She called 911 and 30 minutes later I was in the emergency room of the nearest hospital. I couldn’t believe it. With our lousy insurance, she knows we can’t afford expensive doctors. I guess she doesn’t care that I’d have to work for the next two years just to pay some doctor’s expensive bill.

She obviously wasn’t thinking of that. All she could think about was my alcohol. In the scene on the screen, she rode in the ambulance with me and, the whole way there, babbled on endlessly that none of this was my fault. The booze had changed me. Without alcohol, the two of us could return to our once happy marriage. She told the EMT that she still loved me. She said we’d get help – see a marriage counselor and go to AA.

Thank God I was unconscious during that trip. Listening to her talk about my habit would’ve driven me to another drink. I honestly believe that if it weren’t for my drinking, the woman wouldn’t have a thing in the world to talk about.

The movie jumped forward in time to the following day. I was still in the hospital when the diagnosis arrived. The doctors said my body was severely deteriorated from alcohol abuse. My liver was practically useless, and some other vital organs had taken a pounding from years of drinking. They didn’t expect me to live much longer.

Thankfully, my wife wasn’t there when I got the news. She was working at another hospital across town. If she knew, she’d start with her soapbox sermon and her I-told-you-so attitude. I didn’t need that. What I needed was something to cheer me up; and I was pretty sure I couldn’t get it in the hospital.

I convinced the doctors to let me go home. Since there wasn’t any more they could do for me, they agreed. They probably figured that there was no reason to keep me around if they couldn’t make any more money off me.

I was out of the hospital by 4:00 pm and into a local tavern by 4:30. By 9:00 that evening, I had drunk every penny I had on me and then some. Lack of money is something I don’t worry about when I’m smashed out of my gourd.

I staggered out to the truck and began driving home. I live out of the city far enough that it takes some time to get there. I was anxious to get home and get to bed. Of course, the old lady and me might have to go at it again, but I’d get some peace and quiet one way or another.

My mind wasn’t exactly on my driving. I was thinking of the home made distillery in the back woods I used to have – before the revenuers came and shut it down. (Darn shame too – that was some powerful strong stuff – real White Lightning.) Not thinking straight, I was going too fast. I forgot about the sharp turn some call “dead-man’s curve.” Before I knew it, old dead-man’s curve and me went at it, head to head.

I lost. I wrapped my truck around a huge oak tree a few times but, somehow, barely remained alive. It was just dumb luck I guess, or maybe fate.

I knew I was hurt. There was blood everywhere. But thanks to the alcohol buzz, I wasn’t feeling much pain. I knew I was dying, but I didn’t care. The doctors said I only had a few months left anyway. What difference did it make if death came now or later?

Just then I saw the lights. At first, I thought it might be an ambulance or a passing cop. I’d tell ‘em not to waste their time. But the lights didn’t belong to a cop or an ambulance. They didn’t belong to anything on Earth. I mean, I’ve never seen anything made by humans that looks like a flying saucer.

I don’t remember exactly how the aliens removed me from the twisted wreckage of my truck. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was seeing the appearance of several short, green-skinned aliens with big, black, almond-shaped eyes hovering over my broken body.

The wall screen went blank at that point. It began replaying the events of my life again like some twisted videotape stuck in a continuous loop. I averted my eyes to another section of the room.

As I said earlier, I was a prisoner in a vertical transparent tube, floating in a liquid-filled tank of some kind. Across the room, in a corner, the aliens worked on another container similar to mine. Like a huge aquarium, it was transparent and something floated inside. Between the poor lighting and the aliens constantly in the way, I was unable to determine exactly what it might be.

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