Halifax gets Haunted!

You can read the article online here.

Haunted premieres in Canada on Eastlink on October 17th at 9:30 PM AST.

Paul Kimball

2017 East Coast Paraconference - Remote Viewing Panel

I had a great time at the 3rd annual East Coast Paraconference in Liverpool, Nova Scotia this past weekend.As always, the hospitality of the folks in Liverpool was outstanding, as was the speaker line-up: Greg Bishop, Ryan Sprague, Micah Hanks, Chris Styles, and others.

Because one of the presenters, who was due to talk about remote viewing, couldn't make it at the last minute, Greg Bishop, Micah Hanks, and yours truly volunteered to discuss the subject on Saturday morning, August 12th.

During the panel we covered the nature of remote viewing, how it might tie in to other aspects of the paranormal, Project Stargate and other government programs, our own efforts in different ways and contexts to experiment with remote viewing, and the possible ongoing interest in the subject by intelligence agencies, perhaps in black projects that are not officially acknowledged.

It was all very improvisational and on-the-fly, but it was also a lot of fun.

The company I work for recorded all of the lectures, and they will be posted here over the next few weeks.

Paul Kimball

Haunted - Cooper's Inn Outtake #2

An outtake from our investigation at Cooper's Inn in Shelburne, NS, on May 2nd. It isn't going to be one of our first season episodes on Eastlink, but we still had a fair bit of interesting and puzzling stuff happen, including a camera microphone "malfunction" that left us all baffled. Of note is that it began in a room that Dillon had previously dreamed about, just as he began to relate the story of the dream (which involved a malevolent presence). 

As I always say about these types of things, context and timing matter.

For more information on Haunted, visit Winter Light Productions.

Paul Kimball

Haunted Outtake - Cooper's Inn (Part I)

Here's a piece of trivia for you - I hate ghost investigation shows on TV. I've never made it all the way through an episode of any of them. I particularly loathe Ghost Adventures, but Ghost Hunters is almost as bad. I've only watched as much as I have to over the years in a professional capacity as a producer and director, in order to see what other shows in the ghost investigating genre look like, and how they are presented. Not so that I can copy them, mind you - rather, so I know what not to do.

It all seems so fake to me, because almost all of what you see is "action" (much of it, I am convinced, being faked, or at the very least highly exaggerated). That's not how it really works in "the field". A lot of time is actually spent sitting around, talking to your fellow investigators. I wish the ghost shows would give us more of this, and less of the staged "bumps in the night" stuff. 

I think this is critical because it helps the viewer understand the investigators more as people. As I'm convinced that if there is anything at all to the paranormal, it has as much to do with the people involved, their journey, and their personal interaction with whatever might be out there as it does anything else, then understanding the people, and who they really are (as much as that is possible in any television program), is vital to the overall story.
That's what we try to do on Haunted. 

We investigated Coopers Inn in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in May 2017 for Haunted, and while the location won't be one of the places that makes it into the actual series (you always film more locations than you need), there were still some cool things that happened when we were there, both from an experience point of view but also from the personal point of view. 

Falling into the latter category is this seemingly good-natured exchange between myself and my fellow co-host Holly Stevens, which indicates that while everything seems fine on the surface, there is an edge developing between us, largely due to some of the things each of us did (or might have done) in relation to the other in the course of our previous investigations at other locations during the course of filming. 

It's all fun and games until someone summons a demon, or invites some entity to possess a co-host.

Paul Kimball

Haunted outtake - Cooper's Inn from Paul Kimball on Vimeo.

Radio Appearance - 29 March 2015

For those interested in the paranormal, I'll be on radio out of the United Kingdom today discussing ghosts, UFOs, and whatever else pops up... and I may sneak in a revelation or two about the "Roswell slides" if I'm feeling mischievous. If I have my time conversion right, it's at 4:30 Halifax time (after the hosts chat amongst themselves for 1/2 hour).

Paul Kimball

Gray Barker and Me

Standing next to my prized Gray Barker "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers" print before heading out for a walk this morning. 

Paul Kimball

Synchronicity with Silas Newton

From the Pittsburgh Press, 1 August 1930... synchronistic proof that I was fated to make a documentary about Newton's Aztec hoax, two decades before he perpetrated it and almost four decades before I was born!

