Duel

There was one more fear that I had to take care of before I left Miami. It's been with me for five years now, and it's this sense of dread, of doom, a bullet meant for me. I'm not constructing metaphors; I literally mean a bullet that will find me when I am at my lowest. It's waiting for me, and from time to time I can feel myself in the crosshairs. I may be riding the El train in Chicago or just waking up on a futon in Miami – it doesn't matter. They visit when they please. Who are they? Well a team of elite snipers of course.

I promise that I'm not completely insane – let's get in some background here. Sophomore year of college I tried smoking some rock given to me by a very sketchy guy who worked at the school. Now that I'm not quite as innocent, I think that he wanted to sleep with me. Thankfully that never happened. Instead I ended up buying the rest of the rocks off of him and setting out in the California wilderness to smoke on my own. Wilderness is a bit of a stretch; At the tip of my school, there were a few acres of undeveloped land known as the Outback. I wanted privacy. I wanted to consume my chemicals in peace. I crawled under a bush and was there for about half an hour before I got my first visit from the snipers.

I didn't know who or what was there at first. I just felt watched. I crept out of the bush and moved further into a shaded part of the Outback and crouched behind a tree and listened. Rustling footsteps, perhaps a black figure moving through the trees about 30 yards distant. I was so intent on keeping my eye on this shape that I didn't hear the footsteps behind me until they were very near. I did not look back – I bolted and climbed up a ten-foot tall chain link fence that separated the Outback from a public sidewalk. I dropped to the pavement and stumbled – my only foot gear was a pair of blue crocs. I was also wearing a pair of gym shorts and my threadbare ARMY shirt – yeah I didn't look like a tweaked-out college kid at all.

I kept walking along the sidewalk and wondered what the fuck that was that I had felt in the Outback. Was it still following me? I crossed the street and looked suspiciously at a big, black SUV with tinted windows as it passed. Where the fuck were they? I knew there were at least two, since one had snuck up on me as I was watching the other one. What the fuck were they? I continued these thoughts for three miles as I jerked forward to the mountains, to the real wilderness.

I had never felt so up, but I couldn't really enjoy it – not as long as those bastards were on my trail. They had this spooky habit of flitting in and out of my peripheral vision. When I turned to face them, they were no longer fully there. I didn't have my glasses on, so I wasn't sure if I could see a black foot or elbow poking out from the shadows, attached to whatever was waiting there for me. When I tried to approach one, it would fall back and another one would begin moving at the corner of my vision. By this time I felt sure that there had to be at least three of these beings. Their movements were perfectly coordinated. I would have admired their precision if I hadn't been the one being hunted.

And that was just what they were doing – I wasn't familiar with their tactics and I didn't know what weapons they possessed. I couldn't even get a full glimpse of one, but it was painfully clear that I was their prey for whatever reason. My blue crocs pooled with sweat in the afternoon sun. I had left the sidewalk for a nature biking trail that ran parallel to the mountains. My only possessions were a small, scorched pipe, a Bic lighter, and the small plastic bag filled with the rocks.

The rocks were yellowish crystal cubes. I had assumed it was crack or meth but wasn't sure, since I had never done either before and the guy who provided them didn't speak great English. I tucked one against my gum, since the hunters wouldn't let me smoke in peace. The rock tingled and tore at my mouth, and I broke into a jog. If these beings wanted to keep shadowing me, then they would have to work for it.

A No Trespassing sign hanging from a chain grabbed my attention and I jumped past onto a trail running perpendicular to the biking path and leading up to the mountains. As the trail grew steeper, I tucked my head and pumped my arms, breaking into a blue-croced sprint. The trail flattened out as I reached the crest of hill. Had I lost them?

I looked back and focused on a distant peak several hundred feet away. One was standing there for me. I was seeing it because it wanted me to see it. I believe that it wanted to give me the purest form of terror before continuing the chase – it worked.

The black figure was about six feet tall with a slim but powerful build. When I say black, I mean head-to-toe darkness. Black combat boots, gloves, pants, and jacket. Its face was covered with a tinted reflective surface shaded by a visor, a cross between a paintball mask and a motorcycle helmet. It was holding a short-barreled rifle with a pistol grip and collapsible stock – guess what color it was.

