Doctor Gillespie's Discovery

By J. R. Duke

Research scientist Doctor Gillespie has made one of the most momentous discoveries about our existence: that there is a biological basis for sexual orientation, a longtime controversial theory proven by the doctor to be factual, which means we actually are born to be the way we are.

Doctor Gillespie's discovery triggers predictable outrage from skeptics, some of whom privately intend to have it discredited and suppressed at any cost including silencing the doctor through assassination.

The unacknowledged leader of this criminal opposition to the discovered truth is perhaps the biggest homophobe in the world, a prominent conservative religious-political activist holding the public's ear captive with a round-the-clock televangelism talk show who uses his media empire to manipulate his massive audience into sharing his beliefs.

Is he powerful enough to undermine the truth about who we really are?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. R. Duke
• Release date: Sep 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310965531

J. R. Duke

Much like the narrator of his novel, Doctor Gillespie's Discovery, J. R. Duke lives alone out in the boonies on the big island of Hawaii where life is generally always peaceful and quiet, interrupted only occasionally by volcano eruptions, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

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Prolog

This has found you at last --

Greetings from far away -- somewhere -- gliding slowly over the ocean stretching endlessly beneath me in every direction to the edges of the sky -- I am drifting aimlessly, partly under my own power, mostly at the fancy of the wind at my back, to no known destination except survival which I fear I may not reach --

If you’re reading this then part of me survives and will never die -- I’m glad it’s gotten to you, from my mind to yours -- I knew it would eventually, only a matter of when -- the thought of you some day receiving this has fueled my focus and determination to stay aloft for as long as possible, or at least long enough to say what must be said and can only be said by me --

This is my story for you about my search for the truth -- promise me you’ll share it with all the others, the rest of us which is everyone, as they will come to discover somewhat reluctantly, as did I --

Messenger

1. An Unexpected Visitor

I would prefer not to begin a tale about a search for the truth with what will surely be considered, understandably, a lie, but unfortunately I have no choice. What I am about to describe that happened to me is exactly what did happen at the beginning and is so essential to the telling of all that came after that it must be included. The fact is that I had an experience with an alien presence originating from somewhere beyond the reaches of existence as we know it. In other words, I saw a UFO.

I realize that making such a claim is one of the quickest routes to incredulity and ridicule, that those who do invite unflattering epithets such as charlatan or lunatic, and that UFO sightings are one of those universally denied phenomena such as ghosts and abominable snowmen that are not permitted to exist according to majority rule, no matter how much proof accumulates to the contrary. Nevertheless, I did see something which was an object that flew and was unidentifiable, at least by me.

The setting of my close encounter was consistent with that of countless reported sightings by others over the years, which tends to weaken the credibility of mine even more. It occurred at night in a remote location where I was alone which made me, also typically, the only witness. But that’s where the similarities end. Unlike the others I wasn’t abducted and forced to be a guinea pig for invasive sexual experimentation, nor befriended by a herd of miniature alien beings with bug-eyes and large foreheads. Furthermore, my own particular sighting was not the main event. Compared to the related incidents I would find myself involved in shortly thereafter it would turn out to be the most unremarkable of them all.

It happened in Hawaii on the big island, the one actually named Hawaii that has an active volcano and, if measured from the base beneath the sea, the two tallest mountains in the world, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. At the southern tip of this diamond-shaped island is the district of Kau (pronounced KAH-oo) that is characterized by macadamia nut farms, expansive cooled lava flows of black crumbling rock from a 1907 eruption of Mauna Loa, and an extremely low population density that is especially inviting to individualists with a persistent thirst for getting away from it all. One such person was me.

My own recent arrival there was the result of certain defining circumstances of my youth. I had been figuratively drifting through life long before I was condemned to my present actual doomed flight to nowhere. I have no roots to speak of; my parents were nothing but a faint memory after giving me up for adoption at a very young age for reasons unknown. Subsequent to that, none of the several sets of caring but distant foster parents I was passed among in my childhood displayed any lasting affection I can recall, with the one exception of my Uncle Billy, a single parent whose lavish devotion to me, his foster son, gradually grew to be noticeably uncalled-for during the dozen or so years we were together. I was later to learn that our relationship might have eventually developed into something that, in the naiveté of my youth, I was incapable of imagining, if he hadn’t succumbed to and was stopped by a premature end officially attributed to an exhausted liver.

