As I was sitting in a store or an office, a tall, black-haired woman (probably in her early 40s) picked up a telephone and began talking. I quickly realized that she was speaking Italian, and that I could understand what she was saying. She looked around the room and asked if anyone could speak "business Italian." She seemed to want to make sure no one spoke the language, because she didn't want anyone in the room to understand what she was saying. I didn't say anything, but she looked directly at me, and I had the feeling she knew I could understand Italian. Nevertheless she continued her conversation, and I continued listening.

She was talking about a man who also spoke Italian. She said no one had been aware he spoke Italian before, but when several women became aware of that fact, they regarded him as a "Hercules."

Although I could understand everything she was saying, my Italian wasn't that good, and I pondered several of her words. I noticed she used the word "conosci" for "I understand" and the word "pudo," similar to the Spanish "puedo," for "I can" But mostly I simply understood what she was saying without analyzing it. As she spoke she walked around the place until she was finally out of my earshot.

I now was ready to leave. I knew I was going on special mission, a mission which was going to be perilous. Before I left, a man whom I knew rather well beckoned me over to the side to show me something. Lying on the floor were perhaps ten different groups of blanched skulls. Looking them over, I realized that the skulls were of people who had gone on the same type of mission as the one on which I was embarking, and that these people had failed, each group for a different reason.

Although I was in a hurry to leave, I took a moment to study the skulls. I readily understood how most of them had died. For instance one group was covered with an iridescent, blue powder, and I understood that those people had died from poison, and that I should be careful what I would eat.

However, the cause of death of some of the groups wasn't immediately clear. Looking closer at one skull, I pointed out to the fellow with me that the skull had a small hole in the top of it, obviously the result of a bullet. Looking at the other nearby skulls, I counted four skulls with similar bullet holes right in the tops of the skulls. Still unable to understand the riddle, I looked up and saw something blue hanging from the ceiling, something vaguely resembling a hornet's nest. The object on the ceiling had a hole in the bottom of it about the size of a bullet. Immediately I solved the conundrum. Clearly this object had been hanging above the people who had been shot in the top of their heads. Somehow bullets had been fired out of the object and had struck all the people in the top of the head and killed them. Referring to the people who had died from the bullet holes, the man next to me said, "They tried to get in a special place."

Still astonished, I sputtered, "Good God."

I realized the message was that I must take care to look all around me on my mission. All these people had died because they had not looked up. And I would have died also, if I had been in a similar position and had not first been warned. I now realized even though I was in a hurry, I needed to slow down and examine the other groups of skulls to make sure I understood how all the people had died. Then maybe I wouldn't make the same mistake.

Copyright 2001 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com