The Bridge

An hour’s drive north of Santa Barbara, on California Coast Highway 1, an abandoned highway bridge overlooks the restless Pacific Ocean. A partial yet bright moon sprinkles light like falling diamonds onto the otherwise dark ocean, a few cars flow with ease at 60-70 mph along this mist covered four-lane highway - this new highway that is cut into a steep rocky cliff-side that rises straight as a building from the dark ocean waters whose waves break on the boulders strewn about below. 
A curve leftwards reveals the old Bridge. It spans a deep gorge. I remember and recognize The Bridge as being part of the original 1930’s coast highway – no longer needed, or is it needed for other reasons? The Bridge occupied by time’s tornado of memories and haunting presences drawing into its vortex those who know of such things. Driving with a strong desire to be home, it sucks me, forces me, this time tornado, my foot instantly steps on the brake pedal, they are binding and slow the car from 70 mph to 20 mph in seconds. Not yet done, this instantaneous force, taking hold of my arms, turn the steering wheel, tires screeching with this unpleasant and sudden move, into an unmarked turnout. It is blocked from view by a small hill. Rock scatters and dust bellows behind my car.
 You must go into this turnout. 
That voice, invading my mind, commanding my awareness, is like listening to one’s own thoughts, but these are not my thoughts. A disembodied presence speaks other thoughts and understandings, without audible sound.
Not knowing why I am here, I park the car. Dazed by this powerful force someone, something is forcing me turn into this remote viewpoint and to turn into another time. 
 “Sure the coastal view must be spectacular but it’s 10:30 at night!” I say aloud with a muddled voice, to no one. 
The small gravel turnout is vacant, except for a sleeper cab truck and its unmarked sixty-foot trailer – its driver probably resting. Parking the car near the cliff, I step out and look over the expansive, endless sparkling ocean, then notice a lone man, far below. He’s on the small sandy shore of gentle ocean waves rhythmically breaking into white foam on the adjacent rock cliffs. 
“Could be”, I think, “that it’s the truck driver taking a break and he found a path down to this miniature beach exposed by the tide being drawn out by the half-moon.” 
Hidden in the adjacent stunted, brown weeds, a damp gravel path pulls on my attention, as if I’m held by a rope. Clouds and mist float in to veil the moonlight. I pass a few stunted junipers – they are ominous, casting ghost like presences, in their closeness and having been twisted and bowed by years of determined winds. Then this slightly sloping path leads to The Bridge. 
It seems to expect me. 
Evoking a lonely melancholy, Bridge draws me to it, as if I were a fish on the end of a line, being dragged from normal time into unfamiliar time.
“A few more steps now and I’ll be there,” I try through reason to sooth my shallow anxious breathing.
Walking, foot by slow foot, on this crushed gravel path, the crunching sound of disturbed stones joins the subtle ocean sounds. Its sharp texture gives a subtle pain to each sneaker shoed foot as they step forward, foot by slow foot. Stretching out the right foot it crosses an invisible threshold from the gravel onto the smoother concrete of The Bridge. 
In an instant the unseen occurs. 
My arms spring straight out, in automatic protection mode, as if I were falling. I freeze in fear to an mysterious but sudden and powerful force, stiff and still as a deer who sensed a cougar.
“Why can’t I move?” 
A sad event occurred here. Sudden and traumatic it was, you must be here. The haunting voice appears once again taking me into a conscious dream to a former time. Stepping back off The Bridge onto the sharp gravel and into this realm, the former time vanishes, like closing a solid door.  
“So that this is what that voice wants of me – to witness through time’s tornado a long ago trauma.”
“Hey, I’ve been trained to assist the dead and yes I feel their presence and hear their pleas at times, so give me more warning. Don’t try to kill me on the highway!” I speak to myself for no one is here. But, they were here, they want me here, and hopefully that voice got the idea.
“ Damn, I should have brought a jacket, a chilly and strong breeze just picked up.” I shiver not from the ocean breeze, but from a cold presence cooling this place and enfolding me.
Then, as my toe once again touches The Bridge, with reserve, without warning it sucks me into the reality of that time when this was a very busy and narrow two-lane highway and 1930 Chevrolets and Fords.
“Look out! Cars are coming!!”  That distinct, though distant, male voice screams into my mental senses. 
“Look out – look out mister, you’re standing in the middle of a busy highway – cars are coming!”  He calls again.
The power and strength of this silent scream over-whelms me like a migraine, which no one else can feel that intense pain but the one it hits. Struggling to maintain my balance, noisy cars whizz by in both directions, within inches of me, the car winds buffeting like a strong storm. In this case, I struggle to maintain life amidst the phantom cars and trucks and sanity in normal time. 
    I do not move - anything. The harsh sounds of the old horns frighten. 
“I’ve got to get out of here!” My insides scream as if in a deadly dream. 
Stepping back, leaving the bridge I stand on the dirt path. The cars, the honking, the forceful winds all stop at once. It all stops, silence, calm - the gentle sounds and cool breezes of the ocean return. 
“I just enter a time warp, again!” 
At different places, under varying circumstances, time portal experiences have occurred. Unlike a sunset experience, which unfolds over a few beautiful colorful moments, this is similar to being instantly awakened by a shocking, frightening dream. 
“Who’s here, tell me your story.” I command into the mist, as if speaking to The Bridge.

(And more of this tale to be seen)