Paul Kimball

Cuckoo in the Clock and Roundabout to premiere at 2014 Atlantic Film Festival

Tangentially related to the world of the paranormal, I have two feature films premiering at the 2014 Atlantic Film Festival here in Halifax in September - the Cuckoo in the Clock, and Roundabout. If you're in town, come on down to Cineplex Park Lane on Thursday, September 18th, and check them out (and say hello)... or keep an eye out for them at a festival near you over the next few months.

Here are the festival write-ups for the films:

The Cuckoo in the Clock:

"Two desparate lovers, Eve and Lara, are on the run from the Mob and flee the city. They eventually take refuge in what appears to be an abandoned rural home. They soon discover that they’re not alone when they encounter Nick, the handsome and charming caretaker who offers them sanctuary. The situation quickly descends into a dangerous three-way dance of temptation and jealousy, until a terrifying secret is revealed that threatens to destroy Eve and Lara unless they can find a way to escape the hell that they have created for themselves."

Roundabout

"When Leda, a radio talk show host whose specialty is the para-normal, is haunted by the memory of her best friend’s death, a series of events begin to unfold that tears at the fragile nature of everyday reality. Starring Annie Briggs in a bracing performance as Leda, Roundabout is a feature film that blends science fiction, romance and politics and pits it all against a winterized East Coast land, sea and cityscape resulting in an intensely dramatic and richly visual experience."

Paul Kimball

The Mystery Man - The Return of the Yeti

It's tough being a paranormal expert / monster hunter!
 

The Dadaist Paranormal School

by Greg Bishop
[from the foreword of The Other Side of Truth]

It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, objectivity, truth, it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes. – Paul Feyerabend

The UFO subject is far more interesting than lights in the sky, people from other planets, or simple hoaxes and mis-identifications. Many are surprised about the verifiable connections between UFOs and other tabloid fodder such as psychic phenomena, ghosts, and liminal creatures like Bigfoot. Most people who claim to be researchers in these subjects are often insular about their particular areas of interest, sometimes to the point of open hostility when the similarities are noted. “Ufologists” (a misleading term for an unregulated discipline) routinely bristle at the mention of any strangeness outside of supposed aliens. They have been fighting a 50-year battle for respectability, and that other “junk” might make them look silly.

What they don’t seem to realize is that the vast majority of the public, particularly the arbiters of reality (primarily the media and academia), think it’s all silly. The public face of paranormal research has done itself few favors in this regard. The loudest and craziest person in the room nearly always controls the conversation, gets on the popular radio shows, or gets the big book or movie deal.

For many years, however, there have been a few voices amongst those who think deeply about the paranormal whose study of the subject has not been reducible to sound-bites or hackneyed expeditions conducted on television shows using night-vision cameras strapped to high-strung actors and so-called “experts” (whose mantra always seems to be, “Did you hear that?”).

This iconoclastic group of paranormal enthusiasts and researchers, such as Nick Redfern and the late Mac Tonnies, has been quietly cheerleading the unheralded insights of UFO and paranormal researchers like Jacques Vallee, Jim Brandon, John Keel, Jenny Randles, Greg Little and Graham Hancock, as well as the pioneering work of scientists such as Dean Radin, Robert Jahn, Richard Strassman, and Hal Puthoff.

Most UFO buffs and paranormal fans have never heard of these people, who have recorded their insights in books that largely remain unread, mainly because they downplay or outright reject the aliens-from-other-planets idea. The scientific viewpoint of credentialed academics such as those mentioned above is also routinely ignored because it doesn’t flatter the “new age” bias of most readers. It also seems that fewer people have the patience to wade through the entire text of a book anymore, which puts readers of the present volume in rare company.

Most people have self-imposed blinders on which keep them from seeing outside the narrow viewpoint of their own personal interests, experiences and opinions. Many are also unaware of the underlying sagas that have brought them, their societies, and humanity in toto to this point in history. Our past has taught us that almost nothing happens in a vacuum, and the present is the result of a tangled fabric of interconnected and often disparate stories. The paranormal is no different. 

We have always lived with an awareness of forces and influences that are not apparent to our five senses, observation over time, or simple deduction. Some of these forces were eventually found to have verifiable explanations, such as magnetism, electricity, the weather, the motions of planets, the flight of birds, and so on. Others, with a long history of anecdotal evidence, like meteorites or ball lightning, took longer to solve. Other more complex and esoteric elements of our world, such as those discussed herein, are still awaiting better methods and theories to explain them.

