Imagine, for a moment…
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You’re driving down a back road on the way home one night. You decide to take the long way home, through a wooded area. It’s a summer evening, and your car window is down. The air is warm as dusk slips gently into night. You hit the switch on your headlights and flip them to the brightest setting to illuminate the eyes of any wayward animal that might step into your path. Your attention drifts as you cruise along slowly, decompressing after a busy day.
When you round the next turn and catch a glimpse of eye shine on the left side of the road, you instinctively hit the brakes. The car comes to a stop as your world changes.
A tall, hair-covered, massive form steps out of the brush and starts across the road. It’s black. Muscular. Powerful. And it’s only yards in front of your car. Time slows as your brain kicks into high gear, immediately attempting to identify what you’re seeing. Oh my god! What is that thing? Is that a bear? No, it’s on two legs! A guy in a fur coat? It’s summer… Holy crap… What IS that thing? All the while, it’s crossing the road in three steps as it turns and looks straight at you. The small hairs on your body rise as if they are commanded to do so.
This… thing… turns away and starts up the embankment on the right side of the road, disappearing into the trees. It doesn’t ‘t hurry. It just… walks.
You’re shaking. Craning your neck to see where it went. The brush still sways slightly where it went through. There is a pungent odor in the air. Musky. Slightly sour and strong. It tickles your nose and, strangely, makes your mouth water.
The sheer size of it hits you again. It’s almost dark out here. Your finger stabs at the power switch for the window. You step on the gas. You’re stunned and so distracted, so jumpy, that when a deer steps into the road a couple of miles later, you swerve violently and nearly drive into the ditch.
Finally, you make it home. Now what?
Breathless, you tell your spouse what just walked across the road in front of your car and your story is met with raised eyebrows. You tell a couple of people at work the next day and find yourself fielding laughter and one-liners. You laugh along, pretending not to feel hurt and frustrated that no one seems to understand how powerful this experience was. The more fervently you try to describe the mass, the size, the hair… the more you feel people pulling away, their smiles fading. You soon notice your coworkers stealing strange, sidelong glances at you – as if you’ve somehow changed overnight.
Funny thing is… you have.
Everything seems a little surreal. The fluorescent lights in the office are a little too bright. A door slams and you jump. People talk to you and you see their mouths move, but you don’t comprehend what they’re saying because your mind is still racing, a litany of unanswered questions demanding your attention. Your boss calls you in.
And you suddenly come to a realization: Either you can talk about it and forever be known to your family and peers as “the guy who saw bigfoot”… or you can keep it to yourself.
*********
Imagine, for a moment…
*********
For ten years, you’ve kept a secret. You’ve told no one. Not your friends. Not your siblings. Not your coworkers. You disappear into the swamp, sometimes for days at a time, and no one knows where you’re going. You come back, having spent the weekend interacting with a a creature, a being, that few believe exists and even fewer understand, and you can’t tell anyone about where you’ve been or what you’ve done. You live alone, because you can’t figure out how to begin to broach the subject with anyone you date. You’ve spent more quality time in the last decade with something that most people believe doesn’t exist than you have with your own family members. Your best memories, your fondest moments, involve someone who has never spoken a word to you in your own language, yet sits quietly beside you, eating fruit and sharing in your isolation. When the guys at work mention “bigfoot”, they’re getting it wrong, all wrong, but you can’t say a word. You cruise the internet looking for others who may have shared your experiences and end up reading about people who call themselves “experts”, despite the fact they’ve never even seen one. They chase these creatures – and some want to kill them. They’re wrong. All wrong.
But you can’t say a word.
Nevermind the ridicule. If someone believes you, and knows who you are, you know what they’ll do. So you keep your secret.
Finally, you find someone you feel might understand. She listens. Before long, the stories, the memories, and the love you feel for these creatures comes pouring out.
Your story changes her. She tells you that there are others out there who share your feelings of isolation. And maybe those who are chasing these amazing beings will think twice, as she has, if they only understood them the way you do. She asks if she can share your story.
Yes, you tell her. Parts of it.
It may help others, you think. But what good does it do YOU?
In the end, you still can’t tell anyone else. In the end, you’re still in this all by yourself.
*********
A couple of people have said to me about the book: “Autumn, you’re going way out on a limb here.”
Have I taken a “risk”? Sure. Funny thing is, the risk isn’t “Is Mike pulling my leg?” He’s not. The risk is, “Will people BELIEVE that Mike is pulling my leg and therefore rush to judgment?”
Of course I’m going out on a limb. Sometimes, that’s what you have to do when something is important to you.
I care about Mike. I care about the Big Guys. I care about the witnesses who will benefit from this.
But what most folks won’t realize is that Mike has gone just as far out on his own limb. For me. For you.
One of the most powerful things he has shared with me is an understanding of the isolation which plagues him. The more in-depth experiences you have with the Big Guys, the more isolated you risk becoming.
Mike and I spend dozens of hours a week on the phone. We’re friends. Sometimes we talk about bigfoot. Sometimes we talk about bigfoot researchers. Sometimes, we talk about things which have absolutely nothing to do with anything hairy or slightly smelly. We laugh, we ponder, occasionally we argue, and then we laugh some more.
But there is nothing more I can do to change the very real isolation he feels as a result of his experiences. The way it forces him to maintain a certain distance from his family, his acquaintances, his friends, his co-workers… if anyone in his life knew – not even what he knows but simply that he knows - the information would eventually end up in the wrong hands.
He has shared his story with me, and has allowed me to share part of it with you, despite the fact that he gets NOTHING from this. In fact, he puts himself and those he cares about at risk by doing so.
There will be those who will try to find out who Mike is. To hunt him down. Find out what makes him tick. Analyze him. Study him.
He doesn’t want to be studied. Any more than Enoch and his kind would. Sadly, that’s the very reason he can’t talk about his experiences freely and openly.
“People don’t have to believe me. They don’t even have to like me. But they do have to leave me the hell alone.”
Alone. Not because he wants to be. But because the consequences leave him no other choice.