It was Uncle Billy who, by his death, was responsible for the shamefully ambitionless lifestyle I was to coast into after he was gone, when I became old enough to be on my own. It was then I was told, much to my surprise, that I had been pronounced the sole heir to his estate, which provided an annuity generous enough to keep me comfortably existing without ever having to seek gainful employment. In addition, I became the title holder to a secluded two acre parcel of wooded land in the aforementioned Kau district of the big island of Hawaii on which Uncle Billy had built a cabin to escape to periodically, whenever life in the mainstream world became too intolerable for him to suffer.

Although initially I had no interest in doing anything with this remote property other than selling it when the real estate market perked up in that part of the world, I know now, in view of all that has happened to me since then, that I was destined to travel there eventually, first on vacation out of curiosity and then to return to make it my home after finding what a perfect complement its hideaway flavor was to my chosen uninvolved way of life.

The cabin that Uncle Billy built on this property was much more than the usual one-room shack without plumbing. It was a two-story, three-bedroom cedar house sequestered within a dense forest of tall, spindly ohia trees that are indigenous to lava flow areas. The house had beautiful all wood interiors and vaulted ceilings throughout, and a luxuriously ornate crystal chandelier hanging impressively in the dining room that must have been an antique Uncle Billy had picked up somewhere on the mainland and shipped to his island getaway, no doubt at great expense. There were enough furnishings in the cabin for a large family, leading me to suspect Uncle Billy hadn't necessarily built it to be alone. My suspicions were confirmed one day several weeks after I had moved there and was still getting settled in, which happened to be the same day I was to have my otherworldly experience.

That evening I was cleaning out a hall closet to make room for some of my belongings and found a large cardboard box Uncle Billy had left stored there in the back. I made the mistake of opening the box to see what it contained. Inside I discovered Uncle Billy's alter ego. All the paraphernalia a man should need to pursue an alternative lifestyle and entertain likeminded others was there in abundance including an extensive collection of adult all-male videos, gay erotic magazines, and numerous other items of perversity too unsavory to mention. Any question in my mind I may have had until then about my late foster parent's private life had now become a certainty, although I would rather have not known.

I came across a couple of other items in the box that were glaringly out of place with what I had already uncovered. The first was a brochure for a religious group's pricey self-improvement retreats sponsored by a well-known televangelist named, simply, Luce, suggesting that Uncle Billy had considered dramatically changing the direction his life had taken. The second item had been tucked carefully away at the bottom of the box as if it had been hidden there. It proved to be even more unsettling than the secret repugnant accessories of Uncle Billy's private life. It was a photo of me as a little boy, at the same age I would have been when Uncle Billy took over the responsibility of my upbringing. I stared at this earlier version of myself staring back at me from the past with a heartbreakingly innocent smile and childish twinkle in my eye and I nearly began to cry. I felt a twinge of revulsion as I recalled some of the personal times Uncle Billy and I had spent together that now could have a darker subtext I was unaware of back then. My only consolation was that he had never tried anything unseemly with me, although I wondered with anger and disgust how close to the flame of that temptation he had been drawn.

That was something, of course, I would never know so there was no point in agonizing over it. I wished I hadn’t opened the box in the first place, but it was a natural thing for someone moving in to do. It occurred to me that Uncle Billy might have left it there on purpose knowing that some day I would unearth it as I had, and that it was an intended message sent by him to me from beyond the grave. Here, look at this, the box seemed to say, now you know the truth about me, what do you think? I didn’t want to think about it at all. If Uncle Billy had chosen to lead a life of abnormality and drink himself to death because of his self-loathing and rejection by the rest of the world, which was an easy enough conclusion to reach, that was his business and none of mine. I closed the box and put it back into the closet where it belonged.

There was another possession of Uncle Billy's I came across the same evening in a kitchen drawer that I found less distasteful. It was a plastic sandwich bag of marijuana, or pakalolo as the Hawaiians call it (literally, crazy tobacco), and a small brass pipe and partially used book of matches. I unscrewed the pipe to sniff the black residue inside and flinched from the strong burnt aroma that assailed my nostrils. Was this a gift with a wink from the other side or just a stash that hadn’t been stashed very well? I was no stranger to the popular sensation-heightening cannabis drug, so this find didn't worsen the newly sullied opinion I had of Uncle Billy. There was no telling by its looks how old the contents of the bag were or if it was still good enough to smoke, but there was one way to find out.

