Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them

My father is the sort of person you're happy to meet and thrilled to separate from. I was on my way to a familiar retreat with him and asking why I decided to join his company again. It had been years since we stopped talking to each other.

The trip was stressful, as I knew it would be. But he seemed to enjoy my company despite my many complaints about him.

It culminated in a visit to a vegan pizza place I knew and loved. My father was reluctant about the food but always interested in meeting new people and having new experiences.

While my father sat down in the middle of the restaurant, I went up to order. I told the lady behind the counter which slices in the display I wanted. She passed them to another man who seemed annoyed to be bothered. He took a look at the slices and said, "These aren't good."

I started and quickly asked, "Are you sure? They seem fine to me."

"No, these aren't good, they're too old." Then, as if to prove his point, he threw them on the ground in front of the whole restaurant. The two slices, which were still fused together, clanged awkwardly together on the ground.

I got really upset then. Why had he deliberately done that? I exchanged words with him, each of us becoming more upset the more we spoke to each other. I kept hoping they would see the wisdom of what I was saying, change their mind, and apologize. At the very least, I hoped for some word of sympathy for myself. But to no avail.

I picked up my coat to go, signaling to my father it was time to leave. He got up to say something then and I felt too tired to protest. I folded the coat over my arm, leaned against the wall, and waited for it to be over.

I don't remember everything he said to the workers but his points were remarkably salient. He ended with, "You people seem to like fake things very much." Then he turned to the others in the restaurant and invited them to the retreat we were going to. Boy, could he advertise.

As we left the establishment, I couldn't help feeling a little proud at how my father behaved. He had some remarkable qualities mixed in with all the things I didn't like about him. And, after all, he was able to express what I wasn't able to. He was an outsider in the vegan world and was able to see things wrong with the community that I didn't.

I woke up then. I checked my alarm clock. It was 2:07am. I was tired. Had my housemate returned? I normally keep my bedroom door closed but had left it open. It took some time to realize the experience with my father was just a dream. But it didn't really feel like that. And from all I knew of the Divine Truth teachings, it may not have been.

The rake is a frightening creature. He stalks you at night. There are dark holes where his eyes once were. He is thin and frail, silent and scary as all get out. Somehow, he can beat a dogman in a fight. And since the dogman, despite his shorter stature, can square himself off against a sasquatch, that is saying something.

If I ever get the chance to build and live in a mud hut out in the middle of somewhere, it is he I will be most afraid of.

I lay in my bed listening - wondering when he would peek around the corner of my doorway.

I wonder if he is just spirits manifesting themselves to scare us. Even now, as I write this, I look over through my open doorway to see if he is there. Drops of fear fall through my brain stem. I check again. No. Not tonight.

When I worked replacing window wells, I met some interesting fellows. One such man was named Favian. He was a short, stocky guy with more strength and workman's confidence in his short frame than you might initially bet on. He always kept his hair trim and wore a cap. His mother, who he would say he loved to death, was Mexican and didn't know a lick of English. His father, a Native married her although she was a lot older than him. I asked him why that was and he said he didn't know.

On a particular rainy day, we were on the way back from the jobsite. We were done for the day and I was dropping him off at his truck. We hit a lot of traffic. But I didn't mind because he was telling me stories of his life. They were the kind of stories that always fascinated me. They were stories of the paranormal.

We had listened to a podcast together where someone talked about his experience seeing a hatman. The hatman was a ghost who always wore a tophat. Favian said he saw one once in his basement.

"It was a demon," he said. He was shouting at it to leave but it wouldn't. The funny thing was that the guy was too short for the basement. He had to bend over to fit down there.

"How tall was he?"

"Probably 7 feet. Maybe more."

(It's 2:59 now. The witching hour is almost over. Thank God no one came to visit.)

"There was this other time, Theo. I got a call from my wife." I already knew the woman he was talking about was long gone from his life. They had several kids together but his long hours in the oil fields and other problems meant their relationship could not be maintained. "I came home early because she was complaining."

"About what?"

"Just dumb shit. This was near the end. I always finish my shift but that day I came back early."

"When?"

"Probably like 1."

"Wow, that's early considering you worked till 8 sometimes."

"Yup... anyway, I came back. I was trying to talk sense to her. I didn't want things to end, you know? I cleaned the whole house. It was raining out just like it is now."

Favian sighs and looks out the windshield like he sees something far in the distance.

"My wife was upstairs when it happened. I walked into the kitchen and the back door was open." Another pause. "There was a demon standing in the doorway."

I waited, wondering if I should ask more questions.

