§337

‘I live in New York City, but in October of 1996 was visiting my mother and extended family, who then lived in ***. It was the middle of October and my mother, my aunt and I had taken a drive out into the country to see the foliage. It was a very beautiful, cool, clear autumn day. Towards late afternoon, we stopped in the small town of *** to have dinner. My mother and aunt wanted to shop afterwards, and I wanted to take a walk in the countryside which surrounds the town. I walked to the edge of the town and then out into the rolling land around it – open fields in the center with woods on either side. I was in a relaxed, happy and contemplative mood. I had been walking about ten minutes when, suddenly, I ‘heard’ a kind of sing-song ‘chanting’ in my mind, which ‘sounded’ like a multitude of very sweet, pleasing voices that were all speaking the same words almost simultaneously, in a kind of cascading aural waterfall effect. I had never experienced anything like this before at any time, and the words were, ‘Don’t you see us? We’re all around you. We’re all around you, don’t you see us? Look – don’t you see us?’ Stunned, I stopped walking and took the experience in. There was a smallish tree near me, but otherwise I saw only the open fields, woods at a distance to my right, and a two-lane road beyond on either side. I did look around me, certainly not expecting to see anything unusual, and saw nothing except the autumnal landscape I had come to see. I ‘heard’ the voices for about ninety seconds, and then the voices abruptly stopped. I walked on for another twenty minutes, and then returned to the town, where I met my family. I said nothing to them about my experience, and reflected upon it on the long drive back to ***. The next morning I was preparing to take the afternoon train back to New York City, and, having packed, went for a walk on a familiar wooded path behind my mother’s housing development, a path which ran adjacent to ***, a residential street of traditional old American homes. I had been walking for about ten minutes when, suddenly, I ‘heard’ the voices again in exactly the same manner I had ‘heard’ them the day before. The voices said, ‘We’re here – come this way, walk this way. We’re here,’ and I looked to my left and saw another path through the woods that led to ***, which I could plainly see at the end of it. I turned left and walked down the path, still ‘hearing’ the voices, which, as I approached ***, came to a stop. *** is a fairly quiet street but does get some car traffic, and, somewhat stunned and dazed by this new experience, which seemed to validate my experience of the day before, I walked north past the homes using the lip of the road, as there were no sidewalks. *** curves slightly at various points, and rounding one of these curves, my eyes fell upon a grouping of four garden gnome statues on the front lawn of one of the homes. The statues were traditionally sculpted and done in what I would call a tasteful and ‘realistic’ manner