I went into the living room where the television was turned on, as it usually was to provide passive company, and sat down in front of it to carefully fill the bowl of the little pipe with some of the shredded weed. I lit it, took a couple of deep inhalations, and waited to let the familiar peculiarly pungent smoke do its thing on my nervous system, if it was still potent enough to do so. However, other than causing me to cough, nothing happened. I continued puffing and inhaling for the next fifteen minutes or so with the same lack of results and concluded, with disappointment, that the pakalolo had exceeded its shelflife. It was then that the spaceship arrived.

I heard it before I saw it. Uncle Billy had equipped the house with a small satellite dish that wasn’t powerful enough to receive any station very clearly. As usual the reception of a movie musical from the thirties I had on was snowy and accompanied by static in the sound, so I wasn’t all that concerned when I began to hear, in addition, a low intrusive hum in the background. It wasn’t long though before this hum became so irritating that I thought about turning off the television if it got any worse.

It did, very quickly. In a matter of seconds the noise got so loud that it was drowning out the television program altogether. I continued to watch thinking it might go away at any moment as had similar disturbances in the past, and it wasn’t until I pressed the remote control's mute button during a commercial that I learned the noise wasn't from the television at all. The persistent hum came from outside the house.

But it was no longer a hum. In had increased in volume to a much more attention-getting howl that sounded like the dying wail of a plane on its way to crashing. That had to be what it was. Despite the fact that I lived fifty miles away from the nearest airport and its flight patterns some type of plane or helicopter was rapidly falling from the sky in my direction.

I almost stopped breathing. Panic seized me in its paralyzing grip. I actually couldn’t move. It didn’t matter because there was nothing I could do anyway except wait and see how close I would come to being incinerated by the crippled aircraft apparently plummeting on its way to earth and horrific imminent disaster. It sounded so dangerously close that I was certain the crash into my house would come next. But it didn’t. That was when I got my first look of what it was.

Through a window I glimpsed a huge silvery object go gliding by at tremendous speed accompanied by a strong wave of vibrations that shattered the glass of the window with a startling crash. It had happened so fast I couldn’t tell what I had seen, but whatever it was that zoomed by had apparently missed my house intentionally and wasn’t out of control on an accidental path of destruction as I assumed. It seemed to be landing safely and had chosen my place as its destination. Why, I had no idea.

The next thing to occur was as unexpected as what I had just heard and seen. It was the quiet I was accustomed to, resuming abruptly, as if someone had turned off the switch to all the unusual noises and sights of the last few moments. The danger, real or imagined, I thought I had been in seemed to be over. I felt relieved and safe again, but not for long. That’s because now I decided to go investigate whatever it was that had just parked itself in the cleared area behind my house.

I headed for the front door and then hesitated. Should I call the police first or the fire department? Was I making a mistake and about to put myself in danger? And if I did go out there, shouldn’t I take something with me to protect myself? Since it was dark I would probably need a flashlight to keep from stumbling, which I could also use as a weapon of sorts if the need arose. I dashed into the kitchen to get one from an odds and ends drawer and made a quick circuit through the back rooms of the house to see what could be seen from the windows. Not much. There were too many bushes and trees in the way. All I could make out was a glow of yellowish-white light. It was time to go get a closer look. I took a deep breath and then rushed back to the front door and went outside. I remember that at this point I was strangely more excited than apprehensive about facing what promised to be an adventure, if only a small one, mainly because I anticipated that after I had had my look-see and figured out what this was it would be over. I wonder how I would have felt had I known then that I had left my house for the last time in my life and would never see it again.

Although I have a healthy imagination and an appreciation for the fantastic, my mind has always been firmly rooted in reality, so I naturally concluded that my unknown visitor originated from the nearby vicinity and certainly from this planet. It did cross my mind that it might be a UFO, but I immediately dismissed this thought. That was something that happened only in movies, or was alleged to have happened in real life by skillful liars and unfortunates with defective wiring. But a UFO landing in my backyard? Ridiculous. Or so I believed.

