The most exciting day of my life so far

So I don’t have too much time to post right now, but I just had the craziest day ever and I know a lot of people are asking me to blog, so here you are. Perhaps I’ll get around to the soulfest stuff later, or maybe I’ll just merge it into another post. Or maybe not. But anyway, here goes. I think after you read it you’ll certainly agree that it's worth it. (Or you’ll just read about it in the papers, heh.)

I was at the Mall shopping around (which I rarely do, but that’s another story) and suddenly who else but dX walks up to me! Yes, for those of you who are paying attention, that’s the same one who went on the bike trip with me and the same one who should be in Kansas!

So apparently he was going to surprise me or something, but decided to blow it by coming up just like we had been hanging out all day and show me his new paintball gun. It was a really really REALLY nice one- I seriously don’t think I’ve seen a sweeter looking gun- and so to try and beat him at his own game I answered him just as matter of factly as if I was in on everything-

“Wow… that is…really nice. But dude, how much money you going to spend on that? Don’t you need it for some other stuff?”

Apparently not. Anyway, it was sweet. So what if he had to eat ramen for the rest of the month?

We went around the mall for awhile… not much I really remember as extremely special- well okay, I knocked over some stuff cause I’m such a klutz…. But I have an excuse. Occasionally I had the weirdest sensation. It was as if everything was going at a slower frame rate, and my vision emphasized the edges of everything I saw. It was like a filter for a weird music video. I know I was moving in real time but it felt slower- its hard to describe. At first I just wrote it off but I couldn’t ignore it when it went on for like 5 minutes. Finally I told dX about it.

“Dude its so weird…its like, playing a game on really old hardware or…slow motion or something.”

He just gave me that trademark dX expression of “ooooookaay” and I said “Well anyway it stopped now” and that was the end of the conversation. It happened about twice after that only for about 5 seconds at the most. It was starting to weird me out though.

We decided to splurge and get some sorta expensive mall food- I was getting Japanese of course. Right before it was my turn to order, I heard some commotion behind me. A guy was going around to people, and everyone was trying to discreetly get away from him. It was odd- the line behind me just started emptying out.

“Come on, you… you seem to have enough money for food yourself… I need some food..”

He came up to a guy who must have just ordered from a Boston market type of place:

“Come on! You just bought a rotisserie chicken… like you can’t afford to get me some food.”

He was getting closer to me. I got that feeling when you see a homeless person coming up to you- half danger, half pity, 100 percent uncomfortable. But now as I turned around and saw him I realized he was young (teens/early 20s), well dressed and didn’t look in desperate health at all. And he was headed towards me.

Dang it… what am I going to say?

Then I got the sense that something was odd. Something wasn’t right- he was coming towards me at an unhealthy speed and he had his hand in his pocket. Then suddenly it happened again: everything got real slow. I honestly think I experienced one of those moments you read about- were adrenaline kicks in and gives you perfect clarity.

He started to lean into my direction and I stepped a little to the side. It seemed to take forever. Then he shifted his weight to try and catch me- I started freaking out and used my arm to push him back. He resisted hard and there was a bit of a struggle while I pushed him until finally I sort of rolled him off my arm and then pinned him down. I was right. He had a knife. Then I recognized his face.

I had seen him around the mall all day. Most of the time were when things got slow for me- so that was it. I have no idea how I knew he was dangerous, but I must have. My mind turned back to one time in specific- when I knocked over stuff and ticked off that guy behind me. It was the same guy. WHOA- just, WOAH. I was freaked.

At that point I was sort of shaken, and I really don’t recall what happened exactly in what order. But at some time I remember seeing none other then my friend Dan M in the mall as well and the guy started to attack him! I started to run towards him but I knew I wasn’t going to get there in time.

“Oh God… please help him hold him off till I can get there.”

I was about 8, maybe 10 feet out and the attacker had a razor blade of some sort and started to raise a blow. But suddenly Dan pulled out this crazy thing I had never seen before- it was like a stinking energy weapon. It looked like a high-tech cattle prod. He activated it and the guy was shocked, but amazingly wasn’t down. He tried to grab him and got shocked again. I could actually see the sparks…. By then I got there and I helped wrestle him to the floor. I don’t remember if we killed him or not, but I looked back at the energy weapon just as he retracted it back into….or, no, wait.. Oh man- Shoot! Maybe this was a dream. Ehh, never mind guys.