Those who are invested in a fixed way of looking at the world declare that since we have perfected all methods of verifying reality, then anything that does not conform to the current understanding of physical laws does not exist. The truly skeptical attitude would be to reserve judgment and declare certain issues “unproven.” Anything else veers perilously close to belief, not science.

A few pioneering individuals, such as the membership of the Society for Scientific Exploration, actively use the scientific tools currently available to test issues such as ESP, reincarnation, psychokinesis, UFO sightings, and other “fringe” subjects. They are aware of the pitfalls of belief and experimenter bias, as well as the issue of scientific peer pressure, the question of who pays the bills and what they want to hear, and the specter of fundamentalist skepticism. 

Then there are the rest of us, who look on and try to make sense of something that we are often told is not worth the time or effort to worry about. After many years of study, listening to paranormal radio shows and attending lectures, most either become disillusioned, or settle into some sort of belief system based on their hopes and wishes. There are a thoughtful few, however, who decide to treat the whole thing as a sort of journey of learning. Those are the voices worth listening to.

Paul Kimball is one of those people who have embarked upon this journey. He often examines the paranormal in terms of a creative viewpoint, or even as an artistic act. In light of this, much reported witness testimony of UFOs and other “paranormal” strangeness could actually be considered surrealist stories.

Paul Feyerabend was a philosopher of science, and author of the landmark book Against Method, wherein he put forward the argument that no progress can be made under inflexible rules, especially those of the scientific method. In a 1972 letter to a friend, Hungarian philosopher Imre Lakatos, Feyerabend declared his allegiance to the ideals of the Dadaist artistic movement of the early 20th century. His words could be instructive to the paranormal researcher and fan alike:

A Dadaist is utterly unimpressed by any serious enterprise and he smells a rat whenever people stop smiling and assume that attitude and those facial expressions which indicate that something important is about to be said. A Dadaist is convinced that a worthwhile life will arise only when we start taking things lightly and when we remove from our speech the profound but already putrid meanings it has accumulated over the centuries (“search for truth”; “defense of justice”; “passionate concern”; etc. etc.). A Dadaist is prepared to initiate joyful experiments even in those domains where change and experimentation seem to be out of the question.”

Perhaps after reading The Other Side Of Truth, I will now finally declare myself a student of the “Dadaist Paranormal School.” Maybe you will too.

New thinking such as that displayed by Paul is sorely needed in the paranormal field. I have seen his opinions greeted with open hostility on my radio show and elsewhere. Incredibly insane stories such as the U.S. President using a time machine to get to Mars, or culinary recipes channeled from historical figures, don’t garner half the vitriol that my good friend does. To me, that means he has something important to say that threatens the thoughtless.

Good.

Tea and Happy Trails

We all spend far too much time on the Internet these days, talking instead of living, pontificating about how things should be, instead of actually doing something to change them.

With respect to the paranormal, as with most things in life, "doing something" means seeking out personal experiences, both your own as an experiencer and those of others for context, and to learn from them. Alas, the lingua franca of the "subject" these days (again, as with most things in our society) is "discussion" of people (i.e. gossip), as opposed to ideas, or events, or cases. Accordingly, I'm putting The Other Side of Truth on indefinite hiatus, until at least this time next year, at which point I'll see where things stand. Maybe the journey will lead me back here (although I sincerely doubt it), but at the moment, and for the forseeable future, to paraphrase Jacques Vallee years ago, I've said all that I care to say in public.

Victoria-by-the-Sea, PEI



A couple of thoughts before I wander off to my metaphorical Walden Pond.

First, for updates on Beyond Best Evidence, which will be my final film about the UFO phenomenon, check out my company's website. You can also view all of the other films I've made about UFOs and the paranormal, including two episodes of Ghost Cases, at the website for free.

Second, the blog will still be here, although I'll be going through it over the next few months and removing a lot of old posts, particularly the ones that relate solely to personalities as opposed to ideas, or cases, or stories. In the end, a more streamlined and relevant version will remain.

The one last piece of advice I will offer is to get out there and live your life, as opposed to living through someone else's. While doing so, make sure to find time for proper Tea, one of the last remaining vestiges of a civilized and cultured society.

The Orient Hotel, Victoria-by-the-Sea, PEI...