As I headed around the side of the house to the backyard the flashlight kept me on a steady course to where the mysterious aircraft was located. The closer I approached the less necessary the flashlight became due to the glow I had observed from the back window. I speculated that this must be coming from headlights of some kind. Whatever it was, it grew so bright as I got nearer that I turned off the flashlight to save the batteries and put it in my back pocket, forgetting I had intended to use it as a weapon if necessary and thus disarming myself in the process.

That was a smart thing to do, said a voice.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked carefully around me but no one was there. Had I really heard someone or was it just my own thought to myself? I decided that’s what it must have been.

No, it wasn’t you, that was me, the same voice said, but not out loud. It was talking to me in my head. Great. Now I was not only seeing things but also hearing voices. I was either going crazy or having the weirdest experience of my life. Panic staged another attack on my nervous system freezing me into a statue.

There's no need to be afraid, the voice in my head gently continued. Amazingly, I stopped being afraid. I was suddenly overwhelmed with burning curiosity at an intensity I had never experienced before that overrode any other feeling I was having.

Please come forward and enter.

It was an invitation, not a command, and now that I had become relaxed once more I did as I was bidden. My heightened curiosity took over and I ran the rest of the way. When I got there and saw the spaceship in full view I felt like a half-asleep child who had raced down the stairs on Christmas morning to stand in awe of the mountain of presents that had appeared surreptitiously overnight. What a present this was to behold.

It was a far cry from being an airplane or helicopter, or any other type of aircraft I had ever seen. And yet I had seen it somewhere before, I just couldn’t remember when or where. I felt a quick electric spasm inside my head as if it had been given a prod and I suddenly remembered where I had seen the spaceship, or one very much like it. Flash Gordon had flown a similar one in those old movie cliffhangers. It wasn’t a streamlined flying saucer or any other sophisticated design such as those envisioned by today's future-thinkers. It was ungainly and ugly, shaped like a huge fish embellished on the top, sides, and rear with jagged art deco fins and two bright headlights where eyes should be that contributed to the spaceship's fishlike resemblance.

A door at the front of the spaceship opened downward slowly like a mouth to the fish and became a ramp for entry. Fearlessly I marched up to this metallic jaw and went inside. It closed behind me more hastily than it had opened, as if to prohibit escape, but that was an unnecessary precaution because I had been swallowed whole willingly without the slightest thought of resistance.

Welcome!

The now familiar voice embraced me in a warm mental hug creating the convincing illusion that I was the awaited guest of honor arriving at a homecoming rather than a possible human captive who had just boarded an alien spaceship. The interior atmosphere was not as receptive. I was surrounded by almost total darkness with only enough light for me to see where I was standing. The rest was shrouded in heavy shadows, and as my eyes slowly got accustomed to the pervading gloom I began to perceive an impossibility. I was at the edge of a vast, empty space that reminded me of a darkened convention center without the chairs, an area that couldn’t begin to fit inside the spaceship I had just seen from the outside. It was truly amazing. It had to be some sort of a trick.

It's not a trick. The voice was still reading my mind and I realized that, for the time being, I had been stripped of the luxury of private thoughts. Come closer, please.

I started to ask which way to go, but by now I could see a dim spotlight several yards ahead of me and so that was the direction I headed.

My footsteps echoed loudly and eerily throughout the darkened interior as I walked toward the small circle of light and I couldn’t help becoming apprehensive, so much so that I wondered how close to a cardiac arrest I would be if someone came up from behind and said boo. An unknown force seemed to detect my returning nervousness and sent a tranquilizing surge of serenity sweeping through my mind that made me pleasantly drowsy. I sleepwalked the rest of the way to the lighted area and stopped when I got there. What I now saw awakened me from my fog as effectively as cold water splashed rudely in my face.

Incredibly, in the center of the spotlight a few feet away from me was an antique oak S-curved roll top desk with a matching swivel chair. Another chair was nearby. Seated in the one at the desk was a man with his back to me dressed in what looked like a jumpsuit made from aluminum foil. He was working on some papers and seemed to know that I had arrived because he immediately stopped what he was doing and turned around with a big smile on his face to greet me. It was Dick Cavett.

Hi, he said as he got up to shake my hand. Have a seat.

