MADMANMIKE
Skilled Investigator
..What was yours?
..For me, things have always been strange; I have Asperger's Syndrome, which affords me about 20% more sensitivity in every physical sense. So introspection has always been a bit more natural to me. However, I have a few events, that although they caused a higher level of introspection, have also caused me to step out of my shell and move more towards "normalcy"; when you are forced to realize how different you are and your life is, becoming normal turns into an obsession, and nobody obsesses like an Autistic person.
..When I was seven, I went through my year of hell. In that year, I was struck by lightning, we lost two homes to fire, the second five days before Christmas, my sister and I were molested, my parents were separated and got back together, and we moved across the state never to see my early childhood friends again. I remember the second fire, waking up lying in a foot of snow with my mother standing in the doorway screaming "Get out! And don't come back!" I wore a one piece pajama set with feet in it. My father was spending the night and I wanted to go with him when he returned to his house in the city, and it was a very cold night in our drafty house that was heated by a 50 gallon drum-stove, so I had dressed for the next day and put my pajamas on over my clothing.
..But the thing that was a bit more strange than that odd bit of fortune, is our neighbors. There were three generations living in that tiny house, a grandmother, parents, and children, ranging in age from 10 to 18 (an estimate from their appearance, not from knowing them personally). They all looked alike, save from different height, age and sex; thick curly long black hair, pale skin and sharp features; I remember the only times I saw them was when they worked their garden, which covered pretty much their entire fenced in yard, and was filled with asparagus, which of course looks like tiny trees.
..When the house caught fire neighbors from all over the village came to help my parents get as much of our things out of the house as possible. This strange family next door just stood in their garden and watched, blank expressions on their odd identical faces.
..When I was sixteen, I saw a UFO. Two friends and I were walking East, on our way home from the video store. As we cut across the parking lot of the community center, I noticed a fire in the sky. It was large and moving fast; my first reaction was that it was an airliner crashing, as I could see silver through the flames and there were two fireballs, the second following behind the first, like an explosion had broken it in half.
..It was so large and moving so fast that we were sure it was going to crash in the city. We got in my friends car and followed it as it disappeared to the north. After about an hour of driving and getting ourselves lost in downtown, we realized that it must have been higher than we thought and thus much larger than an airplane.
..Excited with the realization of what we saw, we rushed home and running into my house we told my mother.
..She looked at me and said "Oh, that was on the news.. look they're recapping now.." I turned to the television and the anchor said "..a Russian satellite fell out of orbit tonight, visible from all over the midwest, crashing into Northern Arkansas.."
..I couldn't believe it. We were in Kansas City, a good three hundred miles north of Arkansas, and followed it as it disappeared over the Northern Horizon; the news states it crashed south of us and everyone eats it up. I never heard a word about it from anyone else, and when I asked people they knew nothing about it.
..Maybe it was a Russian Satellite, but if it was, why the blatant lie?! Since then I've had to question everything. EVERYTHING. And let me tell you, that's not a fun way to live.
..On the other hand, having my eyes opened that wide has led me down a different path from the one "normal people" walk.
..So what about everyone else?
-Mike
..For me, things have always been strange; I have Asperger's Syndrome, which affords me about 20% more sensitivity in every physical sense. So introspection has always been a bit more natural to me. However, I have a few events, that although they caused a higher level of introspection, have also caused me to step out of my shell and move more towards "normalcy"; when you are forced to realize how different you are and your life is, becoming normal turns into an obsession, and nobody obsesses like an Autistic person.
..When I was seven, I went through my year of hell. In that year, I was struck by lightning, we lost two homes to fire, the second five days before Christmas, my sister and I were molested, my parents were separated and got back together, and we moved across the state never to see my early childhood friends again. I remember the second fire, waking up lying in a foot of snow with my mother standing in the doorway screaming "Get out! And don't come back!" I wore a one piece pajama set with feet in it. My father was spending the night and I wanted to go with him when he returned to his house in the city, and it was a very cold night in our drafty house that was heated by a 50 gallon drum-stove, so I had dressed for the next day and put my pajamas on over my clothing.
..But the thing that was a bit more strange than that odd bit of fortune, is our neighbors. There were three generations living in that tiny house, a grandmother, parents, and children, ranging in age from 10 to 18 (an estimate from their appearance, not from knowing them personally). They all looked alike, save from different height, age and sex; thick curly long black hair, pale skin and sharp features; I remember the only times I saw them was when they worked their garden, which covered pretty much their entire fenced in yard, and was filled with asparagus, which of course looks like tiny trees.
..When the house caught fire neighbors from all over the village came to help my parents get as much of our things out of the house as possible. This strange family next door just stood in their garden and watched, blank expressions on their odd identical faces.
..When I was sixteen, I saw a UFO. Two friends and I were walking East, on our way home from the video store. As we cut across the parking lot of the community center, I noticed a fire in the sky. It was large and moving fast; my first reaction was that it was an airliner crashing, as I could see silver through the flames and there were two fireballs, the second following behind the first, like an explosion had broken it in half.
..It was so large and moving so fast that we were sure it was going to crash in the city. We got in my friends car and followed it as it disappeared to the north. After about an hour of driving and getting ourselves lost in downtown, we realized that it must have been higher than we thought and thus much larger than an airplane.
..Excited with the realization of what we saw, we rushed home and running into my house we told my mother.
..She looked at me and said "Oh, that was on the news.. look they're recapping now.." I turned to the television and the anchor said "..a Russian satellite fell out of orbit tonight, visible from all over the midwest, crashing into Northern Arkansas.."
..I couldn't believe it. We were in Kansas City, a good three hundred miles north of Arkansas, and followed it as it disappeared over the Northern Horizon; the news states it crashed south of us and everyone eats it up. I never heard a word about it from anyone else, and when I asked people they knew nothing about it.
..Maybe it was a Russian Satellite, but if it was, why the blatant lie?! Since then I've had to question everything. EVERYTHING. And let me tell you, that's not a fun way to live.
..On the other hand, having my eyes opened that wide has led me down a different path from the one "normal people" walk.
..So what about everyone else?
-Mike
