I remember hearing shrieking tires and thinking, "Uh oh." Then I woke up here. Don't ask me where "here" is because I do not know. I just know that it's sunless but bright, and a little bit creepy. I feel things flying around me that I can't quite glimpse, which is unsettling, even though I've been here before.
I was 8 years old, in Burlington, in a dentist chair, and a very pretty dental assistant placed a mask over my face and said, "Now count backwards from a hundred. Let's see how far you can get." When I hit 94 I was no longer in the dentist's office. I was on a hill that was covered with snow. The snow was pitch black. The hill was pitch black. The sky was pitch black and so was the sled I was holding. I couldn't see anything but I knew I was where I was. I began to sled down the hill and about half-way down I realized there was a small blob of some sort sitting on top of my head. And it was laughing. At the bottom of the hill the blob hopped off, looked up at me and said, "That was great! Say, what's your name, anyway?"
And then I heard the voice of the dental assistant calling me from far away, "Wake up. It's time to wake up, Steven." I moved toward her voice and as I did the blob called out, "My name's Marvin. It was nice meeting you! I'll see you next time!"
And he did. A few years later, Ft. Stewart this time, I was knocked senseless in a bike wreck and went back to that place. Marvin and I left the hill and went into the city, his home town, and he showed me around until I had to wake up on a gurney in the hospital back in Georgia.
A year later my appendix burst and I lapsed into a coma from the shock. Again, there was Marvin waiting for me. And again when a hibachi fell off a balcony in New Orleans and landed on my head. And now...I suppose I've been hit by a bus in Tampa. I'll just sit here and wait for Marvin to come get me.