We both sat down. What followed was a conversation that laid the groundwork for the astonishing direction my life would take from then on and would send me on a search for the truth about life which, as it turned out, was the secret of Doctor Gillespie's discovery.

2. A Conversation With Dick Cavett

Congratulations.

What for?

You're one of the few that made it this far without spazzing on me.

Then all the other contacts by UFOs were real.

Of course they were. We've tried this so many times that you people have gotten too used to it, like the boy crying wolf. If we don’t get through to you pretty soon we're going to pack up our flying saucers and go scare the bejesus out of living beings someplace else.

This isn’t a flying saucer.

That’s just a generic term. This isn’t even really a spaceship. It's an optical illusion, similar to what you call a hologram. It's the only way we can appear in your atmosphere with the energy of our form of existence.

So creatures from outer space look like humans.

Ouch -- go easy with the word creature. I'm not a giant spider with the jawline of an alligator. I've scanned your mind for your concept of the most benign, non-threatening appearance I could look like to you. I'm tailor-made to your thoughts. Do I pass muster?

Who are you?

Oh, dear, you're one of those who prefers to cut to the chase. I was hoping we could chew the fat a little more first. There's no need for alarm. I'm not going to eat you or ask to be taken to your leader. You and I both know what a waste of energy that would be. I seem to be making you nervous by my appearance. Maybe I made a mistake and accidentally configured myself as someone scary. Let me guess. I look like a Republican, right?

No, you look just like a TV personality named Dick Cavett.

Never heard of him, has he ever been on the Jerry Springer Show?

I don’t think so.

That’s the only program we watch -- in addition to I Love Lucy, of course. Whoops, you're not laughing, that was supposed to be moderately amusing. I guess my intergalactic humor needs a little work. Listen, just try to relax. Call me Dick -- or Mr. Cavett if you're more comfortable with that.

How should I refer to you if I want to tell somebody else about you coming here? They'd think I was crazy if I said Dick Cavett landed in a spaceship in my backyard.

Yes, they certainly might. Hmmm, let's see -- I'm a presence of energy that’s alien to you. How does alien presence grab you?

I guess that'll work. Why are you here?

To give you some important news and also to ask a little favor. That’s it in a nutshell.

What's the news?

That McDonald's fries suck. I'm just kidding, I've never actually tasted them -- I'm sure they're delicious. The real news is that your world could be coming to an end, and I'm not kidding about that. Which brings me to the favor. How would you like to help save your world? I know that’s a wee bit more complicated than asking for something simple like the correct time, but you were the one wanting to get to the point.

Why me?

Because you happened to be at the right place at the right time, or the wrong place if you're not up to it. We prefer a candidate who's isolated from everyone else. It tends to simplify things. That’s what you get for being a loner.

How could I help save the world?

All you have to do is find somebody and give him a message from us. That’s about it. We don’t have a way to reach him ourselves. It's got to be done by someone like you.

Where is this person?

We're not sure. The only specific information we have on his whereabouts is that at one point he was located in a place called San Diego, but that could have been anywhere from a few seconds to a billion years ago. We have difficulty relating to your time intervals. His name is Doctor Gillespie.

What am I supposed to tell him?

Our message is to get on with it, get over it, or forget it. That shouldn’t mean anything to you, but he'll understand.

What if I don’t want to find this Doctor Gillespie and give your message to him?

That’s up to you. We hope you do. We kind of like this place.

I'll think about it.

Good, that’s all we can ask. There's one little detail I need to point out. This could be dangerous. We've been trying to get through to Doctor Gillespie for years. That was the purpose of those other contacts you mentioned that you called UFOs. They were all asked to do this favor for us just like you. But for some reason or other none of them ever reached Doctor Gillespie because if they had he would have done something by now in response to our message and we would have found out about it on TV. We suspect they either didn't try, attempted and failed, or were intercepted by somebody wanting to stop them. The same thing could happen to you, or maybe it won’t. That’s not much of a pep talk, but it's the best I can do. If you don’t make it we'll keep trying with more contacts until we eventually give up, which could happen sooner than later.

You still haven’t told me who you really are.

