Trigger Warning: This year starts a journey that I am still on today. I learned that there is another world that walks, hand-in-hand, with ours. As you read this, I want to make sure that you understand that those within the psychological profession, clergy, and other learned people have heard this story, and some of them, upon encountering through hypnosis, regression therapy, and other methods, have run screaming into the night. But I don't worry, because he isn't that bad, at least not to me.

Okay, that was quite an ominous statement. But I will explain. You may choose to believe or not believe, but if you know me face-to-face, I suggest that you never push the issue, because the core of the issue has no problem making itself known. And it never goes well.

We were a family on the run, though I did not know it. Someone got wind, probably because of my big mouth, of the things that were going on in Louisville. We left like thieves in the night. We first landed in Monroeville, Maryland where I was befriended by my next door neighbor, Steve. I was still nine years old and we would pal around together even though he was only 16 years old. But that ended quickly because of the movie The Island at the top of the world. Steve took me to see this on a Saturday and it was really cool. Before the movie, we were talking and I mentioned Little K and that I was not going to see here this year. We talked about her, and something I said made him say Man that is messed up. We also talked about how my parents would fight every weekend and sure enough, that weekend, close to my 10th birthday, we were moving again. This time to the outskirts of Pittsburgh, PA. into a 200 year old farm house adjacent to a 300 acre farm. And where my life changed forever.

I did not have trouble making friends. Even sitting on a giant plot of land, surrounded by farmland, I found friends. I had Cynthia and Kim at school, and they began my journey of creative writing. We would ride the bus to school and create worlds of mystery and intrigue, fantasy and folklore. Many of these stories I still remember today and they are sitting in my repository of stories to be written, when I get around to it. I also had Sydney, but he was a bit of a problem. Sydney lived down the pasture from us, and we would hang around together, except that I really did not like him. He was irritating, probably the same way that I irritated those around me. So, what is a young boy to do when someone gets on your nerves? I shot him! Yep, I shot him with a daisy air rifle. That, of course, did not go over well with the old parents who introduced me to a new form of torture. They made me stand over a blazing fire in the fireplace until my pajamas started to smolder. If I moved away, I would get the strap. Fun times! Funny thing is that Dad did NOT take away my daisy air rifle because it was a right in the United States. Interesting don't you think?

But the most interesting incident came at the end of the year as mother nature forced us into warm coats and mittens. The person that I considered my best friend was Randy Rusputnic. He was five years older than me and all grown up. He lived in the attic of his parents house and answered to no one. But the most interesting thing about him is that he was what I would come to know as a survivalist. Part of that is that he trapped Beaver. And one cold morning, Dad said that I could head out with him to check his traps. We all know why Dad (and Marge) would want me out of the house for a few hours. But little did they know what events would come to pass this fateful October day. Randy and I were checking traps along the stream near the house. He showed me how to set the traps without losing a hand, how to drown a poor beaver that got caught by its' leg, and how to bludgeon one to death if it was really irritable. I was becoming a twisted little thing, so I took this all in. And then it happened....

Hello Neriki: And it happened. In 1975 I died. Or at least I should have. Randy and I were checking the traps and this required jumping from one side of a creek to another across the frozen patches on one side and then the other. Randy was moving fast, and I was doing my best to keep up. It was rough. Then, I jumped, slipped, and felt the ice crack under me. I barely had time to even think before I was looking up at the sky throught the freezing cold water. The creek was a lot deeper here than we had been dealing with and I was all the way on the bottom, watching the ice pass over me. I felt the end. I was able, at 10 years old, to feel my own mortal coil. The next thing I remember is ember red eyes looking at me curiously and a warmth surround me. The world went black. I opened my eyes and I was looking at my friend, screaming like the world was coming to an end and staring down into the water. But I was behind him. I looked around, and there was something with me. It was tall, onyx colored, and shimmered like it was covered with scales. It put a long talon to its' extended beak and appeared to say shush. In retrospect, I would say he was about 12 feet tall, with leathery, but scaled wings, tight around his body. He did not speak, but I could understand him. He spoke in images inside my head. He held up his talon-like hands and showed me his bracers, a pact to do no harm unless I demanded it. I don't know how I knew this, but I did. I called to Randy and he turned, amazed. The next hours are a blur, but we wound up at an ice fishing hut with an old man. Neither Randy nor the old man could see what I would come to know as Neriki, but he has been with me ever since. I grew to understand that he would not interfere with the natural evolution of my life, and that I had lessons that were to build my being that he could not stop. But he would be with me, a silent observer, a friend, someone to talk to. Of course, Dad and Marge were livid about the ice incident, and they had no time for my creative nonesense. But Neriki was with me, and has remained to this day. There are times that people ask me how I know some of the things that I know, or predict some of the things that I see. These are Neriki. I have never hidden the fact, but he is not a topic of conversation unless I am forced into it. Sometimes, he is an 18 foot creature from the circles of hell, sometimes, a small golden monkey. But he is always there for me, and while he does not always intervene when things go bad, really bad, he is there to help me pick up the pieces and grow.