This'll be the second of two posts.

I had just moved from California to Connecticut immediately after high school – effectively leaving every person I had ever known behind.  My parents and I were living in a hotel until the deal on the house closed and I had taken a job at a gas station at the base of the hill that we were staying on.  I was working the closing shift – it was 5pm til 2am.

While I wasn't depressed, I was feeling a bit out of sorts – for obvious reasons.  I needed to kill a year of time so I could afford to go to school as a resident, so I was pondering what to do for the next 12 months.  It was about 12:30am when my "friend" came in for a visit to get out of the cold.

Keep in mind, the station was in the center of a lot that was lit with about 3 dozen quartz halogen lights.  The dumpster was the closest thing to the building and it was about 70 yards from the building. This will be important later.

My "friend" was unkempt, but not un-clean.  He wore the clothes of a vagrant and spoke in a voice made hoarse from too many cigarettes. His manner of speach hinted at a fairly high level of education mixed with a touch of what could have been madness.  He spoke lucidly, but in a way that was like the banter of someone "not quite right". 

The song "Nothing is Easy" by Jethro Tull started to play on the radio after he got his coffee – this seemed to be his cue.  He started talking to me about how he had his soul stolen in Hollywood.  He explained that he had written music for years and at the verge of making it big, someone had stolen all of his compositions.  He explained that some had become the basis for hit songs, and a few even made there way into commercials.  I remember thinking to myself that the guy had lost his damn mind, but at the same time, I felt compelled to listen.  His story went from his days as a struggling musician to his struggle with drug addiction, and finally to his present state as a man who was poor but happy in the adventure of his life.  I was strangely comforted by the story and realized I didn't need to sweat the small stuff of the next year – hell – I was 17. I remember he poured himself another cup of coffee, tossed $2 on the counter and told me as he put his hand on the door – "You should listen to the words in this song – they helped me get through some crazy sh!t…" I listened as he said that and it was the song "Nothing is Easy", at damn near the same point it was when he had walked through the door.  I heard about 4 notes, my blood ran cold and I shot out the door to ask my visitor a question or two – he was nowhere to be seen.

Two points that have never left me -

1) We talked for what seemed like hours.  I mean, I heard his life story and the lessons he learned. Yet according to the song and the clock, about 10 seconds had passed.

2) I clocked myself every night for the next week while at work walking, jogging, and sprinting to see what the fastest time I could "disappear" from sight was.  I clocked it as a dead sprint to a specific point in the parking lot as 17 seconds.  I was 17, this guy had been in his mid 50's.

Apart from the time discrepancy, there was just no way this guy could have disappeared as fast as he did.

I have heard everything from guardian angel to alien.

Please voice your opinion – I am still searching for an answer on this one… mind you – I am 41 now.