The rifle barrel was pointed down, and I could see that it had no scope. The black figure's stance somehow gave the impression that it wouldn't deign to use a scope, that it could nail me through the eye with a one-handed shot if it so pleased. All this was conveyed in about two seconds. The black figure stood in partial profile and turned its masked face toward me ever so slightly.

I couldn't handle it. I turned away for a second and then looked back. It was gone.

I spit out the crystal in my mouth and hustled into the deep underbrush that was taller than me and covered the mountainside. I moved very noisily, so I stopped periodically to check for sounds of pursuit. There was just the sound of my breathing, so I moved forward a few more feet and stopped – still just my breathing. A few more feet forward and then stop. This time I heard movement. The owner of the steps knew that it had been heard. Instead of quieting down, it abandoned stealth and I could hear it crashing toward me. I scrabbled through the plants and broke out onto another path, another crest of the hills gradually becoming mountains.

I couldn't decide if being blind in the undergrowth or vulnerable in the open was the better option, but I left the path, in too much of a panic to look or listen for any approach. The other side of the mountain was covered in dry brown grass that only came to my knees. I hit the ground and started crawling through it.

Were the beings tracking me even human? Could I grasp their intentions? When I tried to sense them, there was this incomprehensible wall. The snipers were unreadable. Perhaps the aspect that I came closest to sensing from them was grim amusement at my attempts to elude and understand them. But death is efficient – it doesn't have time for emotions or feelings.

My thoughts weren't nearly this coherent in my tweaked-out state, but I did have the presence of mind to stop when I crawled near a massive brown rock. It had an overhang that I was able fit under. I stayed there as the steady set of footsteps surrounded me.

I felt that there had to be four snipers by then – Jeezus, would their numbers just keep moving up by one every five minutes? If the brown rock shielding me was at the center, I imagined them forming four points of a square, boxing me in. Boxing me in! Trapped! Flee flee!

I grabbed a small rock from under the overhang and threw it as far away from me as possible. It made a good amount of noise when it landed. I thought it was a stupid, desperate trick, so I was surprised when I heard the snipers running towards that area. I rolled out from under the brown rock and ran in the opposite direction, never daring to look back.

I don't know how far or fast I ran through the mountains. I remember zig-zagging and sliding around in my sweaty crocs – it was miracle that my left knee, which had popped out of place that summer, didn't crumple on me.

I had somehow made it back onto a path in the foothills, and an elderly couple was heading towards me, out for a stroll. I was exhausted and jogging by that time. The man smiled and nodded at me. His smile faded when he took in my appearance. I wondered if I should warn them about the snipers. I ended up continuing past them and not saying anything. I didn't want them to call the police on a crazy kid harassing senior citizens in the mountains. Plus, I felt instinctively that they weren't part of the hunt. For whatever reason, this was solely between me and the snipers. With the presence of actual human beings, I knew that I was close to civilization once more.

I hadn't seen the snipers at the edge of my vision for a good five minutes. But I got the feeling that they would stay hidden when others were around. This ability to remain unseen was part of their prowess. They were in complete control. I was powerless. As soon as the elderly couple vanished from view, the snipers returned. One trailed behind me on my right, another on my left. The location of the other two was unknown. The sniper on the right sped up, so I went left. The sniper on the left moved incredibly fast, so I went back right. They were herding me – off a cliff.

I grabbed a small tree near the precipice and it saved me from falling face first. The cliff was steep but not a sheer drop, so I tumbled down and slid on my ass for part of the way. I had momentum, I somehow still had my blue crocs sticking to my feet, and I saw houses! The only problem was that I'd have to run through a partially forested valley to get there. The opposite side of the valley was smooth green manicured, a way back into suburbia where unfathomable beings with guns didn't decide to make you their personal prey.

Branches and thorns tore at my arms and legs, and then I was out. I realized my mistake after a few steps on to the green. I was completely exposed on an incline. I tried to zig zag up, but it was hopeless. Halfway up the hill, I turned and backed up as I looked into the forested part below.

I could make out three figures separated from me by the trees – where was the fourth?

“Stop, why are you shooting people?” I screamed.

One of the beings below shouted something. So they could talk. How would their strange language of death sound?

“It's just paintballs!” The voice was young and came from one of the figures. I noticed that they were much shorter than six feet and not entirely black. There was some dark blue, brown, perhaps even white.

