THE PEG MAN

I had the same dream again; I lay in bed wearing nothing but a pink bow tie and a pair of pink winter boots. I heard someone knocking at the door. Slowly, I got up from bed and walked down the stairs towards the main living room where a few relatives had congregated.  They all stood still with pale faces; cautiously, I opened the front door, but there was no one there.  In the background, the "Sound of Silence" was playing.  It was a very sunny day, and I had been looking outward towards the main road. I noticed cars passing by, and people walking and greeting each other. Everything seemed normal except for one thing: Everyone was walking backwards, including their pets. I found myself scratching my neck absentmindedly as everyone stared at me while I was staring at them.  An inner voice within the dream told me that I was just dreaming.  Without moving my lips, and almost in a telepathic way, I uttered the following words: "A dream within a dream."  I woke up!  Across my room, a cheap imitation of "Las Meninas" hung on the charcoal-colored wall. I stared at the spatial structure of the painting and noticed Diego caught in a moment of stillness staring back at me.

Three days later, I began experiencing a set of strange events that usually took place at home later at night.  It almost became a ritual, but it didn't happen everyday. I learned that a shadowy figured appears at night outside the window.  In time, I began calling it the “Pegman.” The first time I saw a glimpse of the Pegman was back in 1989.  On that particular day, my folks were out of town. It was Tuesday, October 17, and I had the entire house to myself.  I was laying on the sofa in the living room watching the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics; they called it "Battle of the Bay." Around 5:04 p.m., an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 rocked the Bay Area so hard that parts of the Bay Bridge collapsed; the impetus created by the quake destroyed and incinerated houses. Many San Franciscans were left homeless or injured.  It lasted about 15 seconds, but at that time, it seemed like an eternity.  Later that night, a few of my cronies paid me an unexpected visit since they knew my folks were out of town. We hung out in my room, had a few drinks, and talked about what had happened a few hours earlier while the city was still in shock. However, this did not stop us from enjoying quality time with the cronies. Julio, who at that time was the same age as me, was the first one to pull out a joint. I asked him, "Where did you get that from"?”  Sarcastically, he said, "I bought it from one of those cartel dudes.” We both laughed.  Carla, John, Esteve and Cynthia were seniors and a few years older than us. They had congregated in the center of the room and were jamming to the sound of "Planet Rock," by Afrika Bambaataa.  The whole scene was so "FRESH" that I decided to turn up the volume and let my imagination go wild. After a couple of hours, I began to feel a little tipsy since I was a “lightweight,” I couldn't handle my alcohol. So, I slowly walked to one of the main windows that looked towards a few pine trees.  I opened the window to let fresh air in. It was right at that moment when I began to feel something strange: I felt that someone was watching me. I couldn't figure it out until I noticed a shadowy figure standing across the street. It was very dark, and the figure blended in with the night.  It appeared suspended in the air and made some subtle movements left, right, back, and forth.   As I looked towards my friends, the dark figured quickly disappeared.