... home of Mrs. Proffit's Tea Room!

Tell them I sent you, and make sure to have a scone with clotted cream and jam as well!

In the meantime, you can follow some of my ongoing adventures, interests and opinions, totally unrelated to the paranormal, at Day Tripper and The Philosopher King, should you be interested.

Happy trails,
Paul Kimball

Priorities

There is apparently much chatter as of late (on various blogs, and podcasts - the usual suspects) about a UFO researcher, and claims that he made up phony academic credentials. In the grand scheme of things (even "ufological" things), it is really much ado about nothing. But people these days love to talk about personalities, because it's the great leveler - you don't need a degree, or any qualifications whatsoever, to gossip, or attack people, or pile on. You barely need a pulse.

Meanwhile, I decided to "get away from it all" this weekend, and took a trip to Prince Edward Island with an old and dear friend.

Some things matter... and some things don't.

Did the UFO researcher currently under fire fake his credentials? It seems like he did.

Does it make much of a difference? No, not really, other than to him and those who worked with him.

What of any significance is left to discuss, once the lie has been exposed? Nothing.

Will it help solve the UFO enigma? Absolutely not. It's a sideshow.

It's all about having your priorities in order, folks.

Paul Kimball

Unified Field Radio appearance

My recent appearance on the Unified Field Radio program with Justin Brown is now available - you can listen in to the episode here. We chatted about Beyond Best Evidence, Best Evidence, ghosts, UFOs, Stan Friedman and the ETH, Mac Tonnies and the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis, and all sorts of other stuff.

The program airs on 88.1 FM (CKDU) in Halifax, Nova Scotia - well worth checking out.

Paul Kimball

Synchronicity

Long before my recent Los Angeles run of what Walter Bosley called "synchronicities", I actually made a performance film for Bravo here in Canada called - you guessed it - Synchronicity. This film featured pianist Heather Schmidt and cellist Shauna Rolston, talking about their friendship and creative collaboration, and performing music written by Schmidt, including a piece I specifically commissioned for the film titled - you guessed it again - "Synchronicity".

In the context of the paranormal, and the possibility of interaction with an advanced non-human intelligence, I think Shauna's comments about communication, and the relationship between the composer and the musician as interpreter, are particularly interesting.

Heather and Shauna also talk about how they "fit together". I always wonder whether these kinds of things are just coincidences, or whether there might be something more at work. Do we just get lucky when we meet people with whom we have a connection, or do we meet these people for a reason? Perhaps, if you give any credence to the idea of reincarnation, we travel through our "lives" linked to the same group of people, each of us fulfilling a different role in the next life (my dad, for example, might be my son or daughter in the next life, or my best pal). Maybe that's why, when you first meet someone and feel like you've known them your whole life, you have - just not this "life", but one before... or, if you see time not as a linear construct but more of a circle, then perhaps a "life" still to come.

That would be the ultimate synchronicity.

Paul Kimball

Canada Day

In honour of Canada Day, here I am in 1990 proudly wearing the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, while stationed at Ingonish Beach, Nova Scotia.

Paul Kimball

Then and Now

In 1992, my first band Tall Poppies released an e.p. on cassette (back when people still did that), and followed it up with some local media appearances, including this one on CKDU FM, where we chatted and played a number of songs live in the studio, including "Shadows Grows", one of the earliest songs I co-wrote with my old pal Glenn MacCulloch, the band's drummer. I've always really liked the lyrics, in particular a couple of lines that I came up with which have always reflected my general point of view on any number of things.

"The hands of time slip through the day / the grass beneath our feet it turns to dust"...

"The wisdom crawls from mind to mouth / to hands that will not feed you inside"

The things I was saying back then are the same things I'm saying now. I just think I said them better back then, even as the way that I apply them has perhaps broadened a bit today. Perhaps it was just the younger me laying signposts for the older me to find once again, years in the future?

I like that idea!

Incidentally, in case anyone ever wondered where the title of this blog came from, it was actually the title of one of my old songs, "The Other Side of Truth", which we first performed with Tall Poppies, and later recorded with my second band, Julia's Rain. An early version can be heard as the third song in this set, from 4:43 onwards.

Save me now, oh strange young girl,

from that which in your blood you know,

I will not do but for tomorrow

neither will I do it alone,

Save me now, oh troublesome God,

from that which in your heart you know,

I will not do but for your mercy

and neither for your heaven...

save me now, oh miracle.

