It was a warm day in early spring in San Diego. With the beautiful weather, children were running around in playgrounds, adults were at work, and school buses were starting to set up their parking lot to pick up children. Trees grew in a small park behind the basketball courts of the local elementary school. A pretty white bird was resting on a fence post sitting at the top of a pathway that led to the playground. A jogger was running by, eyes locked on his watch as he ran on.
As the jogger neared a corner, he veered off the trail to investigate it for any problems. He was about halfway there when he noticed something on the ground. As he bent to get a better look, he saw several children sitting a few yards off the path. In fact, they were all looking at a white bird on the ground. The jogger jogged toward the bird and children. He kneeled down and asked if they had seen a white bird. The children said they had, but they didn't know where the bird was because it ran away. The jogger nodded and jogged back to the path.
He saw that the bird had made its way to a fence post about twenty feet off the ground. It perched on a skinny tree branch. The jogger was perplexed by what he saw and stopped to take a closer look. Something bumped him from behind. He turned around to see a woman pointing at the end of the path. He turned back and looked at the white bird...and fell.
The jogger was laying on the ground, when he suddenly felt that he couldn't move his body. It was as if his body lacked energy to move. He looked at his watch, and seeing that he was at least a mile away from his house, he wondered how he was going to get home. But then he realized that he was paralyzed for some reason. He tried to get up and noticed that he couldn't move his legs. Neither could he move his arms or his finger tips. It was as if they all fell asleep. He lay there for about an hour as his body slowly got over the fact that it was paralyzed. At first, his breathing came in quick bursts as he felt his heart pumping like a jackhammer. But as he settled down, his breathing slowed and all he could hear was the tick-tock of his watch.
How did I get here? How did I get here, he thought. The jogger couldn't help but think that this must be some kind of a joke. But looking around, he noticed something strange. At first, he thought that he wore his watch incorrectly. He couldn't remember when this had happened because nothing seemed out of the ordinary when he got up this morning. He examined his watch and saw that his time was right...but it was a slow day. The time was 12:30 p.m. which meant his routine was generally at 2:30 p.m., which was when he usually got up.
He thought about it for a minute and then he noticed the bird on the fence post. It rattled the screen door. And the bird's hair was still dusty from the air from inside the house.
In an instant, the joggers body came back to life, or at least his mind. He realized that this must be some kind of prank. He had been paralyzed for a whole hour. He got up and ran for the fence. He jogged along the fence until he got to where he thought the bird sat on the branch. He reached out and felt the branch with his hand. It was still a bird and it was still there. When he got back to the fence, he saw that a person, or what looked like a person was standing there. The figure was all in white.
The jogger stood a few feet away from the figure. After studying the figure for a second, the figure seemed to nod, just a small motion. Then all of a sudden, the jogger found himself paralyzed again.
The jogger looked around. Even though he could see, he could only slightly feel his body. He tried to move his arm, but nothing happened. He tried to yell for help but nothing happened. He tried to blink, but for some reason he couldn't. He had to concentrate on talking to keep himself in check.
The figure in white walked over to the fence post and the bird took off. It flapped its beautiful white wings and flew away. The jogger thought that the bird was my soul, he thought. And then I was paralyzed again. The jogger was so confused that he found himself drifting to sleep. He was unaware of his surroundings, which meant that he was not aware of the dumbfounded look upon everyone's faces.
The jogger's eyes were partly open when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It wasn't an audible tap, but he somehow knew someone was there shaking him. He tried to turn back but couldn't move.
"Come with me," said a voice behind him. It was a low and velvet voice.
The jogger didn't answer, but the figure understood his silence. The figure called the jogger soul and the jogger soul fell out of the chair. From the chair, the jogger soul realized what was going on. The figure was helping the jogger soul get back on his feet.
The jogger followed the figure, now soul, down a windy path. The trail started to curve and the figure was standing there now. It seemed as if the figure waved goodbye, but the jogger soul's body was out of it. He began to wonder how he would get back to his body. The figure seemed to realize that the jogger soul was lost and the jogger soul began to see the figure blink with the way the figure's eye blinked. The figure's light eyes fixated on the jogger soul's soul and from the corners of its light eyes, the jogger soul could see light appear. It was as if the corners of the figure's ears lit up.
