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Letter from Joseph

Robert is exhausted, he feels like he has been doing hard manual labor all day but he has

only been typing on his laptop. Robert heaves his cramped hand to his dry lips as he takes the

final swallow of the ice water his fiancé brought him. He coughs as he finishes correcting the

last mistake he can find.

“Julie, would you look over this for me?” Robert asks wearily as the sun paints the

midnight sky in bruise like hues.

Julie answers without turning her face from her prerecorded soap opera, “Its late you

have till Friday, and I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

He sat there at the kitchen table looking at the pale blue light reflect off her face. He does

have an entire week to turn in his final master thesis in but he just wants it to be over. Soon he

will be unchained to the University of Alaska and free to teach or write in a warmer climate. He

hates the cold. (I can still feel the cold.)

“Besides that damn paper creeps me out,” exclaims Julie under her breath toward the

T.V. (I can still see her pail face.)

Robert doesn’t mind he agrees that it can be damn creepy, if you believe in that kind of 

 bull. Robert does not. The only reason that he choose to write about new age myths like astral

 projection and remote viewing was because he was beginning to feel his sanity slip. When he

decided to become an English major he had no real grip on how much actual writing and reading

would be involved, or at least how boring the writing could be. His last paper was about the

nuances of iambic pentameter. Robert felt that the only way he could get a grip and keep hisslipping sanity was by writing about something new, something interesting. He did the research

on what he calls new age myths but he does not believe, which is perfectly suitable because

 being an English major is about writing not believing. (I can feel his unbelief.)

“I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted and I want to stop by the English Lab early in the

morning.”

“Okay,” Julie responded with a flick of her wrist. “I’m going to finish, I have been

waiting to see if Sammie finds out if the babies were switched.”

Robert laughs to himself as he walks up the dark stairway to their room. He does notgive a damn about Sammie or her fughly babies.

By the time he makes it to his side of the bed all he has left are his skivvies and his socks

that he is peeling off. He lays down which relives the pressure in his aching back. (I can

feel his pain.)

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He can not fall asleep, he is too exhausted, too worried about his final paper. There is

something itching deep within his brain, a thought like a giant candy red button that he is

forbidden to push. For his final paper unlike his other papers he gathered some of his

information from interviewing people instead of his usual sources of dusty books written in the

70’s and internet journals. One woman he meets in a new age candle store. He is there to

interview the owner but she strikes up a conversation with him as he is waiting. They start

talking and before he knows what is happening he is asking her about astral projection. She

 becomes very nervous, so he gently insists. She hesitatingly begins to describe her experience

with the mysterious process like he is a priest and her confession is long overdue. Her 

confession chills him to the bone but not as much as her parting warning.

“I will tell you the secret.” “I will tell you how to do it but don’t you dare do it.” “I did it

twice and I told you what happened and I will never do it again.” She began, “It is simple really,

 before you go to sleep, as you are gong to sleep, when you are between wake and sleep you

imagine the finger tips of your left hand tingle and you imagine yourself falling out of your body

or floating above it. The fingers of your left hand are where your soul attaches and detaches.”

You know like when a kid falls asleep at school and he dreams he is falling out of his desk, it

works like that but the fingertips of the left hand are the secret.”

“How do you get back in,” Robert asks?

“You just lay back down into your body, attaching your spirit at the fingertips of the left

hand that is where you soul attaches.” “I know how you will be tempted but you insisted, don’t

do it.” Those were the last words he heard her speak as she left the store. Robert considered her 

warning as the smell of cheap patchouli incense and black candles danced in his nose. (I can still

smell the candles.)

Robert lies half asleep and half awake; he starts to imagine that the finger tips of his left

hand are starting to tingle in the frigid darkness. He can hear the T.V. downstairs. He begins to

actually feel the fingertips on his left hand start to tingle. He feels dizzy like when you stand up

too fast. Robert feels his consciousness float as he rolls over and looks down from the top of the

ceiling down to his body on the bed. He makes the decision to not go directly back into his body

 but to go down stairs and explore this new state of existence. Robert floats through the roof 

above his snow encrusted house. Robert feels a cold terror as he begins to float higher and

higher above the earth. Suddenly he decides to be calm and focus on where he wants to go and it

seems like his emotions and concentration guide his direction as he floats down through his roof and into his living room.

Robert’s consciousness stops at the ceiling of his living room. Looking at the clock he

realizes that only thirty three minutes have passed. He continues to calm himself and to focus as

he floats to the floor. He floats right in front of Julie but she does not see him. Robert feels an

icy grip on his non existent back. (I can feel the cold fingers.)

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Robert flies up the inky black stairway through the door of their room and over his body.

He can feel his soul being dragged away as he is trying to get back into his body. Terror fills

him. What is it? He can see nothing, it feels like five football linemen are pushing and pulling

him away from his body. Robert knows that he must get back into his body or there will be

grave consequences. Robert fights and pulls and finally he reaches and grabs his own left hand,

then the dark forces fighting him stop. He feverishly jumps back into his body and sits straight

up in bed. He no longer feels the dark presence in his room but his terror does not go away.

He runs down stairs and as soon as he reaches the living room he looks up at the clock 

and notices that only thirty five minutes have passed. Robert looks toward Julie on the couch

and he is paralyzed with terror as he sees himself with his arm around her shoulders smiling. He

looks down and does not see his hands and he screams as he feels the presence of the dark force

 but Julie does not hear him.

Hello Jerry, my name is Joseph Perkins. I am a retired fire fighter I worked for 

Anchorage fire department for twenty five years and I have been retired for ten years now. Itwas in 2008 when I had my heart attack. I had a triple bypass, and on the second day the doctors

decided to turn it into a quadruple. Needless to after the second operation I was out of it. That

night I heard my door open. I just thought that it was some nurse come to adjust the tube going

into my wiener or something but I looked over and there was nobody there. So I go back to

sleep. Well, I was half asleep and half awake and everything that you just read about Robert

Allston Fulton happened to me. I mean it was like I was living it through his eyes. It stopped

right with him looking at himself or whatever that thing was. I could feel its evil and hatred. It

was like I lived through his life.

I woke up that morning and I did not tell anybody. I got out of the hospital four dayslater and I wrote down every thing I remembered just the way I experienced it. That is the exact

same story that you read above. This is the first time I ever showed anybody except my wife.

About four months after my heart attack I asked my friend who works in the police department if 

he had ever heard of the name Robert Allston Fulton, he turned white as a sheet and says that

when I was in the hospital that some kid from the university went nuts and killed his girlfriend

with an axe and then killed himself. Killed himself with an axe I asked. He said yes that he

killed his girlfriend and then he killed himself with an axe. There was no mistake it was the most

depraved and gruesome crime seen that he had seen in his entire fifteen years and yes the

wounds were definitely self inflicted.

That is it the official story is that some college kid went nuts because of the short

sunshine during the winter and goes berserk it happens ever so often here, terrible of course but

no surprise. Well Jerry I know the truth, some how Roberts spirit or consciousness contacted me

in the hospital maybe because I was between life and death I was susceptible to contact maybe. I

guess the message is don’t mess with some of this stuff it is dangerous.

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I love your show Jerry, thank you and keep it up. You have some fans here in Alaska.