"That's when I knew it was over."

"What do you mean?"

"My marriage was over. That demon was sent from hell to mess things up for us."

I waited.

"Don't you think that's what is was?"

"I don't know man."

"I think so."

"...what happened next?"

"I looked away and when I looked back, it was gone."

I remember another interesting man I replaced window wells with. His name was Eric. He was short and thin and had gang tattoos all over his body. When he talked to me about his past, he was always sorry about the things he did. When he talked to Favian, those were the glory days. He had Mexican parents but he didn't know his father well. His mother had found someone else but him and his stepfather never got along. His mom was a hairdresser. Whenever he did pull his cap off, he would ask if he should cut his hair or keep growing it. I would always tell him he should grow it because he has nice hair. Then he would say, "No, I should cut it."

I remember him being full of nervous energy. After one too many experiences with drugs, he started to lose his memory. The first day I met him, he asked me 4 different times if I was married.

When we finished replacing a window well, a lot of times we would put new, nice-looking rock down in the bottom of the well and around the top. Eric and I had gone out to the landscape yard to get some rock one afternoon.

We finished lunch and Eric was looking out, being quiet. Here it comes, I thought.

"Man. I don't want to go to hell!"

I tried not to roll my eyes. This was the hundredth time I heard him utter that phrase. Seriously - he said it a lot.

Eric was preoccupied with thoughts of hell. He was a good digger. Although he was scatterbrained, I thought of him as our best worker. He worked so hard, it was amazing sometimes. He was always on time, always ready to jump in the hole. And he was a wonder with the shovel. I thought he was the fastest guy on the team.

But his past was a hole he couldn't dig his way out of.

...saw what I did there?

Seriously though. The thought of hell freaked him out. And, to be honest, it freaked me out when he talked about it. You listen to people talk about the end of the world because a comet might hit, or a virus might consume us all, or a nuclear holocaust will destroy the world, or the bees, or climate change.

And then you talk to Eric and he reminds you that that's all meaningless. To him, hell is a real place. And he's going there. And it made me ask myself the question if I'm going there too. It made me think about my past which I didn't like doing.

I asked Eric if he wanted to listen to AJ and Mary doing a channeling session where they talk to spirits.

"Who's that?"

"Well he's that guy in Australia I was talking about who claims to be Jesus. Mary is Mary Magdalene."

"He's not Jesus man."

"Maybe you're right man. I don't know."

"Yeah, we could listen to some of it."

So I put it on and we listen to these spirits who used to be enslaved in the American South.

We're getting close to the rock yard and I'm starting to feel edgy. It's been 12 minutes. Eric's attention span usually isn't that long. But we haven't gotten to the good part yet - the part where the spirits find their way to forgive their slaveholders and make their way out of their hellish condition.

Eric starts talking again. "Oh well..." I think.

"I should tell you something." Eric says.

In my head I think, "What? About how you're going to hell?"

"I just don't know if I should," Eric continues.

How many times have people said that to me. Either say it or don't, am I right? I gave my normal response: "Hey man, say whatever you want. If you don't want to, don't say it."

"I see things sometimes."

Ooo... now my ears are perking up.

"I just don't tell anyone about it."

Oh man. Things are getting juicy. I feel like Eric's really about to reveal something to me - something he hasn't told me about in the year and a half I've known him.

"What do you see, Eric?"

"I just don't know if I should tell you."

"Hey man. I'd love to hear more but it's like I said, if you don't want to, you don't have to."

"Ok I'll tell you."

I park the car next to a big pile of rocks in the landscape yard. Getting the rocks can wait.

"I see faces."

"...faces?"

"Yeah... everywhere."

"What do you mean?"

"I see faces man. Everywhere. In everything."

"Like... what? Give me an example."

"Like in that pile of rocks." Eric is looking away from the pile as he says that.

"That pile of rocks?"

"Yeah. Do you see it?"

Now I'm getting really freaked out. But I look anyway. There's nothing there... nothing I can see anyhow.

"I don't see anything."

"There are faces in that pile man. They're everywhere."

"Ok man. I'm sorry but you're saying you see faces in everything you see?"

"Yeah man. I think they're aliens."

Oh, I thought he was going to go somewhere else with this.

"Like what if aliens came down and they're spying on us all the time?"

I shrug and look around. Still a little confused, I ask, "So you saw a face in that pile of rock. Where else do you see faces?"

"Everywhere, I see them in the clouds, in the dirt, in the trees."

I still don't get what he's saying. Are these apparitions that he is seeing?

"I don't know if I should have told you."

"When did you start seeing these things?"

