The Brave May Not Live Long, but the Cautious Don't Live at All." We were now past the point where we could see either the sky or the trees. The tunnel we were in went on forever. It seemed to go down for a very long way. It went on and on in spite of the fact that we were going at what, in my experience, was a very rapid clip. At that point in time I was still reasonably sure that everything that had happened up until now had been an illusion. The most reasonable thing for us to do would have been to call a halt. I say "us," because there was nobody else there. Even if I was having a premonition, it had to be my premonition. It was impossible for Mary to come out of her stupor and tell me what to do. I still didn't even know whether I myself was conscious or unconscious. The only thing I could do was move on. This was not a particularly difficult decision to make, because what else did I have to do? If I ran away from it then there was a limit to what could happen. So we moved on into the unknown. At this point I made a further discovery. At some point, even with the car lights on, it became dark. The farther we went, the darker it got. One of the cars we were following turned on a light. "We don't need any more light," I said. The car ahead of us stopped and turned on its headlights. We turned off our lights, which were much better anyway. "Can you tell me how far we have come?" I asked the man who had been driving it. He turned to the others in the car. "We have covered two miles," he replied. "That is a fair distance." We drove for another few minutes in total silence. And then suddenly we emerged from the tunnel and there was the ocean, stretching all the way to where the sky began. I was a little surprised, because I would not have thought that tunnels went that far. I could only assume that if there was a tunnel that went that far, it must have many branches. After all, we were in southern California. We drove for what must have been five or six more miles on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was more like a highway than a parkway. "We are in San Simeon," the woman said. I had forgotten all about her. She had been reading a book the whole time. I thought, perhaps naively, that she was so deep in the book that she was not even aware of where we were going. I had forgotten that it was my book she was reading. "What a beautiful place." "It is." "How many miles to San Simeon?" I asked. "About twenty miles." "We should probably keep going until dark," I suggested. "You never know when we'll be attacked." "There is no need for you to stay," she replied, "when you do not wish to." What was I going to say? There was no point in me staying in a place I didn't want to be in. I was not sure what I wanted to say, but I was sure it had nothing to do with what I was feeling. "Thanks for your hospitality. I will head back as soon as it starts to get dark." She nodded and her lips moved in what could have been a smile. I turned around to ask why she was not driving. But she was not there. I turned around to ask her name. But she was not there. I turned around to look for another ride. But she was not there. I turned around and turned around. There was nothing that said "woman" or "lady" on the road or along the shoulder. "Where are you?" I yelled. "Where are you?" That was when the car struck me. That was when I suddenly became aware that the woman I had come with was gone. I could hear nothing, but I did hear the sound of the car accelerating. It was a low, powerful sound, like a diesel engine at full throttle. I heard a sound like a horn. I heard a horn that came from the road and an unearthly scream and another sound like a horn coming from the same direction as the scream, but much farther away. I then heard the sound of the wind blowing over telephone wires and a terrible roar. And then suddenly there was a deafening silence and it was all over. When I could think again I was lying face down on a bed in a nice room with a nice bed and there was somebody stroking my head. I sat up quickly, but it was too late. The woman from the van with all the windows in her face had already turned around to see who was getting up. She gave me a nice and polite smile. "I am glad to see you have come to," she said. "You were very lucky. I was only about half a mile away." I could hardly believe it. If we had not stopped then we would have been traveling at a hundred and eighty miles an hour. I had only two choices. Either we had been in an accident or I had been hit by lightning. When you think about it, it was a very likely probability, in view of the fact that it was a sunny day. Also, there was a full moon. On the other hand, a person who has been struck by lightning does not always lose consciousness and I was very much awake and alert. I looked at the steering wheel of the car and there were no holes, but there was a deep crack in the windshield. There was also a dark spot on the hood where the hood ornament used to be. There was a broken headlight and a few minor dents in the fender. The damage to the car did not seem nearly as bad as I was expecting. "What about the other car?" I asked. "I was coming up behind you. The two of you got in the way of an oncoming car that had just been cut off." "Where is the other car?" I asked. "We can't tell you that." I just looked at her and the others. They were all around me, each in a very different place than the last, but each of them was there for the same reason as the others. They had been sitting where they were sitting for all eternity. The time in between was the same as it was before. The exact moment at which they were sitting there was never going to change. It was not time, because time does not really exist. We are at a single moment in a single instance that never changes or continues, never repeats. This moment never happened before, because it is what has never happened before. In addition, it is now. It is still now. It never changes. That is why we do not know the future. There is no future and there is no past. This moment has always been, has never been, and will never be. This moment is eternal. You may think I am speaking of a religious doctrine and you would be right. But I am not talking about Jesus, Allah, Mohamed, Jehovah, Buddha or any other god of the Old Testament. I am talking about reality. I am talking about knowing that everything is going to happen in the exact same way it has happened every other time. I am not speaking of a spiritual reality, but a material reality. This is a physical world, the world of our senses, including this physical body, but we are not here, not even in the body. We have nothing else but our senses to make us aware of the world. Our own bodies can only go about twenty years or so, but eternity is our lifetime. And this eternity is lived in the body and it is lived here and now, in the same way it always has been and always will be. It has always been and always will be this way. It has always been this way and always will be this way. It has always been in this way and always will be in this way. I do not claim to know what "this way" is, because I do not know. But I do know that this way is not what "they" thought would be. "They" thought that they would be traveling on the freeway, in different cars and at different speeds. It was my idea that we should change lanes at that point on the freeway. I have no idea whether it was right or wrong to do so, but we were now in the clear. There were not two vehicles traveling at one hundred and eighty miles an hour. There was one car traveling at forty-five, and the other one was traveling at two hundred and ten. The point of connection between the two vehicles was a man lying at the side of the road. The man in the car at the side of the road looked dead, but that did not matter. He had already come to. He could tell us nothing. He knew nothing and could remember nothing. He could only tell us his story and then let us proceed. The body he looked so very different than the day before. The woman with him must have been a nurse or something of that nature because she treated me with gentleness and respect. At one point she even smiled at me. This may seem strange, but I was more of an annoyance to her than the other man. It was not that he was a terrible sight, but there was something about me that made her uneasy. She had no doubt realized how lucky she was to have come along when she had. All