Yes, that is me screaming at the end, and then adding the backing vocals.

Ahh, the good old days...

If I had to pick one line from any of my old songs that seems most apropos today, however, it would be from "Horseshoe Heart", which Tall Poppies recorded on the "fields of addiction" e.p. back in 1993.

Stare softly at this sudden leap of faith
watch as I catch the wind and fly away
no destination, just a landing...

Of course, I always liked "fly through the ring of sins and days" as well. It has a very "paranormal" feel to it, for what was a love song at the time.

But whether then, or now, I've always been fascinated by the idea of time, and timelessness, and how we fit into it all... or perhaps how it fits into us.

Paul Kimball

Scenes from the Front, Vol. III

Corner of Beverley & Fairfax, Los Angeles - June 2011

“We are a psychic process which we do not control, or only partly direct. Consequently, we cannot have any final judgment about ourselves or our lives.” - Carl Jung

Do You Think?

I wrote this song in 1985, in my final year of high school, as a protest against Ronald Reagan's presidency, the state of the world in general, and a call to think about what was happening. We recorded it in 1995 with Julia's Rain, and it was released as the final track on the "wonderful broken silence" CD. I've updated it for the 21st century, with new vocals added to the old... sort of a time travel duet with a younger me... and a President who was even worse and more dangerous than Reagan... (with a guest appearance by his Attorney General, John Ashcroft).

"God and Man", Charles Bridge - June, 2009

It's not just a political song, even though the 2010 version was framed through that lens.

In the end, all that counts for me and you
are the things in this life that we say and we do
do you think, do you care
and how do you sleep at night
do you leave on all of your lights
do you think somehow that everything will be all right...
it's not all right.

Sadly, I think it's more relevant today than it was 25 years ago. I'm sure some might call it all progress. I don't.

It's interesting, at least to me, that "socialism" has such a pejorative connotation in the United States (and to a lesser extent, in Canada) - and "communism" is viewed by most as only slightly less evil than the anti-Christ (and often the two are seen as the same thing). Indeed, a politically right wing UFO researcher asked me last year, while we were both on a radio show together, how I could be a communist (after I had been purposefully tweaking him with some leftist rhetoric, most of which I actually believed, but not all of it). I just looked at him and said, "with the world in the shape its in, the question isn't why someone would be a communist; the question is why someone wouldn't."

And having said that, I recommend this, and this, and say this: labels are so 20th century. The 21st century demands more.

Paul Kimball

Scenes from the Front, Vol. II

At the Great Stupa, Colorado - August, 2008 (with actress Annie Briggs)

"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true." - Buddha

A Hazy Shade of Winter

So there I was a year and a half ago, in February, 2010, lying drunk on the Halifax Commons, having fallen on some ice that I hadn't seen in the dark, angry as hell because I had spent the whole evening arguing with a good friend about nothing important (he eventually walked out on me, and even then I didn't really blame him - I was more angry at myself than him), and even angrier because I had landed hard and could already feel the pain shooting up my chest, despite the anesthetizing effect of the dozen or so beers I had consumed.

And then a thought hit me.

I should be dead.

Travel back in time...

It was a cold, clear night in late December, 1985, just after Christmas, and just before New Year's, and I was out driving around Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with my oldest pal, Colin White. I was older than my years - when I had showed up that fall to register for my first year at Acadia University, I wore a suit and tie. The senior student who checked me into my residence, who introduced himself to me as "Dude", thought I was having a laugh, until my Mom told him that I was serious. I had never had a drink, and I had never kissed a girl. In the case of the former, I was still underage, my dad was a judge, and I didn't want to do anything that would embarrass him; in the case of the latter, it just hadn't been a priority. I was a Reach for the Top star, a straight-A high honours student, a member of my province's National Debating Championship team... I had "better" things to do.

18th birthday, January 1985

So, sure, I seemed like the "Perfect Kid", at least as far as any kid can be "perfect". But the outward appearance of maturity and responsibility belied a profound inner recklessness, born of arrogance. I chafed at the boundaries that I felt the mediocrity of my peers had placed on me, and like many kids before me, I felt I was indestructible. I hardly ever cracked a book at school, because I didn't have to - it all came so naturally to me. My rebellion wasn't flashy, writ in symbolic gestures that showed nothing more than a desire to conform to another system - any idiot can get their ear pierced. My rebellion was inward, and personal, in little ways that no-one saw, and many that no-one recognized.