"It was after one of my overdoses."

Makes sense, he started gaining this weird spiritual sight after taking too many drugs one time. I've heard of things like that happening.

"Listen, Eric, I'm glad you told me. I know it must be hard to go through all this."

"They freak me out man. I've tried to tell my kids. But they'd think I'm crazy. You're the only one I've told. No, second one."

"Listen man, I feel honored. And I don't think you're crazy. Look, at the end of the day, the truth is that someone's trying to scare you. You just remember that God is there and He loves you."

"They freak me out man. I don't know what to do about them. I see them everywhere."

I feel like there's no use talking more about it just now. We have plenty of time in the rest of the day and beyond. As Eric and I collect rock and return to the jobsite, there's a lot to think about and talk about.

When we arrive we start hauling the buckets of rock back to the finished well. At one point, Eric stands uncharacteristically still.

"What's up man?" I ask.

"See that little tree behind me?"

I look and see a trimmed pine about 20 yards behind Eric.

"Yeah."

"See the face in it?"

I look again. I don't see anything. Sure, there are shadows in between the branches, deeper in some places than others but there's no spirit face looking back at me. Huh, it's funny I thought I was actually going to see something that time.

"Do you see it?"

"No dude. It's like I said, maybe you can see something, but they're just trying to scare you."

"Look again."

I shake my head once but think... maybe I'll actually see something this time. So, as silly as it all is, I look again.

I'm staring at this bush, and then... I see the face.

But it's not what you think... it's those shadows. There are three distinct shadows. Two misshapen shadows where eyes would be and one slightly larger one below them for a mouth.

That's it.

"You see it now don't you?" Eric says, more as a statement then a question.

Suddenly it all comes together for me. Eric sees faces everywhere... just like we all do.

When you're a kid and you look at the wallpaper too long or you look up at the clouds. Or you look at bark on a tree, you see these faces. Everyone does. But you don't pay any mind to it. It's just the way our minds work.

Right?

Somehow these faces that everyone sees and pays no attention to, are more real for Eric. They are menacing. Although, when I think about it, I used to think that way too as a child.

I remember finding myself alone in the green room downstairs. It was the big play room where my dad had a desk and us kids could play. A big green carpet was folded across the whole floor.

Sometimes I thought there were people with me down there. My mom would call. It was time to go upstairs.

When I turned to the hallway and then towards the staircase, they started to chase me. I started running faster. I was so fast, I would outrun them. Although it was foolish, sometimes I would take an extra quarter of a second to look back down the stairwell to see how close they got. I never could quite catch sight of them.

Where is the line between myth and reality? And how do you cross it? What do we make of these experiences? Some people claim to see spirits all the time. For them, it is a present reality.

For others like me, if I ever could see spirits, I lost that ability long ago.

It's 4:05 am and the rake never came to see me. I looked out one last time. He's not there. But the witching hour is long over so he shall not visit me tonight.

I wonder how alike my father and I really am. How could a dream feel so much like a reality? When you talk to people about your dreams, it's like everyone's playing a game. "Oh yeah, that place you think you went to last night? That's not real!"

Then why does it feel so real?

I wonder how Favian is. I tried to go visit him one last time before I moved away from Colorado down to Texas. But it didn't happen. Why did our friendship fall apart?

I just heard a sound. Is that the heater? Or someone messing with me? I know that I'm scared. If they come and get me, what will I do?

I have to remember God is there. Just like I told Eric. And God is more powerful than anything in hell or on Earth. If I die, even if I go to hell too, God is still up there and She wants the best for me. Yes, She loves me... no matter how I try to deny it.

Where are these beings of myth and legend? Where are these cryptids and ghosts they talk about in all those podcasts I listen to? The scary things that go bump in the night don't matter so much as the people I remember from my life. The memories I have of my father, Favian, and Eric will stay with me. They are the fascinating creatures of myth and legend for me. Times I had with them are locked in my memory bank, while they go on living somewhere. Somehow managing.

And what about me? I am also an odd one of God's many creatures. I can spin a yarn, that's for sure. I am full of flaws and yet another creation of the Most High.

Two hours ago, I thought I'd try to go back to sleep. But the thought of my friends and the dream I had and a nice title, "Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them", lead me to write this post. Where do you find these fantastic creatures? Everywhere.

In the sorcery world of Harry Potter, there are people born with natural magic ability. Then there is everyone else - the non-magical ones known as muggles.

I feel like a muggle asking questions about the magical world I seem to know so little about. And the mysterious people I meet along the way help paint the picture of the world beyond as well as the world within.