As I looked through the window the darkness stared back at me. I had a feeling if I looked hard enough I could see through to the other side, as if there were answers floating out there in the abyss.

It seems strange how the quietness of night lets your mind run free and, being tethered to it, you have no choice but to follow. Ultimately it will drag you through your own personal Hell where you have to face all your fears, shortcomings, and doubts. This is where you deal with all the should haves, could haves, whens, whys, and wheres.

Too may times I've pressed my face against the glass with thoughts swarming in my head like bees in a hive. All this to be lost in dreams out on the edge of reality. All this time wasted seeking the unknown, chasing shadows in the darkness. Blindly tilting at windmills.
Suddenly I hear a tapping sound. Someone rapping against the window? After listening for a moment I realize that it's not tapping at all. It's a sound I've heard many times before, the crack of distant gunfire.

As my eyes begin to focus, I see thin fingers of light filtering down through the canopy of the rain forest. I feel I am sinking through thousands of years of rotting vegetation on the forest floor. The muck and ooze even leaks in through the canvas webbing on the sides of my boots. I can smell the Willie Pete, sulfur, and napalm through the perpetual mist that hovers like a light rain. Mostly, however, what I smell more than anything else is death.

Little strings crisscross the ground mixed with the vines that encompass the landscape. Anyone could trigger the hellfire and brimstone converted from our own ordnance by catching his toe on one of the strings. Molten metal belches into a body from these hidden instruments of destruction leaving severed body parts and a mass of bloody remains. Identities would be mix and match, but at that point, it makes little difference.

At this point I am beginning to wish I was still out. Back in the blackness, the void of the unknown.

What was that sound, ugly and familiar? I know I've heard it before, ringing, like a school bell but not as loud. A doorbell maybe? No! It's the phone. A phone out here? I open my eyes and I am in my bed and the phone is next to me. Fumbling, with sweat slicked hands, I pick up the receiver. As I hold it to my ear a male voice says, "Randy where have you been? You had us scared to death."

"Randy?" I ask. "Who's Randy?"

The voice replies, "That's really funny man. Are you coming tonight?"

"Me?"

"Yes, of course you. We can't get it done without you."

I said, "Are you sure you have the right number?"

"Ha, ha, ha. Did you have a rough night or are you trying one of your games? I've got to go. Call me after you've had a couple pots of coffee." Click.

I got up slowly, feeling I had stumbled into a strange new universe. I felt as if the ground was crumbling away under my feet. I made it to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, avoiding the mirror, uncertain of who I might see.