For example, when you're on the negative side of a debate, all you really have to do is understand the opponents' position (i.e. their "plan"), and then prepare to argue against it. Pretty simple, and deadly dull. Thus, while everyone else was dancing and chatting each other up at the social events at the 1985 High School National Debating Championships in Montreal, I was sitting at a table writing counter-plans on napkins. What's a "counter-plan", you ask? Well, in short, when the team on the negative side of a proposition put forward a counter-plan, they didn't just argue against the affirmative side's plan - they proposed a plan of their own. In doing so, they also then took the burden of proof. It was definitely the harder thing to do, because it required more prep, and my partners thought I was nuts, and it probably cost me a few rankings points at the end of the day, but it was worth it all just to see the other side squirm when they suddenly saw their entire plan become moot, and they had to wing it. People would ask me why I liked counter-plans, and I never really told them the true reason: I did it because it was the only way that I could stay interested in it all, because it was something different, and because I could.

But I digress...

Not all of my rebellion was quite as... "academic" as constructing debating counter-plans - that just happens to be the one I still recall, and care to recount. It often went a lot further than that, in more dangerous ways. But no matter what I did, I had always emerged unscathed. As I said - I thought I was indestructible, and I was arrogant.

So there I was, on that cold and clear night in late December, 1985, in my Dad's Audi 6000, feeling like the King of the World. I gunned it past the speed limit, and headed for an intersection, and took the turn far too fast, and it was as if time had stopped. It didn't, of course, at least not in the real world, but for me, in that moment, it was like an out-of-body experience. I remember laughing and thinking two things - "cool" and "I can beat this".

And then we went over the hill, and I wasn't laughing anymore.

Time travel back even further...

When I was a kid, around eight, nine and ten, I can distinctly remember lying on the couch at home, on several occasions, reading a book, and then suddenly getting a feeling in the pit of my stomach like I was falling from a great height. I could actually feel the wind rushing around me as the velocity increased... and then it would stop.

It wasn't as if I was falling - it felt like I was really falling.

I've been falling ever since.

But I digress again...

Time travel back to 1985...

We were falling over the edge, and we were definitely going down the small hill, sideways and completely out of control, and I remember seeing the tree coming at my side of the car, and then...

Crash.

My head jerked forward suddenly, just as a large branch of the tree smashed through the driver's side window and pushed itself past where my head had been just a second before.

Time travel forward to 2010...

Lying on the Commons, drunk, in pain, angry... and then it hit me, just as it had hit me almost every day since that crash in 1985.

I should be dead.

Somewhere, if there really are alternate universes, I am dead. Somewhere, that tree caught my temple as it crashed through the window.

But not in this reality.

Ever since has been a retreat from the arrogance of my youth. I'm still reckless, and I'm still selfish, and I'm still arrogant. But less so than I was. I'm not sure I'm a better man, but I like to think so. The one thing I am sure of is that I'm a different one than I would have been otherwise.

Because I should be dead... but I'm not. And that realization has made all the difference in the years since, and will continue to make the difference in the years to come.

I'm living on borrowed time, and I need to make it matter. If you Google my name, you'll find pages and pages about the things I've done since 1985. But if you Google the name "Gil Latter", you'll find one thing at the top of the search - the Gil Latter Memorial Award at Mt. Allison University, given in memory of a best friend of Colin and I who died on his way home one day from Sackville, New Brunswick to Dartmouth in a car accident.

I remember getting the phone call from Colin, telling me what had happened, like it was just yesterday. My first thought was a simple one - "damn it, no." After I hung up, I buried my head in my pillow. I wasn't crying - I still haven't cried. Rather, I just wanted to shut the world out, if only for a few moments, and the pillow was the closest thing I had. As I tried to breathe, another thought crowded its way into my mind - "it could have been me... and maybe it should have been me."

Every fall, I drive over to Gil's grave in Dartmouth with a book, sit down next to it, and read for a while. It's always cold, and dreary, but I never feel cold. I always feel warm, and I never feel like I'm alone.

In the end, I like to think that in the alternate universe, their Gil does the same for me. 

Paul Kimball