http://www.geocities.com/athens/ithaca/4111/
Mayfield, Ky
There is a well-known saying people use when requested to retell the story
of something extraordinary that happened to them long ago. Usually you'll
hear a slight sigh and then "Oh, what a night it was," often followed by
either "I'll never forget it", or "definitely a night to remember." For
me,
one night in particular was all these things and so much more.
The night began simply enough, as several of my friends were graduating
from
high school. I and several other fellow classmen and friends attended the
ceremony. A rather close female friend and I had spent the day running
through creeks. We walked to my car (a 2-door black 1986-87 Grand-Am)
after
the graduation ceremony had been completed and the festivities had ended,
and casually discussed how it went. We then proceeded to exit the premises
by antagonizing all the "good people" of the county by playing some
Megadeath and some Doors rather loudly. We then exited the parking lot
amidst the traffic and proceeded down a back road out.
Now this is where things got rather precarious. I pulled up to an
intersection and looked both ways at least 5 times, checking and double
checking myself. I tend to be highly, if not overly cautious. But here's
the catch -- the intersection crossed atop a hill where to my right there
was a visible straight-way of adequate proportions and my left a hill that
sloped downwards slightly allowing some visibility. After my scan of the
traffic I saw it was clear, and thus proceeded to cross. Everyone else
interviewed claimed the same thing -- no traffic was visible in either
direction for miles, everything was clear. Yet when I pulled out still in
the lane of traffic from the left lights appeared on my right and my brakes
were quickly applied, I never crossed the median by my own force. An s-10
pick-up soon slammed into my passenger side with my friend taking the brunt
of it. Moments before she had had her arm hung out the door, she then
jerked it inward and recalls slamming her head into the grill of the truck.
The truck never even applied it's brakes, it was speeding we do know that
much, but how it got to where I was and on the wrong side of the road we
don't know. In that split second though, all I know is I reacted in a way
some people claim is physically impossible. I jerked
the wheel avoiding a telephone pole, I can recall with clarity every
flashing image and sound, as it happened.
I even recall clearly painfully pulling myself to consciousness and
screaming out my friends name as she was not moving or breathing, and then
swinging my arm over, hitting her in the abdomen. She soon began screaming
as I slid from the car unable to breathe after throwing the door open.
People first on the scene rushed to me and all of them recall the same as I
do that, all I said was "Get her, forget me I'll be fine, get her." Her
fiance had entrusted me with her safety, and I do not take an oath lightly.
Every witness claimed the same thing, a truck had appeared out of nowhere
and hit me. It was impossible such an event could have happened as I told
everyone, and thusly it was decided that I by default, was the cause.
Kentucky state law had condemned me before it ever begun. My car was
literally squashed into a "U" shape, yet no one died or received serious
injury. Experts say that it was impossible for us to have lived through
such an impact, to have reacted as we did, or for the accident to happen as
we know it did. Yet time seemed to slow in that moment, and I felt
everything happen before it did. Even my friend has told the same story
and
written an English paper on it -- however, her teacher and classmates
refuse
to believe her story on the grounds, "it is not possible".
Perhaps it is all just fantasy, or perhaps it's a reality only we
experienced. Who really knows for sure? All I know is that time itself,
along with many other things, seem altered and inconsistent about me.
Some
say I have an over-active imagination, others I've been touched by some
higher power. I leave it to you to believe what you wish. I live my life
and walk my own path. But, I myself, can at least say, "Oh, what a night
it
was".
White Van - Part I
Glenda
North Syracuse, NY
I was driving down highway 81, headed home from the hospital and driving
south in the middle lane. I decided to move over into the lane to my
right,
so I looked to the right. There were no cars signaling, and I was about
ready to move over into the right hand lane, when out of the corner of my
right eye appeared a white van from nowhere. I jumped and said, "Oh my
God!
Where did he come from?" to myself, because it was so close... then I
looked again just a moment later, and the van was gone.
White Van - Part II
Laura
North Syracuse, NY
My mother was driving both of us back from the hospital on highway 81. As
we drove down the highway in the middle lane, a white van
merged toward us, but was supposed to yield and didn't. My mother had
her right signal light on to get into the right lane, but the van merged
into the
middle lane as it merged onto the highway. As I watched the van, I noticed
the
wheels were right in my window, coming closer and closer. I looked at my
mother and said, "You better move NOW, we are going to get hit!" She moved
off to the far left lane, and the van continued as if we were never there.
We were the only two vehicles on the highway at the time. If he had hit
us, nobody would have seen it.
What was strange about this was: Glenda and I were both thinking about
this at the same time to tell one another about how strange it was that we
were
the ONLY people on the highway at the time, both vans were white, both of
us
were feeling how strange it was that she saw the white van then it was
gone,
and my mother and I saw the white van and it seemed we didn't exist to him,
both happened on the same highway, and the same day, coming from the same
hospital.
