SALUTE

There I laid, in a ditch, frenzied; desperately trying to organize any leftover rational pieces of my mind, trying
to make sense of what just happened.

“God it’s cold,” I thought.
What just happened?

Then, without provocation, just like in the early morning of that day when this nightmare began, I fell back into darkness, unconscious to my plight.

I have heard of those stories when people say their lives flashed before their eyes just as they think death is
inevitable. It’s those precious seconds right before they think they are going to die when, by surprise, BAM!
Their whole life shows up in their brain, running fast forward on the 10X speed, to get it all in before that one
last final heartbeat.

But it didn’t happen that way with me. My mind must have known that even though I thought I was knocking
on death’s door, the Grim Reaper wasn’t home that day. Instead, I survived being abducted.

And having passed out from not being able to breathe through the dirty black bag they put over my head, then finally finding my way out of that ditch to live another day, the stories that have most influenced my life, have slowly and surely, at the damndest times, popped into my brain.

It’s my life “slothing before my eyes.”
I propose a “toast” to all of you . . .
“May you always tell your stories!”
No ditch needed.
“SALUTE!”