the concussion

I had a concussion once. I was young then, in grade school.
I did not know I had a concussion until I started having hallucinations and nightmares.

One night, I remember wandering around all over our 2-story house. The memory is vague, but I was trying to get away from a man who was dressed in a trenchcoat and a fedora. Kind of like a secret agent.

I ended up in my sisters' bedroom. The three of them shared a room together.
There I stood, hiding behind the open door, next to the wall...scared out of my wits. The "agent" was putting some kind of plastic tube between the crack of the door and the wall, where the door is hinged. I thought he was trying to pump poison gas into the room.

Terrified, I slammed the door shut. A very loud slam! My sisters all awoke to that sudden noise..."what's wrong? what's the matter?"

"There's a man out there!" I whispered, very frightened.

"Where?"

"In the hallway..."

All of a sudden, the door flung back open. In the doorway stood a figure, backlighted from the hall light. The person's hair standing on end, like some kind of Albert Einstein.

"What's going on here?"

"Eeekk!!!!" as all 3 sisters screamed at the same time.

It was my mom, who'd also been awakened by the commotion.

Then my dad, looking like Homer Simpson in his Fruit Of The Loom briefs awoke, wandering through the bedroom door.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"There a man in the house trying to kill me", I said in a hushed tone.

"Where?" We all looked down the hall, at the bathroom door. It was an old fashioned house and the door had a fogged-glass window in it. The light of the bathroom was on, shining through the window.

"He's in the bathroom!" I half whispered.

My dad, crept to the bathroom door and quietly and firmly grabbing the door handle, flung the door open. No one was there.

Things finally settled down, and my parents realized that I must have been having a large nightmare.

Another night soon after...I was upstairs in bed...sleeping because of how terrible I felt.
Everyone else was downstairs, reading, playing board games and otherwise entertaining themselves. Upstairs, I lurched wide awake. Again terror pierced my mind.
I jumped up and ran down the stairs, shouting...

"It's coming! It's Coming!. " I was scared witless. Running across the living room I jumped and landed in Dad's lap. With a deep look of concern, he asked
"What's coming, Marc?"

I looked at him, looked at everybody else in the room, confused. And blurted:
"The Fourth of July!"

Their mouths fell open as they looked at me. Then everyone started laughing really hard. I sat there confused.
Thinking, in my mind's eye I could see...in sparkly letters like they use to make the ground fireworks...

> 4 T H_O F_J U L Y <

Slowly I started to realize what I'd said. The laughter eased my mind as I joined in.

I ended up going to the hospital. X-rays revealed a concussion.