and landed inside her home.

March 20, 2026 – CBS News is reporting that multiple sources have told them that the Pentagon has submitted detailed plans for launching a ground invasion of Iran. While President Trump continues to claim that he isn’t planning to send troops into Iran, he has been reportedly considering doing so. One reported plan involves seizing Kharg Island, a key strategic point that would be pivotal to reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has already deployed approximately 2,500 US Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the USS Boxer amphibious unit to the Middle East in recent days. CBS News also reports that elements of the 82nd Airborne Division (US Army) are preparing to deploy as well.

It is worth noting that the United States has not fought in a declared war as required by Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution since World War II, nor has it decisively won any conflict since the Gulf War in 1991. The US’ worst military failure in recent decades was the conflict in Vietnam, in which 58,200 American service members lost their lives against the Viet Cong. Battles in Vietnam were fought in the jungles, which gave the North Vietnamese a sizable home field advantage over the then-poorly trained American military.

Trump has reportedly been advised not to go to war against Iran. He has reportedly been advised that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, that Iran would not fold, that it would be a long and costly war. But this man, who famously disparaged the late Senator McCain for having been captured by the North Vietnamese, who has called wounded and KIA service members “suckers and losers”, who dodged the draft five times, believes that he knows more about war than officers who have spent their entire adult lives serving in the military. And it does not help matters that he appointed an alcoholic National Guard Major who has never deployed in his entire military career as the Secretary of Defense.

The American people voted against forever wars. Trump promised “no new wars”. But much like George H.W. Bush’s pledge of “no new taxes,” this has proven to be a lie. Indeed, he launched this new war just as the heat from the fallout of the Epstein Files was beginning to feel unbearable. His own base was beginning to lose faith in him over the revelations coming out from the files, so he appears to have needed to do something to distract from the files and to reinvigorate his faithful. Picking a fight against Persians and destroying the world’s economy in the process seems to have been his go-to choice.

This is not a war the US is going to win. We are going to lose, and we are going to lose badly.

Op-Ed

March 18, 2026 – Scientists in Greenland have found microbial fossils dating back 3.7 billion years, which is 220 million years earlier than the previously oldest-known fossils. The fossils were in the form of stromatolites, which are structures formed by microbial mats. Modern-day stromatolites can be found in Australia, which have provided valuable insight to scientists who study this early form of life.

The presence of stromatolites a mere 800 million years after the formation of the Earth indicates that life emerged rapidly once the planet cooled enough to support liquid water. How organic matter managed to arrange itself into self-replicating molecules from which the first cells emerged remains a subject of study and discussion amongst researchers. One of the leading hypotheses is the “RNA World”, in which RNA was the first self-replicating molecule that served as the foundation for the emergence of life. Whatever the mechanism ultimately was, it is increasingly clear that it was a very rapid process on geologic timescales.

The history of life on Earth is long, much longer than the human mind can easily grasp. With this new dating of early life, we now know that Earth has been a living world for 3,700,000,000 years. During most of this time, ecosystems on the planet were comprised mainly of archaea, bacteria, and viruses Complex life —organisms containing nucleic structures within their cells— emerged around 2.1 billion years, when a bacterium attempted to consume a mitochondrion, but the would-be victim managed to survive and thrive within the interior of the bacterium. This fortuitous event provided a benefit for both that bacterium and that mitochondrion, forming a symbiotic relationship which formed the foundation of all multicellular life that has existed ever since. Had that not occurred, Earth would likely to this day be a world dominated by microbes and microbial mats and be uninhabitable for anything else.

The rapid emergence of life on Earth also suggests that similar biospheres may be extremely common in the universe. If we ever discover extant life on another world beyond our own, it will most likely be microbial in nature. On Earth, it took billions of years for multicellular life to appear and then hundreds of millions of years for it to leave the seas and conquer the land. The Homo genus itself, to which our species belongs, did not emerge until long after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Taking all of this into account, we are unlikely to ever encounter another intelligent species capable of establishing a civilization.

Indeed, when one considers how old the universe itself is, we may actually be the only such example that currently exists at this point in time in the galaxy (or at least this region of it). Perhaps there was another civilization on another world a billion years ago, but that does not mean that there are any others today. Maybe humanity is the first. Maybe it’s the last in a line of species that rose and fell over the eons. Life almost certainly exists elsewhere, but we are unlikely to ever encounter another civilization.