My father was a Marine back in the late 1960’s and still keeps in touch with some of his jarhead buddies. One of them, Gene, just hasn’t been right since the war. Now, a lot of soldiers have PTSD, including Dad’s friends, and many were injured too, but Gene was…different.
It was almost a relief to find out that Gene was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in his temporal lobe, because maybe that’s the reason why he was so odd. He always had strange ideas, and he’d insist he knew what people were thinking of him, that he could read minds.
Gene disappeared two years ago, but before he left, he called my father with a disturbing tale that raised more questions than it answered.
Back in boot camp, Gene used to get called out of training and sent away with a few other recruits to someplace else. He wasn’t allowed to talk about it, and the drill instructors forbid anyone to ask. Gene never spoke about it. This was the height of Project Bluebook, but the recruits, mostly draftees, were more worried about Charlie in the jungles of Vietnam than little green men in outerspace.
Gene said that he was sent to a bunker where he would telepathically communicate with a being named “Ray.” He was told that Ray was on the other side of a cinderblock wall, and that he should use his mind to speak to Ray. It started to work, and apparently, Ray told him all sorts of things, including things that made Gene think that Ray wasn’t actually behind the wall, or that he’d never been to Parris Island, or even to Earth.
Ray wasn’t behind the wall, or on Parris Island, or even on Earth. Gene said he was on a ship orbiting between Earth and Mars, and that he would be visiting soon.
Gene wouldn’t elaborate much more, other than to say that Ray once told him not to work so hard or it would break his brain.
He also said that Ray did indeed visit him, and promised to come back.
But now they’re both gone.
