A Terrible Illustration.

I said I'd get a drawing up of the layout of the empty lot by my house. It's a horrendous image, but I never said I was any good at drawing.

Empty lot.

So the purple dot is where I was. The [X] you see there is this weird...I dunno, box. It's basically a chain-link fenced in area that at one time might've had dumpsters or something to that effect in it, but now they're empty. I have no idea for sure if that's what it was for, but either way, I was walking right behind it when the suited man(represented by the red dot!) appeared. He just walked right out of those woods right there. I didn't hear him prior to his arrival. Not a sound. And then, he turns, faces the west(or left, in this picture, away from me), takes two steps, and poof. He's gone.

Veeeeeeeery weird.

Elaboration

Let's talk a bit about what I said yesterday, huh?

In case you don't know, a thinny is a term coined by Stephen King in his Dark Tower series that basically refers to a place where the fabric of the world(s) is thin, and things often slip from one dimension, realm, or even time, in these places.

Now, before I go any further, let me be perfectly clear: I am Christian, and as a result, I believe in Heaven, in Hell, in the afterlife. I also believe that sometimes, shit happens. I believe there's more in the world that we'd all like to believe, to make our lives easier. I'm open minded, not ignorant.

So a month ago, when I was walking home from the grocery store, in the slowly fading dusk...

...when I heard a strange sound, the kind that set my teeth to clenching, my ears to singing, my eyes to watering? I knew it wasn't just a passing truck. At first I thought it might be an electrical current or something - you know, if you get too close to a strong powerline? It must've been an invisible one. It wasn't a plane, I don't have fillings, no metal rods of any kind, in fact, and I was decidedly at a loss. It didn't last long - 30 seconds at the most - and I wrote it off. No big deal. Weird noise. Carry on, Rook.

My wayward son, I took myself home.

A week later, same thing happens. It wasn't night time - in fact, it was broad daylight(which was a good thing. We'll get to that.), I'd guess...2 p.m.? Somewhere around there. The sound really set me on edge again; not afraid, but it's a very nerve-wracking sound - it just seems to go straight to your bones. In fact: you know that feeling you get in the corners of your jaws, when you bite into a really good steak, or piece of fruit? I got that feeling; my mouth flooded with saliva.

So while this is happening, while I'm standing there, plastic bags in hand, trying to will away the headache to end all headaches, I notice something. There's this man, walking out of the woods that line are the northern end of the empty lot. I guess what surprised me was not the fact that he was there, but...

There's a dude(a tall dude, I might add), coming out of woods in an empty lot, dressed in a black suit in July. It just struck me as all kinds of weird, you know? It made zero sense to me. And even moreso was the fact I didn't hear him. Sure, I had heard that sound, but it was a sound you feel more than hear; I should've heard some guy tromping in the woods, you know? Irregardless, I didn't get the best look at him - and I'm pretty sure he didn't see me at all, he was facing the west.

So what does this have to do with a thinny?

...He took two steps forward, and vanished.

Yea.

I'll post a crude sketch of the lot and where I/he was sometime later, to give a better idea of things.

Warning: It will be no Michaelangelo.

In the Beginning...

...my father loved chess. He was also fond of birds. Furthermore, he loved to read.

You see where this is going, right? Because my mother didn't. There she is, laid up in the hospital bed, holding me to her chest, and she was so drugged up that when the person came around with that whole birth certificate bit, and asked what my name was?

There was my dad, forever reliable, to blurt out: "Rook."

...It has not been an easy life, let it be said. Fun, mind you - I'm not going to sit here and spout out 'woe is me' BS about how life has been hard; it hasn't. Interesting, occasionally the pits, but certainly never hard. Let's rewind to that 'interesting' bit, because it is. About a year ago, life just went from typical and normal to 'interesting'. The Chinese have a saying: "May your life be interesting."

They consider it a curse.

A year ago, my family and I moved to Maryland. It was not quite the eighteenth birthday present I wanted, to be fair. However, a few weeks after we moved up, I started to overlook that fact. I'm a stone's throw from two malls. There are plenty of conventions year round that I could go to, not to mention Renne Faire, which is awesome.

So all of these things are awesome, but the best part, I think, is the fact that..well..

Okay, hang on. Let me give a bit of back story, first.

I live in a cul-de-sac(that's a dead end street, for those of you not in the know), and while ours isn't the last house, it's close enough for government work. At the very end of the street is the end of the sidewalk, a path that loops around into an empty lot(that is mostly overrun by grass and further back, a brief smattering of woods), which leads into the back parking lot of the grocery store in my back yard. Not literally in my back yard, but you get the idea. I can walk to the grocery store. If we get snowed in? We don't have to worry about clearing the car out from under all that snow, nor shoveling our way to the street. Just get up, thrown on a good layer of clothes, and away you go.

Terribly helpful on those nights when it's 8:30, you don't feel like getting in the car just to drive around the block, you know.

But the best part of this is that...well...

I am pretty sure that that empty lot, a few doors down, overgrown with grass, peeking out of old, cracked concrete?

I think it may be a thinny.