The night I met a witch on Terra View

    It was October the 25th 2014 on a cool Friday night, I was at The Coug having a beer. My good friend Bryce was in town from Seattle, we went to school together the prior fall. It was the same routine, get drunk, find a party, then the bars, maybe get a number or two, head back to the house and the hot tub/fire pit for the after party. Or at least that was always the plan, yet it never seemed to work the way we anticipated it. We soon left the Coug and headed for the Zzu, Bryce was in rare form with his infectious charismatic personality making those around him crack a smile or laugh out loud on occasion, pool was being played and it would seem I would be right in the middle of the rolling good times. Yet, for some reason or other tonight I felt off, a wave of depression was sweeping over me, to a depth that puzzled me. Bryce came back into the room with a tray full of vodka shots and chaser, we were supposed to take the shots together, but for some reason I found myself downing it w/o the proper rituals. Bryce seemed irritated at this and my ill mood, saying how my fit of pique was turning him down and this was not 'us'. He came all the way down to see me and this was a joke. I agreed and mentioned I just needed some time alone and I'd back. I stumbled out of the Zzu and headed up the gently sloping sidewalk path up to a viewpoint near a radio tower with the lay of the town on display below. It was a pretty overlook, especially at night with the city lights  shining below. I used to visit this same spot many times last fall. However, as I made my ascent up I came across a strange lady wrapped in a shawl, this was an odd sighting indeed especially for this area of town which was surrounded by college apartments, At first glance she appeared well over 60 with crinkled skin, yet it was her piercing eyes, visible in the street lights underneath the shawl that arrested my attention. Once passing I did an about face and noticed she did the same, she was walking toward me now and speaking, this odd lady wrapped in black flowing cloths and overhanging cloak was talking to me? Peering at me inquisitively now, her head slightly cocked to the side she whispered"You have a soul" shocked and stupefied by what was transpiring I awkwardly stammered in reply "Sure, we, all do". She then asked in a normal tone now, the most mundane of questions "why are you here?" well, I replied, I was just drinking with friends at the bar and found myself needing to get some fresh air for a change, the atmosphere can get stuffy in those places you know. She gave me a crooked smile that did nothing to unease my tense nerves, if it wasn't for the stimulants now flowing through my brain I daresay I would have turned and kept walking at a much faster pace, like one encountering a grizzly bear in the wild would, not bolting but walking very quickly away from perceived danger. Instead I was intrigued, and continued our correspondence. She told me she lived up the hill and was about to catch a taxi downtown but had a sixth sense of sorts, an intuition to her that she was meant to meet someone and instead set out on foot for no particular reason. She mentioned a skill she possessed in the art of telepathy. This intrigued me all the more and I replied "why did you stop me of all people? there's many college age students walking around here and  I had a hood on, surely their was something else that triggered your instincts?" She replied that it was my energy that stopped her, as soon as she walked past me, at first she thought I was an angelic being, there was a strong energy about me she had not perceived in another in a very long time. She now had my full attention and inquisitively I probed her with a series of many more questions all in an order to ascertain a better understanding of what in the h-e-l-l was happening.

    She then went on a long winded talk of the 7 senses, and asked  if I was aware of them all? The ones I knew were: sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell--Intuition and sense of body position? These were possibly the other 2 I wasn't familiar with, they seemed less quantifiable. However she continued on without allowing pause for interruption. "Have you ever experienced an intuitive flash about a person or situation that you acted on, or did you dismiss it because you felt it wasn't tied to reality? It likely came to your lost seven senses, which are hidden beyond the familiar five." "Yes, I mean sure, I cant think of any off the top of my inebriated head, but I grasp what you are saying". Attempting to get away from a deep philosophical discussion and return back to reality, I  reiterated: "why did you stop me?" Her crooked smile returned "Because of your energy, you're a genius, I can tell" perplexed I replied "how so? surely there are grad students and scholars you could have stopped along this way, I am neither of those, Mike Leach our head football coach is an enigma, he is off his rocker crazy, yet may could call him a mastermind" She shook her head in reply "No, you understand people, you are beautiful, you have a beautiful mind" Trying to get away from the awkward topic of myself and more onto something self-effacing I replied "what do you know about religion? Is Jesus real?" She said yes, of course, but look where that got him, it got him killed, trust your senses, trust what you want to be real and create it to be so" "that sounds like some unitarian self seeking religion, I think you are lying to me" She seemed offended by my response, a flicker in her eyes sent a chill up my spine that still resonates with me today. Undaunted I pressed on with the interrogation, "tell me about yourself, this is a college town with apartments ,why would you choose to reside here of all places?" She then proceeded to tell me a great deal of things, many of them did not make sense and on several instances I had to pinch myself or do a quick re-collective check on the nights proceedings to see if I was forgetting I took some hallucinogenic drug or snorted some hash. Nope, just buzzed I reassured myself. She explained to me that she was orphaned as a small child in the 30's and left to die on the streets. She was horribly abused and sexually manipulated in many sadistic ways and buried alive at the tinder age of 13, she somehow survived this event by a miraculous circumstances and was now hiding in this small town of pullman in order to avoid an intensive search of her whereabouts, apparently she had helped the US Government locate Saddam Hussein she described to me once again her many special gifts of mind reading and telepathy and proceeded to give me an unsolicated palm reading which ended in her sly smile, saying her original predictions would be correct."You will be famous someday" Famous? I thought this is ridiculous, this lady is strung out on meth, she cant be serious. Seemingly noticing the confusion written all over my face, she looked at me and replied "I'm not real you know" Of course this did nothing to soothe my angst. Questions were lingering now: How did she know I enjoyed writing, and wanted to be an author? What made her think she wasn't real?" At this point I reached out and physically touched her to make sure she wasn't a figment of my imagination and I was fallen victim to severe schizophrenia, the arm I touched was solid. "Do you eat?" I replied, she smiled widely at this seemingly preposterous suggestion, "of course" she said. This was was a rather abrupt response lacking in continuity or smoothness I thought. I now inquired "In all my travels in life, have you seen me before?" She nodded, and put up 5 fingers "five times?" startled by this I replied "when was the first? ""When you were 5" she said Her descriptions of this shocked me. Are you one of the 'watchers'? the disembodied spirits of the past age" She shook her head "I am not of those that watch people,I merely travel the earth and witness many strange undertakings" To this I replied "From everything you have gathered is the end of the age soon, is the final chapter of this world drawing to a close soon?" "Yes", she replied, then recounted the many strange occurrences that have led her to believe so.

   After a good hour or discussion with this strange lady, I thought it best to be moving on, I was sobering up now and realizing it was probably time to get moving, this time, back down the path. Before leaving she grabbed my hand, a little too firmly I thought, and said, please do me a favor, looking into my eyes now "write" write about many things, short stories of your experiences, confusion with religion, anything of that sort" I glanced up at her once more, she was speaking like a normal person now, I replied "Is this what you believe will make me famous one day?" She nodded and smiled "Yes. "I will" I said, now turning and headed back down the sidewalk,without so much as a backwards glance as I made my descent. I was feeling her very eyes peering through my back like a laser and into my very soul. Now jettisoning my viewpoint idea where my original destination lay, I forwent the bars and heading straight back to the house, my many overflowing thoughts now rambling in no particular order. It all seemed like an odd and completely obscure dream later, yet I knew it was real, to some close friends and roommates I relayed the strange events of this timely encounter, but not a great deal lest they think I was outside my mind. But I know I wasn't.


Until next time, sayonara my friends:)

:)