The Book of Daniel and the Mystery of the Resurrection Machine Read online

  Immediately below on the first floor were several truck drivers who also peered with equal curiosity from behind the break room’s large window. Looking back, I don’t know what I expected them or anyone else to do. I obviously didn’t need rescue, but then again, my faculties were so overwhelmed I’m not sure that I was thinking at all.

  Again with great effort, I turned my head to the right only to see Larson watching me from the entrance of the garage. Obviously I couldn’t hear him over the noise of the factory and at that distance, but I could see his puzzled look and the movement of his mouth to the tune of

  “What the hell are you doing lil-buddy?”

  And while perhaps a part of me was hoping for an intercession from one of these loyal spectators, another part of my soul—never wanted it to end. With every second this man, or “being,” spoke, I became more and more entranced, frozen and unable to speak or move. Finally it became an overwhelming inward flow of energy and information, a veritable download to which I could only receive and not respond. I was completely catatonic yet I didn’t care.

  As this occurred, the view between myself and Him faded into a bright, enormously powerful yet soft white light. This was angelic. My senses were completely shutting down, bowing out, to this unfathomable power that had taken hold of my being. My hearing was dampened as if submerged in the boundless depths of the ocean, the surrounding noises of the factory also gone as was my knowledge of who or where I was. The energy of which I speak was like a thousand volts of electricity passing through my body, a force beyond description; but instead of pain and death, it was the most wonderful feeling I had ever felt in my life.

  This entire incident lasted for what I perceive to be, maybe, two minutes, and then, suddenly, as if violently vacuumed back into reality, my senses abruptly and unwelcomingly returned. I could hear again, only to have him say, and I remember this part clearly,

  “Daniel; it is time.”

  He then paused for a mere second or two, looking me directly in the eyes. His disposition, though still jubilant, was far more serious than before. I noticed in that moment that his glowing persona had ceased, yet his eyes, those eyes, now glowing with an overwhelming power and luminescence as they peered into my soul. I knew in that moment that he could see me, that I could not hide my thoughts—that no secret was left within. Yet it was then that he spoke the most simple phrase,

  “Okay, good. I’m going now. You’ll be fine. Bye now.”

  And he simply walked away, passing to my left side, me standing there, still somewhat zoned and looking straight ahead, hand and arm still extended from when I first touched him on the shoulder. I’m sure I appeared to be having an epileptic seizure, and admittedly it was quite the shock to awaken alone and in the middle of a truck lot—that and with no fewer than six people staring in wonder.

  My faculties returned fairly quickly, however, (or at least I think they did), perhaps within about 5 to 8 seconds. Upon this I turned, expecting to see the elderly man still traversing the large and open area, but he was nowhere in sight. I ran as best I could, legs wobbling as I went, in the direction that he left until reaching the mixer plant. I was sure that I could catch this guy and ask him his name: Who was he? Where did he go? What in the heck did he just do to me?

  I wasn’t putting two and two together yet; I somehow assumed that since he was old, there was no way he’d had time to reach his car, especially since the parking lot was at the top of the hill and almost a football field away. It wasn’t till later that it occurred to me that he most likely didn’t need a car. That said, I ran as fast as I could around the main building in an effort to discover, but to no avail. He was simply gone.

  Confused by this I dashed to the main entrance of the facility from where I could see all three gates. I knew that, regardless of where he was on the property, enough time hadn’t elapsed for him to leave. He had to pass through one of those openings, and when he did, I reasoned, I could stop and question him—but nothing. Not for over five minutes did I see anything resembling a not-so-lost little old man!

  Again I returned to the scene of the encounter and scanned the area, traversing each and every building, but he had simply vanished. Progressively, as the shock of the experience dissipated, came the growing realization that something amazing had just happened, something that I couldn’t rationalize. It occurred to me to question the on lookers in hopes they could identify just who the old man was and perhaps, where he went.

  At this I immediately ran back to the shop, went straight up to Larson and, out of breath, asked,

  “Who was that guy?”

  To which he responded,

  “What guy?”

  “The little old man I was talking to out there in the lot…”

  “What were you doing anyway?” Larson said.

  “That’s the old man I saw earlier, -did you recognize him? Do you know who he was?”

  With a confused look on his face, Larson paused, searching my eyes as if my question made no sense. He responded,

  “I didn’t see anybody. All I saw was you holding your damn hand out. …Are you Okay?”

  Perplexed by this exchange but realizing further questions would only inflame his predictable temper, I instead opted to question the dispatchers as they both saw and were closer to the incident. I jogged back across the lot to their building and sprinted up the exterior stairway. Though still trembling from the experience, I tried to compose myself as best I could before entering. After a couple of deep breaths I nonchalantly turned the corner through the door and announced,

  “Hey guys, how’s it going? Having a busy day?”

  To which Eddie and Tommy turned in unison and said,

  “What were you doing a minute ago?”

  “Oh, nothing; just talking to that old man that was walk’n around—which, hey, I never actually got his name. Do you know who he was?”

  For a brief moment they glanced at one another after which Tommy said,

  “What old man? All we saw was you standing there with your hand held out. What were you doing?”

  I stared, dumbfounded, not sure whether to believe them or not. Perhaps today the joke was on me. It crossed my mind that the dispatchers were in pay-back mode for the numerous pranks I’d played on them throughout the years as well. Larson at least didn’t play games however. That and it was unlikely that an old man whom I’d never met, would stand in the heat that long just to facilitate a hoax.