I was hoping I had succeeded in dodging that question. You certainly have a right to know. The problem is that it would be impossible for you to understand who I am if I tried to tell you. No offense, but you're just not intellectually equipped for that much information. It would be like pouring all the oceans of your world into a teacup. Doctor Gillespie should have a general idea. Maybe he'll tell you. That ought to give you more incentive to find him -- that is, if he’s still in existence. We’re not even sure about that. Do you have any other questions I can't answer?

Not right now.

It's got to be now or never. It's highly unlikely we'll ever be able to contact you personally again.

Why will giving this message to Doctor Gillespie save the world?

He has the only means to save it. He's discovered the truth.

About what?

Very important stuff.

What if I can't find him?

Just keep trying. Did you have anything else better to do?

Not really.

Good. Perhaps this time we finally picked the right one for the job. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Before you go, let me give you some words of advice that could come in handy and make the difference between your failure or success. Don’t trust anyone. Ciao.

3. Life is But A Dream

The Dick Cavett look-alike stood up and extended his right hand signaling our conversation was now over. I got up from my seat and shook his hand. Was he demonstrating his familiarity with the informal business tradition of sealing a deal with a handshake or was it merely a friendly gesture? Actually, I only agreed to think about doing what he asked, so it was far from being a done deal. And I had said it just to get out of there, which I intended to do as quickly as possible.

I turned and began walking into the cavernous darkness of the spaceship's interior in a direction I hoped would lead me back to the mouth-like door, but it was impossible to tell if I was on the right track. After a few moments it seemed to be taking longer to arrive at the entrance than it should have and I stopped to get whatever bearings I could, given the circumstances. I couldn’t see a thing; ahead of me and to my left and right was total darkness. It didn’t make sense to keep going forward blindly, so I turned to go back where the alien presence had been and ask him to aim me in the best direction. Amazingly, he was only a couple of yards or so behind me. I had departed his company and walked for several minutes, but had gone nowhere. The only other time something inexplicable like this had happened to me was in a dream. That had to be it, I must be dreaming now.

No, you're not dreaming, said the Dick Cavett look-alike with a patient smile. Evidently he was still tuned into my mental channel. You're closer to getting outside than you realize. Why don’t you try using your flashlight?

I felt dumb that I hadn’t thought of that myself. I took the flashlight from my back pocket, turned it on, and shone it ahead of me. I was fully expecting to see the same strange interior as before when I first entered; what I beheld instead was even more unusual than that. Trees and grass on the ground. Somehow I had reached the outside, even though I hadn’t walked out of the spaceship. It had simply disappeared from around me. But its occupant wasn’t gone yet.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the alien presence still smiling at me, but he was no longer in the same place he had been when we talked. The desk and two chairs were gone and he was elevated now, curiously sitting on a branch in a tree. I could see stars twinkling in the night darkness above his head. This guy really knew how to make an entrance and exit. We stared silently at one another for a moment or so and then he began fading slowly from sight as if he was evaporating, until all that remained of him was his toothy grin which took on a luminous white glow. I blinked and the smile became the crescent moon peeking through the tree limbs. My strange visitor was gone.

Now that the show was over I headed back to my house. Along the way I did an instant replay in my mind of everything that had happened to me since I first noticed the hum of the spaceship. It didn’t take long to figure it all out. Despite what the alien presence had said I was certain I had been dreaming and most likely still was, courtesy of the drug cannabis which usually put me into a hallucinogenic sleep. Uncle Billy's pakalolo must have packed more of a punch than I gave it credit for. There was no way the spaceship had been real, I was sure of that. The whole episode just couldn’t have happened. Period.

I'm not an expert on dreams but, just like anyone else, I'm no stranger to them either. I know from years of experience that the mind is capable of playing all sorts of games with a dreamer. Once he's fallen asleep at the wheel of consciousness the unconscious takes control to go for a random joyride through memories giving the mind a disturbing taste of what it must be like to descend into madness. The most intriguing aspect of dreams is that they can seem so impossibly real. That’s because the mind uses data from day to day life as input and cleverly reprocesses it into believable dream fiction. This is what I felt had happened to me.

