Image Carriers. Genel Anthony

they were in the overgrown woodland near the river one day, Drizzy picked a wild white calla lily, as they grew prolifically in the area around the riverbank. She showed it to Adam and wanted him to take an interest in the flower. Adam was not interested in wild flowers because he had grown up around them, but he humoured her and pretended to be interested. Upon closer investigation, as Drizzy drew the flower nearer to him and encouraged him to look at the protruding yellow spadix inside the flower, to his amazement he saw little speckles encircling the yellow spadix. As he focused nearer, he noticed hundreds of little specks spinning around the yellow inner stem like little insects flying around. But they were not tiny insects. They seemed artificial or something else–something he had never seen before!

      After a short while, Adam stepped back, as he didn’t like the feeling he was getting deep down in his stomach and thought this was too weird. He felt the sudden urge to leave the riverbank and head home immediately. Drizzy also sensed his discomfort and asked if he was okay, but as Adam peered up at her, he noticed little colourful dots or specks flickering around her head and upper body. He then focused his gaze around the immediate area, looking at the long wild grass moving quietly in the summer breeze and noticed a purplish, bluish haze around each blade of grass, giving out a dull glow of light. The trees all around them seemed to be swaying slowly, appearing alive with reddish to pinkish light surrounding their upper trunks and foliage. Even the slow-running muddy river seemed to sparkle with various rainbow-coloured shimmering light. He rubbed his eyes wildly and thought that he was going blind or something was in his eye. This action did nothing as he continued to see little halos of iridescent light around Drizzy’s head and the surrounding area.

      It seemed to Adam that time was standing still, and he began to panic and started to rub his eyes more furiously. Drizzy asked what was wrong, as she had noticed no changes in the immediate environment. Adam noticed that she spoke in slow motion, moving her mouth very slowly. He shouted that something was wrong. Drizzy was now standing, as if in a trance, not moving, just staring at him in a catatonic way, as if she was switched off–frozen! As his panic peaked, he quickly decided to leave the area and run home, deserting his new friend, as she stood motionless, staring ahead in a transfixed pose, surrounded by tall pine trees and thick bush.

      As Adam ran through the forest, sticking to the well-worn pathway they often used, he noticed that his vision was returning to normal. By the time he reached the end of the wooded area and stepped onto the road that led to his house, he felt okay. When he got home, he felt better and went to rest on his bed. He wondered if he should tell his parents, but after a brief rest, he decided to try and forget about the whole experience.

      Drizzy was a strange girl, and she was of a different religion and culture than the majority in the area. All of Adam’s friends were of the same cultural and religious background, and phobias were rife in those days. The common outlook was the “us versus them” mentality. Minority groups stayed in their own areas and associated with their own kind and vice versa for Adam and his friends. Adam remembered little games they played about being caught by the Russians. They did not want to be caught by the Russians. They were the enemy. He also remembered being petrified by Asian people, as these people were supposed to be dangerous. Muslims were also considered very strange, and their parents didn’t want them to play with Muslim children. That’s how it was back then, hence why Adam’s friends weren’t too happy about Drizzy playing with them in their area. But she would make the trip nonetheless, as she was also cheeky and determined.

      After the incident down by the river, Adam didn’t see Drizzy for about a month before she turned up again. This was quite usual, as she would make a nuisance of herself nearly every school afternoon and weekends, and then she would just vanish for weeks on end. But the same thing happened with his other friends. Depending on what was going on, they would play every afternoon, and then sometimes Adam would not see them as they would be out with their families, attending church, or in trouble, so they were grounded and so on. This went for Adam as well.

      When Drizzy finally made an appearance after the terrifying experience with that lily flower, she asked what had happened and why he ran off so quickly. Adam didn’t really want to revisit that day again. For one, it scared him and also, he didn’t want Drizzy, a girl, to know that he was on the verge of crying. But she persisted. He finally told her briefly what he had experienced that day. Her recollection was that Adam just shouted something and then took off, racing down the path, back home. She had no memory of her being frozen or ‘switched off.’ Drizzy looked at him with disbelief, as Adam continued with what happened to him that day. She then became very excited. She told him a very interesting story that Adam would always remember. She told him that her aunt often talked about special people who are able to see the truth in everything. That they can see the light around all living things and can slide along the ribbon of time, popping in and out at will and seeing between places and those things undetected by the normal human eye. She eagerly told Adam that he may be like the people her aunt often talked about. She wanted him to meet her aunty, but Adam refused.

      Adam later recalled Drizzy coming into his life around the ages of 10 or 11, and that they hung around for about twelve months or thereabouts before she vanished altogether. Her family must have moved because Adam never saw her again.

      Adam always puts that experience down as some form of allergic reaction to the flower or something in that area, hence hallucinating that afternoon, even though he had played in that vicinity for most of his early life without any problems. He also did not believe for a moment what Drizzy told him about people who could see things in the other world. Unfortunately for Adam, and to this very day, he continues to avoid the white lily flower and refuse to have them anywhere near him.

      Adam’s other mysterious experience involved a time when he was older.

      Adam was in his early twenties–twenty two to be exact– when he had another strange experience. He was socialising with his best friends in a large rented house he leased with flatmates. His two flatmates were away so he invited his best friends over to watch movies and have a small party. After much drinking and laughing and playing loud music, the party ended and his friends went home. Adam, alone in the house, locked up and went to fall onto his bed as he was very tipsy, to say the least, but happy and content with the success of the evening. He hoped his friends would talk about the success of his party and perhaps invite him to their next party. As he lay there in bed, feeling contented, he slowly began falling asleep. Just before nodding off completely, something made him open his eyes slightly, as if automatically checking on something in the semi-dark room.

      The moon was bright that night, and his room was not completely dark. He could make out shadowy areas around his room. To his great shock, he saw a misty, egg-shaped figure in his room. It stood around four to five feet in height and floated near the doorway and seemed to change shape, forming into something else altogether. It had no physical features that one could identify or any clear shape, but was rather a misty shape trying to materialise or disappear, sort of halfway between the physical and the invisible. This made Adam open his eyes wider, as his initial thought was that someone had broken into the house and had now come into his bedroom. Yet at the same time, horror ran through his mind as he realised that he was staring at something that was not human or even possible!

      As he watched this terrifying scene–probably lasting no more than a few seconds–he felt his heart racing and wondered what to do next. Had this thing seen him? He continued to lie there, holding himself very still, with his mouth slightly open, as his heart pumped loudly, and before he could do anything, he noticed that this strange misty figure started to move quickly towards him. Adam screamed out, as if freeing his body from a trance, and he grabbed the little lamp on his bedside table for protection, simultaneously turning it on and holding it in front of him, expecting someone to crash down on him at any moment. But there was no one there. The thing was gone. Terrorised and in shock and trying to compose himself, he impatiently searched the room, but found no one around. That thing or whatever it was had gone. Adam remembered his heart racing so heavily he thought he was about to have a heart attack. That experience scared him immensely, as he believed it was something real and not a figment of his intoxicated imagination.

      Many years later, Adam (now in his early thirties) had another strange happening. It was a weeknight in mid- January in Sydney. He