my big brother (6 years older) was a hero to me when I was young. he was the town scrapper, even though he was somewhat short. kind of a popeye type. he was always a good man. if we did wrong our dad would whup us. my brother started to go off the tracks when one day dad tried to correct us and rather than take his lesson my brother picked up a 2x4 and went after dad. he learned that day he didn't have to listen to our father. I learned a similar lesson by watching. we grew up, and my brother took his independence too far. he decided he knew what was dangerous and what wasn't. he got hooked on meth, and the meth culture of rampant sex and no responsibilities. it exposed him to a sub culture that many people know nothing about. a culture where the predator and prey dynamic is much more apparent and visceral. I saw those predators. I met them. I developed the ability to see them. my brother always seemed oblivious to the danger that they represented. maybe he figured he could pick up a 2x4 and make them go away. he would tell me stories of the shenanigans these people would get up to. and very rarely he would open up with stories that didn't make a lot of sense at the time. stories about rituals and symbolism and iconography. and portals. he was a tweaker and I knew that, so I always took his stories with a grain of salt. one time he told me a story about a dairy. for years he had always been plagued with things going missing. tools and wallets and money and keys. normal everyday things that have little value except to their owner. we always chalked it up to mental degredation from drug use. but then he told me about one night he followed a weaselly renfield type because he was fairly certain the guy had stolen from him. the man went to a dairy in the country, and my brother followed. he snuck in and was confronted at the door by someone he said looked VERY surprised to see him in particular. he was known as a man you didn't want to mess with, so they didn't put up much of a fight when he pushed his way into a room with a big table, and people all around. he didn't explode in, just kind of nonchalantly strolled in. not everyone noticed him at first. it was some sort of strange ritual. my brother said he distinctly heard one fellow say "whoah, dude. my hair is sparking" while suffused with strange blue sparks. laid out on the table was a collection of things that he had "misplaced" over a period of several years. things that when lost, caused my brother a great deal of anguish and frustration. he knew that what was happening in that room was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he was involved in some way. he said that as he looked around that room he saw local lawyers, and doctors, and respectable members of our community. he collected his things and walked out without saying a word. I always assumed this story was the ravings of a methhead. until I recently learned that the son of that farmer that owned that dairy, a friend I had when young and I knew there was something DEEPLY wrong with, was now a consultant for the u.n. his closest friend, one of my closest and dearest friends, turned his back on me and our relationship devolved to the point where he was sending me death threats. our friendship truly died on the day he said "hail s*tan" to me during what he saw as a "mic drop" moment. so that's my brothers story. interesting, no?