Shift

Some how I became turned around; not lost, but extremely confused. I sat down in the shade of a rock overhang and sipped from my canteen, waiting for the feeling to leave, but it refused.

Above me, circled a murder of crows, crying and calling to each other, also in confusion. Suddenly, they went silent and I looked up to see they’d disappeared.

Seconds after, I heard their resumed cry — only this time they were half a mile north of where they had been. I pulled myself to my feet and began walking in that direction.

It were as if a siren-song called me to move towards the latest position in which the murder circled. I soon forgot about my confusion, instead focusing on the fact that the birds had simply vanished from one point in the sky and reappeared in another.

As I moved closer to the bird’s location, I stopped to look back, a habit I had formed over the years of hiking through the desert, and found myself astonished at the sight of paired Suns. “It’s gotta be an atmospheric phenomenon,” I tried to convince myself.

Turning back to the trail ahead, I realized the crows had again disappeared. This time as I searched the sky above me to the northern horizon, I actually saw them materialize.

At first, I was unable to process what I’d seen, thinking I may have fallen for a trick-of-the-eye due to the distance, but then I heard their terrified shrieking and therefore knew something strange had occurred. I had the overwhelming sense it was something I was not supposed to have seen, mixed with the same overwhelming sense that I needed to pursue the birds and their shifting as I’d come to call it.

With renewed vigor, I scrambled over and between rocks, creating a trail of my own. I needed, as if driven by an unseen force, to see what lay beyond the next set of outcroppings before me.

Fifteen minutes later, provided my pocket watch was still maintaining proper time, I arrived at the top of a craggy precipice overlooking a camping site. The birds, still flying overhead, screamed and shrieked, as every few seconds they seemingly disappeared and returned.

Watching the birds, I looked at my hands, wanting to know if I too were disappearing and returning as they were; I wasn’t. Then I took note of the camping site, the large off-white canvas tent that stood in the near-center, also appearing to flicker from sight and back again.

From it came the crying of a man, suffering greatly, not only in physical pain, but emotional pain. I slowly descended from my rock-bound perch, towards the tent and the excruciating sounds emanating from within the clothe confines.

Surrounding the site were various petroglyphs, Paiute in origin, many looking remarkably ageless and others looking as ancient as others I had seen among the rocks of the high desert. Quietly and carefully, I walked around the back of the tent, where I noticed how old the design appeared.

“Mid-to-late 1800’s?” I questioned my judgment.

Still the awful sound that echoed from the interior urged me to hasten my pace towards the opened flaps of the tent. Much to my surprise, I found a seated man, who repeatedly jumped to his feet and rushed towards the opening, only to snap back into his original position in the rear of the tent.

Over and over, I watched this scene play out – this bearded man, dressed in a dirty-white, shin-length night-shirt, – returning to sitting, to rising, to rushing, screaming all the while. The tent’s interior looked remarkably clean and comfortable, with a carpet covering the sandy ground, a wood framed cot, blankets and a small writing desk with chair.

After observing his agony for about a minute, I realized that he was not of my century, nor did he initially see me standing in front of his open tent. His pained screams caused me to want to reach out to him, to help him, so I drew closer.

That’s when he saw me. His terror-filled eyes blazed into me, as he jumped to his feet and raced towards me, only to disappear and then reappear within the flicker of my eyelid’s movement.

Two more times, this man moved through his personal Hell, before he changed from screaming in eternal agony to broken English. His eye’s darted back and forth as he spoke, “Getz avay…”

He flashed from sight, popping back into view at the back of the tent, “Before it…”

Again, gone, again returned, “…traps you…”

Repeating the same bodily movement, he screamed in German, “…lauf! Jetzt!”

This time, unlike his earlier movements, the man seemed to will himself towards the tent’s opening much more forcefully than he had before. The exaggerated motion caused me to jump backward and tumble-down the embankment.

“Lauf! Gottverdammt…” he shout as I came to rest on my back, spread out like a hawk in flight. I looked up, watching as the murder of crows vanished, still shrieking in terror.

Quickly, I rolled over, scrambled to my feet and up the embankment. The tent, the man, everything had disappeared – not even an imprint the tent remained in the sandy loam of the desert floor.

Heeding his warning, I ran into the crags, from which I first came. My head, though feeling light, refused to allow my legs to stop for even an instant as I raced over rocks, outcroppings and sandy patches of ground towards my truck.

Once at my truck, I climbed behind the steering wheel and fumbling with my keys, finally getting the vehicle started. I sped away and drove to the parking lot of a roadside restaurant, where I finally broke down and cried.

Not only did the stress of the weirdness overpower my emotional sensibilities, but I cried a violent stream of tears for a man, who, trapped in an endless loop of time, had the forethought amid his nightmare, to warn me off his path.