A LEAP OF FATE

This is an alternative version – a kind of Twilight Zone version, if you will – of a true story, an historical event from the previous century.

To paraphrase Stanley Eddington, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine."
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A LEAP OF FATE
An alternative version of a True Story
By Gary Val Tenuta

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fate  1: the principle or determining cause or will by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do : DESTINY,  2: an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end.   -  Websters Dictionary
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    He disappeared on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971. The search for him was as thorough as could be expected. The dense forests covering the Pacific Northwest mountains made the search difficult if not nearly impossible. Besides, no one knew exactly where to look. He planned it that way. He planned it all so perfectly from beginning to end: Hijack the plane. Force the pilot to land. Demand a couple of parachutes and two-hundred- thousand dollars in small bills stuffed into back packs. When they resumed their flight he would exit from the tail end of the aircraft with a parachute over a predetermined area and make his way to the get-away car already waiting for him. After that he would never be seen or heard from again because an entirely new identity had been arranged for him physically as well as in name. And from all accounts, he never has been seen or heard from again. But not because of his plan.

    A lot of folks think he never made it. Many believe he died in the attempt. Others think he did make it and that he walks the streets unrecognized but considerably more wealthy. Truth is, he did make it. That is to say he's still alive and, yes, he does walk the streets quite unknown but also unknowable. He does have his money but he is not wealthy and the streets he walks are not our streets. He lives in a place he does not understand; a place that does not understand him. He remembers nothing, save two things: that the pieces of greenish paper in his bag are very  important (but he can't remember why) and he remembers his name.

    You see, the human mind is a fragile thing. True, it can adapt to many situations if it has time to adjust. But rapid changes can shock the mind. In his case, it happened in a second, in the blink of an eye, the moment he jumped from the plane. He fell through a rip in the fabric of space and time and entered into another dimension. The sound of the plane was gone the instant he jumped. He didn't even have time to open his parachute. He simply vanished from his present position in space and time and emerged, suddenly, in mid air, a few feet above the ground in a world similar to, but not the same as, the one he had just left. He landed with a thump on the ground just a few feet from what appeared to be some kind of a road in the middle of what appeared to be some kind of a city bustling with what appeared to be some kind of people.

    They regard him, now, as a harmless curiosity. Countless attempts to communicate with him have failed. The language barrier presents an ultimate obstacle, let alone the fact that the sudden experience shocked his keen mind nearly senseless.

    He wanders the streets of this strange city clutching his precious bag of worthless green paper and people give him food and, sometimes, shelter. He never speaks, but people tell of the time he was first discovered. They say he uttered a sound which they took to be his name. Whether it was his name or not, they still call him by the odd sound:  
DEEBEEKOOPER.