Jerico's Twighlight Zone Thread

[Jerico]

Mortality:
meanderings from Diary of a Misfit:

June Fri the 13th, 2003:

Hi, I just had my twenty-hmrhrmphf birthday a couple of days ago! I tell you I was thinkin about shit and figured that if we all lived until 80, whippin out pen and paper and doin the math-- I have about 19,345 days left in my life. That's kind of a big number isn't it? But really it isn't that big a number. Think about it.... that's 19,345 opportunities I have left to see the sun and moon rise and set. And you can be damn sure, I'm probably not gonna use most of those opportunities. I haven't so far, so why would things change? Do you spend a lot of time looking at the sun and moon? If you do, you're probably a loser. Besides, I was told never to look at the sun anyways.
Anyways, in about 19,345 days, I'm gonna be dead. So I wonder... when that day comes, while i'm on my death bed, what will I have accomplished? What will I be known for? Will I be thought of as a good man? A hard working and decent person? Will i haved lived in shame? Will I be known as a murderer? A child molestor? A failure? A goddamn, no good piece of shit, loser pimple on the seedy underbelly of society? Will I have kids who fear my death and will mourn my passing? Or will they despise me and spit on my grave when no one is looking? Or will my death be the passing of a hermit who will be unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave?
Perhaps the end of my days will pass like an unreleased Twilight Zone episode coming to a close:
In black and white celluloid vision, see me lying in my bed, my eyes close, never to open again, and the camera turns and then zooms in on Rod Serling... Looking into the camera and at you, the viewer, he says, "Another man dies, ranting and raving in delerium. His reality broken and non-linear to the surrounding world. His passing a singular event-- one of the many billions that have come and gone in the history of the world. And so another insignificant chapter closes here... in The Twilight Zone."

[Jerico]

Anyone care to share any of your most memorable
Twighlight Zone (weird, uncanny) experiences?

[Jagged]

Anyone care to share any of your most memorable
Twighlight Zone (weird, uncanny) experiences?

It's funny, you know, Death is in some ways still an abstract concept to me. My mother, who's the most compassionate soul on Earth (she'll pick up a dead bird that bumped against her window and sorrow for the mate out there that doesn't understand why birdie doesn't return to the nest) is in and out of the hospital all the time for her heart condition, and yet I can't picture her dying. I suppose I shouldn't wonder why Death has always been a subject for writers.

I think my own Twilight Zone experience came to me when I was a kid. I clearly saw a train riding the trails of a long defunct railway path. I haven't got a clue what it meant, and everybody laughed at me, of course. I went home and read Dicken's story about the Signal Man, but it didn't make me any better.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here, but then I'm not sure, again, what I was supposed to say. What was the question again?

[Jerico]

Thanks for the response.

I think the train was probably filled with a bunch
of defunct people (souls).

One summer, when I was still very young, perhaps 20,
when I used a pc 0.09% of the time as I do now;
before the internet was a commonly spoken word;
and a time when I relied on my memory instead of a pocket book planner
or palm pilot programming,
I went up to the LA/ Orange County area to go to a friend's wedding.

It was to be a Twilight Zone day for me!

I couldn't find the place where the wedding supposedly was.
At this point I don't know why? I'm sure I had the address.
If i was smart, I should have had a map, but I can't recall at this point.
I just remember I could not find the place. You know how that goes, you're on the right street, you look at the street signs, you're on the right road, and you can't find the damn place! It's past 6:30, when the reception has started.
You think "oh well. I'll get there a little late."
You probably stop and ask for directions. No one knows where the place is.
You can't find the damn place!
The sun is gone. it is now night time.
You have done a considerable amount of swearing and cursing already.
"This is like a fuckin bad Twilight Zone episode!"
You pull into the parking lot of some restaurant you never been to before.

I am upset and pissed, but now decide to make the best of things. Dressed dandily, I decide to dine at the restaurant.
It turns out to be a semi-fancy Italian joint.
As I munched on my spaghetti dinner,
I noticed an attractive, well-dressed woman dining alone, looking a little sad. She's about the same age as me.
Wow. She's cute, I thought. She's all alone. I wonder why?
Maybe she got stood up. Should I go talk to her?
My imagination took over:
I walk up to her. "Hi! My name is Jerico. I couldn't help but notice you're alone..."
All of a sudden, I'm in a bedroom screwing her.

If only life were like a fantasy more often...

I paid my bill, and I got up and walked out of the restaurant. I left, not knowing the fate of the lone pretty girl.
A lot of times, shyness keeps you out of trouble, but then again, sometimes shyness gets you nowhere.

After I got home from the nearly two hour drive, I looked at the wedding invitation and realized that it had already happened on the same day a week ago.
How could I not remember when Marc's wedding was?*

Then I realized that my friend Julie's graduation from Redlands University was that day. But I managed to miss that event too cuz I was looking for a wedding that wasn't going on. I confounded things in my memory.
Yeah, just call me retarded!

That's perhaps when I started to realize the importance of rest and sleep.
I noticed that when I'm tired, I'm prone to make mistakes-- like paying for gas at the gas station, and then jumping in your car and taking off before you pupmed gas into your car. My memory is usually almost flawless, but when I'm tired enough, I realize that remembering to remove the drink from the top of your car before entering and driving off is difficult to do, and sometimes being exhausted can be your ticket... to the Twilight Zone.

Exhausted, I crawled into bed, my head is dizzy, my legs hurt so much, they feel numb...

Camera pans to Rod Serling.
A very capable young man comes to see his physical limits. Loved by friend and family alike, he finds that he can let them all down once he enters... The Twilight Zone. :spooky music plays:

That event was so long ago. This entire post could be considered a piece of fiction.
:spooky music continues:

*("He ended up divorcing her anyway!" says Mr. Sour Grapes)