My mind did a back flip. I was near the top of the green by then, and there were some small rocks there. I yelled and threw a few. The young paintballers scattered.

To this day, I don't know if the snipers or paintballers were real. Perhaps my tortured mind had to come up with something to fill in the gaps, when I expected to die on the green and no projectiles came my way. It's very possible that some kids playing paintball in the mountains noticed me behaving strangely and decided to have some fun. It's also very possible that I was completely alone in those mountains, running from imaginary snipers. I don't even know if the elderly couple that I passed were a hallucination.

As I left the mountains and found the sidewalk leading back down to Foothill boulevard, I kept jogging at random intervals and ducking quick peeks over my shoulder. Rather than pure terror, I had moved into incessant paranoia. My mind temporarily accepted the paintballer explanation, and I thought the kids would follow me to pop off their shot.

I was very lucky to run into a friend from my school once I made it to more crowded parts of the sidewalk. He was buying groceries and chaperoned me back to school. I kept startling at the movement of black outlines and running up to trees to check behind them for those no-good, dirty paintballers.

My friend told me later that my agitation was so genuine that he almost began to see these figures as well. He took me to a dorm that was built nearest to the Outback. I had come full-circle, except now the sun was setting. I had been on the run for close to five hours. I asked a group of friends, the closest thing my school had to a fraternity, to let me borrow their BB guns so that I could defend myself. They were smart enough to say no. I didn't tell anyone that I was on drugs.

And when the sun set completely and the darkness came was when the real fun began. Shapes that had been suggestions before became living things.

I was escorted back to my dorm by other friends and kept in the care of one of my best friends, who was also sort of the dorm mom. She made me lie in her bed and couple of other friends kept watch over me. I let them know that I was on drugs but didn't offer to hand them over – the small bag, pipe, and lighter were still in the pocket of my gym shorts.

I covered myself completely in blankets and tried to turn off my mind. The room was on the second floor and situated against a window. I thought that I could feel gun barrels pressing in through the open window. Those shitty kids with their guns were taunting me, aiming the barrels at my back, my crotch, and my face. I would growl and swat at the barrels, but there was never anything there when I did.

In the end I gave up. My thoughts were please shoot me with whatever is in those guns. It's the thought of waiting for that shot and feeling my nerves unravel further that is unbearable. Please just shoot me and prove to my friends that you are real, that I'm not insane.

Keep in mind that there were actual people in the room with me at all times, so it was very unlikely that barrels were coming through the window without them noticing. The next day, when I looked behind the dorm, there was a tall stack of wooden crates that looked as if someone had placed them there to climb to the window. And that's the dilemma – not being able to trust myself or my perceptions.

My friend thought I had wet her bed because the blankets and sheet were soaked – it was all sweat.

I spent the next day in the Outback still smoking the mystery rock. I had decided to conquer it and get past my bad first experience – fucking stupid. I didn't end up running from snipers during the day. I actually spent the time frolicking with two highly imaginary and highly beautiful girls in the undergrowth. Two days later, I had the worst poison oak that I've ever had in my life.

That experience was fine. No, it was when the darkness came that the snipers returned – not the possible paintball children but the seasoned hunters I had first encountered. That was the last day that I ever smoked the rock. I gave the rest of it to my friend – she is a chemist and wanted to analyze it, since she has some experience in that area. She said that it was like no rock that she had seen before. I don't know if that question will ever be answered. I believe that she lost it, although I wasn't in the habit of asking about it. Two days had been enough – I 'm still dealing with it five years later. I can't imagine what a week on that would have done.

And the snipers have come back on dozens of occasions. I started dabbling in coke Junior year, and by the first semester of my Senior year, it was a regular problem.

The ritual was this: sculpt my exclamation point (a fat line for one nostril and a bump for the other), lick the end of a cigarette and use it to pick up coke residue before lighting up, another exclamation point but switch nostrils, another cigarette, repeat, repeat, repeat, and wait for the snipers.

As the paranoia became terror, the snipers would gather outside my window or anywhere just out of my reach so that we could start our dance. I would try to sit motionless and then turn really quickly to catch a full glimpse. They might mimic my movements or just take lazy aim. It would always end with me staring at the window waiting for a shot to come or for my mind to shut off.

