The Edge of Town (part1)

I knew from a very young age that my mind perceives the world slightly differently than many of the people that I come in contact with. A certain feeling, call it intuition, causes me to be a bit askew in my thought process. I don’t want to call this intuition ESP or make it out to be something that I am uniquely privy to as I have met other persons that float along the fringes of what is considered normal perception. I really don’t know how to explain it other than I sometimes know certain things, certain situations, and yes, certain people, are not what they are pretending to be. Sometimes, there is darkness masquerading as light…and darkness is a most dangerous predator.

At ten years old, I had only two worthy items in my treasure chest. One was my Buck three-bladed pocket knife, the other was my beat-up green bicycle. The bike wasn’t a name brand, like some of the other kids had, as a matter of fact, it looked like it had been born in a junkyard, but it was as fast as the wind and could fly further than any store-bought Schwinns in the neighborhood. More importantly, my old bicycle gave me freedom to roam around town. There was nothing better than to meet my buddies and all of us ride to the local convenience store for a soda and then to go romping around the baseball field seeing if anyone could beat my record of jumping over the pitcher’s mound. I existed happily within the realm of my ten year-old mind, playing and not being concerned with the future. My thoughts were relatively innocent as I entered the summer of my tenth year. Then something changed. As the temperatures soared skyward, a silent darkness crept into my mind.

To be continued…