As I pulled out of the driveway by myself in the jeep to go to work at about 11am, I saw a black rectangular object fall from the sky; it was about four or five feet from hitting the ground where my eyes first noticed it, and just as suddenly, the black oblong object hit the ground with a thud, raising dust, and so I looked to see what had just fallen from the sky. It was a black book. I focused my eyes in on the book, which had fallen with the cover face up, with the words inscribed in gold letters “Holy Bible.”
My reaction was one of shock. While I was getting out of the jeep that I parked off away from the middle of the street, I saw Maritza just coming out of the door next to her mom’s white car. I walked over to the bible, picked it up as Maritza walked toward me. She remarked that I had a very perplexed look on my face, and so I told her what had just happened. I put the bible in her hands so she could see for herself what it was.
Maritza knows that I do not have a deep connection with the Bible. I have only read bits and pieces of it, knowing that it was altered and key elements, especially about reincarnation, were left out of it since the Council of Nicea. So, Maritza handed it back to me, and after we exchanged remarks about how astonishing this all was, we gave each other a kiss, and I got back in the jeep and drove off to work.
I couldn’t understand why this had just happened or how. Since it had landed near the back of the Ford pickup, I figured that maybe somebody had left it on the corner of the back of the pickup and it had fallen, but what I saw was a black rectangular object falling perfectly flat to the ground. From how high it was when my eye caught view of it and from the edge of the pickup if someone had actually left it there, if the book had fallen from the pickup, then the book would have fallen with some part of the book angling down first, not flat like I had seen. Those four or five feet I saw it falling perpendicular to the ground. Besides, Maritza had just come in from near the truck after walking the dogs, and had walked past the truck and not seen the Bible on the truck, so it is doubtful that it was even resting on the truck. And how likely is it that someone would place a bible on the back of the pickup, Maritza would walk past without noticing it, then just as I have finished backing out of the driveway, and started to go forward, how likely is it that I would see a flat rectangular object fall straight to the ground, landing flat with a thud, raising some dust, and be a book with its cover face up so I could see that it read “Holy Bible” from the jeep in the street? Not very likely. But it is even less likely that it just fell from the sky, right?
I was like, “Holy shit! What the f**k!” So when I get to work, I find it is the King James version, which I really do not like, so I am thinking, “If the angels sent this as a message to me, why would they pick the King James version, which I don’t care for?” Then, I opened up to the first page and there was an inscription to Christina and I think the other name was Savannah (I’ll check on Monday when I go back to work, which is where I left it), and the inscription said that this gift was for “forgiveness.” So, like I do with all books, I closed the book, meditated, and then opened the book to a random page and starting reading. The page was at Leviticus 19, which I just looked up on the net to remind myself, and it says, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them, ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.'”
I am in no way religious or a bible thumper, but that is just outright strangeness, don’t you think? So I told my friend Bruce and my friend Jaime, and although both found it odd, neither was too surprised at this point, knowing that high strangeness is common to my life. Bruce reminded me that magic happens all the time, and Jaime admitted that she has been studying the archangels with some dedication lately, too. Maritza and I are still scratching our heads over this one, but somehow, the word on the inscription page “forgiveness” seems to me like the key message. Maybe the message is that we should just extend “forgiveness” to everyone, and let go of our old hostile attitudes. And maybe we should also start to use umbrellas more often, in case bibles falling from the sky gets to be a regular occurrence!
Diary of A Strange Lad by Rick Keefe 