No matter how convincingly real the spaceship and my meeting with the Dick Cavett look-alike had seemed, it was merely a dream based on bits and pieces from my personal life-long experiences up to the moment I dreamed it. There was plenty of evidence to support this theory, beginning with recent pieces of memory I now recalled. First, one of the television programs I had watched briefly while channel-surfing a few nights earlier was an episode of the Flash Gordon cliffhangers featuring the same art deco spaceship in my dream, a connection my dreaming mind had conveniently failed to make; and then there had been numerous reruns of Dick Cavett's talk show I had also seen. Another telling clue I remembered, this one from my past, was that of all the family doctors I had been taken to as a child my favorite had been one named Doctor Gillespie, someone I tried to find years later to thank him for what he had done for me when I was younger, but was never able to locate.

Next I recalled my reaction to Uncle Billy's box of secrets I found right before I smoked the pakalolo. I had closed the box up and put it back into the closet, but it remained open in my mind and lingered unwelcome there like an obnoxious odor that wouldn't go away. I concluded it was yet another input to my dream, in particular the part about discovering the truth. It was I who had discovered the truth about Uncle Billy and I was having as much difficulty accepting it as I was the existence of the spaceship. My dream had simply given my mental conflict a creative twist, as dreams often do.

On the other hand, the alien presence had pointed out to me that what I had seen was a hologram consistent with my experiences, sort of an external dream based in reality. So maybe I was only partly correct about dreaming. But that meant I actually had been contacted by the alien presence which was something I was simply unwilling to accept.

I had become so absorbed in my thoughts and my attempt to rationalize what happened to me that I had gone beyond my house and made it all the way to the end of the driveway and into the street without noticing. This was a sure indication I needed to go to bed and get some decent sleep, hopefully with less disquieting dreams. Before going to bed I would flush the suspect pakalolo down the toilet to preclude any future opportunity to abuse myself with it again. One bad trip was enough for me. I walked back up the driveway to my house. But something was wrong because I couldn’t find it and suddenly I realized why. My house was gone.

I shone the flashlight ahead of me to where it should have been. I saw nothing but trees. My house was no longer there. This couldn’t be true, but apparently it was. I let loose a primal scream of disbelief as I ran as fast as I could to where my house used to be. All I could find were the impressions in the ground left from its foundation and various items that I had stored beneath it. Maybe my house had burned down from a careless use of matches when I smoked the pakalolo. But that couldn’t be it. There was no sign of a fire. My house had vanished, melted into nothingness, just like the spaceship.

I had to still be dreaming. I was frightened and angry and had had enough. I wanted very much to wake up but that’s a decision rarely left to the dreamer. How much more of a nightmare would I have to endure before my subconscious mercifully relented and delivered me back to reality?

Or maybe I was already awake and had been so all along and wasn’t able to believe it. But how could I begin to believe that my house had been vaporized or that a television personality had dropped by for a visit in a spaceship to ask for help in saving the world? I was dreaming, damn it! I had to be, even though I was standing there shivering from the night air. Could a dream feel that real?

Whatever the truth was it wouldn’t make sense to remain outside all night and risk catching pneumonia. There was a minimart down the hill in the town of Ocean View that was within walking distance. I couldn’t take my truck because my keys had been in the house and disappeared along with it. The walk to the minimart might warm me up and calm me down. Maybe after I bought a Coke and cleared my mind a little with caffeine the dream would go away, my sanity would return as well as my house, and I could go back to my life at home and live happily unbothered ever after.

But the uncertainty I was having in correctly distinguishing between reality and unreality and what was true and false would remain unresolved and continue to haunt me during my final days. This was the first of those days.

4. The Pause That Didn’t Refresh

Other than guaranteed absolute seclusion the town of Ocean View had little more to offer its current residents or to attract newcomers to its surroundings. Nevertheless, its population had steadily grown to be significant enough over the years to earn its own zip code, suggesting paradoxically that solitude, like misery, loves company. It was just a sketch of a town, a sprawling subdivision with a few hundred widely scattered houses, a couple of token churches, a minimart, and a brand new post office. There were no stoplights along the highway that went through Ocean View, partly because the usual trickle of traffic never justified the expense, but mostly because the townspeople weren’t much interested in encouraging curious motorists to stop on their way and look around. Before the addition of the post office, which had been met with virtually unanimous indifference, the only other noteworthy change to the profile of Ocean View in recent years had been the opening of the minimart which, in contrast, had been welcomed with open arms, due mostly to its being a thinly disguised liquor store with late hours.

Located on the highway at the heart of town, almost equidistant from the two city limit