Occasionally there'd be a new element to the synchronized sniping. I ripped open an air vent when I thought a small, flexible sniper had set up shop there. I broke a piece of mirror to give myself a portable rear view for the bushes outside my window. I arranged pistachio shells just so on my window sill just so. I tried to escape on a skateboard during the day and rode through neighborhoods, wondering at the strange stares (it turned out that my nose had been bleeding the whole time). I bought a hunting knife and slept with it under my pillow on the couch (I had already tucked pillows under my bed sheets as a decoy). I was fucking losing it.

I quit coke halfway through the first semester of Senior year, and the snipers were a prime motivator there. I believe that it's been almost three years since I've touched it. I haven't seen a sniper since, but I still feel their presence at random times and places, that remembrance of powerless fear. Are they real or imaginary? To still be asking that question is a sign of trouble.

I don't think I've been explaining the nature of the snipers quite how I want, so I will compare them to bed bugs.

Bed bugs are one of the worst pests to have. Their bites are extremely itchy and painful, sometimes leaving scars. A single bed bug with a batch of eggs can infest an entire mattress. Here's the thing - they only come out at night. They also sometimes develop a taste for a certain person's blood. For example, my ex and I had a light infestation, and they would bite only me at first. She thought I was imagining the sensation of being bitten until they moved onto her about a week later and left me alone for several days. They will gorge themselves on blood and sometimes go into hiding for several months.

Replace blood with fear and you have your sniper that started it. And that's why I had to challenge it to a duel.

I had it all planned out. I would look up the douchiest-sounding paintball arena in Miami, the kind of place where people have matching uniforms and turn up their guns up way past the max fps levels. I would then walk out in the middle of the field during a game, close my eyes, and wait for the shots to come. Somehow that would heal me, and I'd write a snappy blog post where the ending sentence would be somewhere along the lines of “move along, peashooters, there's nothing for you to feed on here.”

That never happened. It didn't feel right as I was looking up paintball places. It got to be my last full day in Miami, and I still didn't have anything set up.

There's a small park across the way that I went to nearly every day. It had a rubberized track perfect for barefoot running and plenty of cool corners from which to people watch. One of those corners was right at ocean's shore. Fossilized coral rocks and red mangroves made for the perfect setting to watch the sunrise. Three hundred feet across the water was a small island – that would be where I would go for my final visit with the sniper that started it all.

That morning, I started the swim. I could take no electronics and I would be bringing no weapons. I no longer own a pair of crocs, so I would have to go barefoot. The mud and silt at the bottom of the water was surprisingly deep and covered in some type of underwater grass. I thought of sting rays and sea urchins; an animal planet show that I had seen earlier that week had recommended shuffling one's feet so as not step directly on one of these. The deep mud made it impossible for me to do this. The entire swim was actually a walk, since the water never got deeper than four feet, an awkward depth that turned most attempts at swimming into an underwater crawl.

I made it to the island in ten minutes and looked for the darkest patch in the red mangroves, the one that gave me the greatest sense of foreboding. There was a big log for my bench with a smaller log running parallel to it for my foot rest. This perfect arrangement felt prepared. I sang a loud song, and there was a splash in the water nearby. I closed my eyes, sat and waited.

I don't know if I waited for two, five, or fifteen minutes. I listened. I could hear a distant boat on the water, wind passing over the mangrove leaves, sounds of life. I never heard the footsteps behind me. It revealed its presence by pressing the rifle barrel right behind my left ear. It held steady. We waited.

Keep your damn eyes closed. Sit still and sit straight. Love this moment. BE.

Click.

It took five years for me to figure out that the gun was never loaded. I suppose that's not a bad joke.

The pressure behind my ear vanished. I stayed seated for awhile, just breathing. Finally, I opened my eyes. I noticed a white stick stretched across some mangrove roots. I rose and picked it up; it was a 10 foot section of PVC pipe. A gift?

I took the stick back with me across the water. It was a perfect, flexible support pole, allowing me to sweep the ocean floor in front of me, testing for sting rays. Halfway across, I spotted a green canoe rounding sniper island. The man paddling it precisely was white haired and had a slim but powerful build. I couldn't tell from his seated position, but I guessed that he was about six feet tall. He was wearing a strange hat with side flaps and a long visor that covered the back of his neck. As he passed near me and my sweeping pole, he turned his head ever so slightly, the briefest form of acknowledgment.

There are times when real versus imaginary can't matter. How else does pure terror turn into cautious respect?