The Raven's Roost

questionoftheday asks: Do you have any glitch in the matrix style experiences? Have you ever experienced anything that seemed to break reality?

My answer: Unlike some of my previous skeptical answers on these questions, I don't really have a great explanation for this one. If you're at all familiar with the Jacksonville area, you might know about St. Johns Towne Center, which is a large outdoor shopping complex/mall of a sort. It's spread out, with shops clustering around parking lots, and central to it is an apartment complex/hotel with a roundabout where there's a fountain, koi pond, and the best shops (IMHO) are located - Barnes & Noble, Teavana, California Pizza Kitchen, etc. This is a pretty upscale area. There's an Apple Store, a Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn Kids, Lululemon, all that shit. And it's usually busy.

So one morning Kitty and I went that way to do some shopping. They also have a Target, PetSmart, Staples, and some normalish stores. Since she had her power wheelchair at that point it was best to find a handicapped parking spot that would allow me the space to unload it and all that jazz, so I'd drive around scoping out spots, looking for relatively central location with decent space on either side. We ended up going towards one less-developed end where there were some computer and electronics stores and small cafes - one was a Bento Cafe, a local place that serves good basic Japanese food and sushi. There was no one out here.

I mean literally no one. No cars parked, no people on the sidewalks, no staff members inside the shops. The lights inside were on and in front of the cafes, there were tables outside. A few doors were propped open since it was a nice day. But there were exactly zero human beings around. Kitty and I kind of shrugged at each other and I decided to circle around one more time so we could take a closer look. At the time we assumed we'd gotten there TOO early and everything was technically still closed.

When I pulled around again there were people, cars, everything was normal. There was no way that in 90 seconds all these people had suddenly flooded in, parked, and started walking around. It was absolutely bizarre. To this day I have not come up with a reasonable explanation of what happened. I've been back to St Johns Towne Center many times since then - hey, they have a Barnes & Noble - and I've never had it happen again. The only time I've seen it even remotely that deserted was the morning of the Kilwin's 5k Ice Cream Run, which was held at seven in the morning. But even then there were spectators, and people had come down from the apartments to watch so it wasn't totally empty.

And yes, we got free ice cream at the finish line. ;D

questionoftheday asks: Do you have any scary stories or urban legends local to your area? Have you ever experienced them?

My answer: Allegedly there's the Florida Skunk Ape, so called because of its overwhelming skunky smell. The Skunk Ape is, I think, a bigfoot or sasquatch type of thing and yeah, people this far north have reported seeing them. Or smelling them, in some cases. I've had someone insist they smelled a Skunk Ape and not a skunk because, "Florida doesn't have skunks."

Sorry, bzzzzt! Florida is home to two species of skunk.

I don't think there are any more "interesting" local urban legends, or if there are I don't know them, since I didn't grow up around here. You'd think with a big military installation we'd have more UFO flap but sadly, no. Anyway, I am told if you want to see the sasquatch, there's one (or more) living up the highway in Jennings State Forest and they're active at dusk. Which, conveniently, is when the forest roads are closed. I mean, if I were a sasquatch, I'd wait until the park and such closed down for the night to go strolling about.

In winter when we have the windows open, I've heard some very odd things at night and written them off to wildlife being wildlife. But, could it be ... a Skunk Ape? (spoiler alert: it's not) Although among mundane animal activity the weirdest things I've seen were deer just strolling their little asses onto my porch to eat my goddamn salad greens right out of the pots, and that dog chase thing. One night I was up late, having gone to the bathroom and was going back to sleep when I heard, of course, fucking dogs. (not dogs fucking, I just dislike dogs and tend to describe any domestic canid as a fucking dog) I assumed that one of the neighbors was either hunting with his beagles or they'd gotten loose. Long story short, one of those beagles ended up running around in my yard being pursued by something much larger than it was, and almost as fast ... since it was close to a new moon I couldn't see what it was aside from "large dark animal shape" so it could have been another neighborhood dog, or something else. I wasn't about to go outside and find out, but I did head out once the sun was up and found no traces of a fight or anything on my property, so I have no idea what actually happened. Very weird though. The pursuing animal made no sounds, except deep, heavy breathing as it ran - and I'm talking maybe wolf sized at the largest, not a bear.