It doesn’t happen to me often. The feeling that I’ve stepped into another world or place. But today as I passed through the door from the garage into the front yard, I felt like I was in a land that time forgot. No really. There were no cars. The modern world was silenced. A wispy fog hugged the trees and levitated above the moss covered ground. Like a well crafted soundtrack from a sci-fi movie, I heard birds close by – but I did not recognize their calls.
Then I heard peacocks in the distance.
No really – the neighbors across the road own some – but this only added to the creepy vibe closing in on me. I walked to the road, pulled the Saturday headlines out of the delivery box and turned around, half glancing to see if the house was still there or whether it was now replaced by an ancient forest covered with vines and populated with giant ferns – or maybe engulfed in kudzu.
It was. (still there.)
I made my way back, watching the ground for tar pits and quicksand when I spied an odd shaped, tan colored, POD at my feet. I gently poked it with my toe half expecting every horror film cliche’ to erupt in my face. Nothing happened. So I slowly bent down and braved the thought of poking it with my index finger. “Ah what the heck”, I thought as I picked it up to inspect it more closely. Slightly rounded and approximately 3.5 inches long, it was light and had something inside. A ‘something’ that slid back and forth as I tipped it from side to side. A coccoon I suspected. I walked it back to the porch and held it up in the window for Mz.D to see. She made one of those ‘ooo, yuuuck’ faces and mouthed, “what is it?” I shrugged my shoulders and set it on a table.
I’ll most likely forget it’s there, until some warm spring day finds me walking by that spot and I’ll remember go check on it. I know it’ll be empty. Cracked open with no trace of what once lived there.
That’s how these things play out you know.
Here’s a picture. Get out and explore. Go find something weird today.
