shield myself from most of the chatter of everyday life.
Today, however, it felt as though I was a novice all over again. There was a terrible buzzing in my ears, and it was growing worse as I neared Post Street. It took me a moment to make sense of the sensation in my head: something very powerful was nearby. As I approached Post Street, I could feel the force of the energy vibrating through me. Behind the energy was a wall of emotion: fear, anxiety, and excitement.
As I approached the corner of Post and Grant, I carefully looked around for the source of the disturbance. I did not want to meet whatever was throwing off such intense energy until I had a chance to see it first. I pushed myself to pick up the direction of the forces I was feeling. I did a visual scan of all four corners of the intersection, but didn’t detect anything, or anyone, out of the ordinary. The fact that I could not see them, however, did nothing to diminish the sensation.
In addition to the vibration resonating through my sternum, there also was a feeling of pressure building behind my eyes. I realized I needed to redouble my focus on shielding myself before it overwhelmed me. As I worked to get my defenses in place, a sound in the road caught my attention. I looked up to see a black sedan speeding toward me. The darkness of the emotions traveling inside the car, which was careening down the one-way street, left no doubt that its passengers were not human. Despite the pressure on my skull, I felt drawn to the energy, and began to walk toward the oncoming car. I had to get a peek at the passengers inside.
Before I could glimpse so much as an eyebrow, however, the sedan turned abruptly and jumped the curb, crashing through the majestic gold-trimmed doors of a Peabody Jewelers store. I missed being hit by the car, but collided with a man on the street, throwing us both down onto the sidewalk with a horrible thud. I felt the full force of the impact on my right shoulder as I hit the pavement. As we lay there trying to untangle ourselves, my shoulder throbbing, the car pressed its way further into the store, sending shards of the glass picture windows and two stone planters that had been smashed to bits onto the sidewalk.
Finally I was able to extricate myself. I stood up off the ground and approached one of the store’s windows to get a better look at what was happening inside. Peabody Jewelers has occupied the corner of Post and Grant Streets since the Gold Rush. Through all that time, it seemed safe to say their sales people had never watched an automobile plow through their main entrance. I’m also fairly sure they’d never witnessed four men exit a vehicle parked in their showroom, fire off several rounds of ammunition from semi-automatic weapons, and then smash the glass display cases containing millions of dollars in rare jewelry and timepieces.
As I peered through the window, another thought was rapidly forming in my mind: the beings inside were hoping to keep my experience limited. Someone inside the store, a member of the robbery gang, had sensed me and was trying to blind me. I couldn’t tell whether they were aiming for a temporary condition or something more permanent, but the pain behind my eyes now was excruciating. I tried as best I could to ignore the pressure in my head, and continued to watch from the window.
The men were brazen. They wore no masks or disguises, a detail that only reinforced my conviction that they were Others, supremely confident they would never be found. The thieves used small rock hammers, the kind geologists favor, to shatter the glass cases and scoop the jewels into generic black backpacks. It seemed to me that they could walk out of the store—or maybe into a waiting car—and disappear into the crowd without a single identifying mark. Each of the thieves was young, fit and well coordinated. Four tall beings, each with olive skin; they didn’t speak to one another, nor to the frightened salespeople and customers cowering below the gold-plated display cases. And yet I knew they were communicating, the same way I knew they were trying to blind me.
I continued to squint through the window, my right arm hanging awkwardly at my side. Maybe a minute or two had passed