  “No, really,” I said. “Do you know who he was?”

  Again they repeated with a bit of disdain and curiosity. It was now that I felt my first bit of panic. Oh-no, I thought. I’m losing my mind! Without another word I immediately turned and descended the stairs toward the drivers’ room. Again I steadied myself upon entering, trying not to appear as rattled as I truly was. I nonchalantly walked past the drivers as if to buy a soda from the machine.

  “What’s up, fellas? Boy it’s a hot one today, ain’t it?”

  To which came the immediate response;

  “Yeah. Hey, what were you doing outside a minute ago?”

  “Oh, I was talking to that old man but never actually got his name. Did you recognize him?”

  Three of the four drivers just looked at each other with scrunched-eyes, shaking their heads as to what I was talking about. One driver, Victor, said in his typical country slang,

  “We didn’t see any old man, Dan-el. All we saw was you holdin’ your hand out. Are you all right?”

  Now I was really getting scared. If there’d been any way to explain the feeling of bliss or perhaps how the little old man knew my entire history, then there was certainly no way to deny having seen and touched the fellow. But now it seems no one even saw him besides me! As you might imagine, I was getting nervous.

  Ironically, though I recalled facets of the incident, other parts were completely blank, especially when I felt that inflow of information. Some massive amount of energy and knowledge had entered my mind, yet I had no idea what
it was—none whatsoever. I really didn’t know what to think or believe. The illumination I felt when that man touched my hand was unlike anything I had ever experienced and it rocked my world to the core. I don’t know how to fully express the magnitude of those moments.

  I pondered the incident for the remainder of the workday but mostly avoided interaction with others. My normal self-assuredness was now destroyed; my mind was in a fog, and I questioned how something so awesome could exist without my prior knowledge. For the most part I was a type-A personality, not by nature, but because both the farm and my work conditioned me to be a forward thinker. I always had the answers; I was accustomed to quickly fixing things. But for once I was like a lost child, with nothing to say and without direction.

  The religious implications were obvious and I was trying without success to somehow match the event with my own religious beliefs. Till then miracles were restricted to the pages of my Bible as was my faith in God. Admittedly I believed in a higher power, but the majority of my knowledge on spiritual affairs had been taught, not experienced. Now, however, I’d been confronted with something that was forcing me to look beyond boxes in which I’d believed and even far beyond my own rebellious questions.

  Like I said before, I wasn’t afraid to question my religious beliefs, but not in my wildest imagination did my questions go this far. Sure, I had talked the talk about God; I prayed before each meal and at church. But obviously didn’t really believe that such a phenomenon could exist in this day and age. The grand passage of time between the days in which the Bible was written and my own life had, till now, given me a safety net for my beliefs.

  The truth is that the occurrences of which the Bible speaks can either be accepted or not. Proving or disproving its authenticity, however, usually leads to a stalemate between believers and disbelievers with no solid conclusion. That actually works in everyone’s favor, as neither really needs conclusive proof for what they accept as truth, so long as what they believe is ultimately unprovable.

  But now my 1989 had been smacked square in the face with something that would have made Moses himself proud. And while it may not have been the splitting of the Red Sea, it was certainly the splitting of reality in me. It became apparent that my teachings had tailored God to fit into this world. My beliefs had molded Him to support this life. But now the power I witnessed did not fit here at all!

  The glory I beheld upon that man’s face and felt in his touch was incompatible with the dogma of my tradition. It was better in fact, so-much better than what I had thus far believed, and so much more personal than I had ever imagined God could be. It brought an obvious question if I really knew God via my religion, then why was I shocked at the power of that experience? Did this really happen? Yes, but it was completely nuts…It was crazy….and as I’d soon discover, the drama was far from over.

  However for the first few months thereafter nothing happened to validate that incident. No doubt I reflected upon it several times each day, trying to make sense of how six people all failed to see what I saw. It consumed my thoughts: at work, during dinner, and while I laid in bed. I had not even a single shred of evidence that the event had occurred—no witnesses, no proof—yet I knew as sure as the sun that it had.

  And then one day while working, just like that, I began to see images—only a few at first, fleeting and flickering across the front of my vision. They were similar to a daydream, only stronger, increasing each hour. They were images that I didn’t understand: circles, pictures, drawings and even maps. They were black and white at first, gray scale, but over time, in color. I saw faces too—proud, stern, and with the most powerful visage of strength and wisdom.

  Like long-lost memories, they came as a flood; they clouded my view to the extreme. I stumbled frequently simply because my imagination would not let go, nor could I of it. This continued off and on for weeks, months and for many years to come. The images were in my sight and in my dreams. For years thereafter they affected both my work and my sleep and, to a lesser degree, still do after all this time.

  It wasn’t long however before I began to sketch and file my visions on innumerable note pads. Most of these involved overlapping circles, some detailed, while others not so much. I was never the best artist, but I was now making some truly remarkable pencil drawings late at night and often on the weekends. Likewise, the more still my moments, the more profound the works I produced.

  At times though I saw maps within those circles, overlaid or rather meshed together as one. These images drew my curiosity to the maps in the back of my old Scofield Bible. There I began to connect the dots of the towns mentioned in the scriptures as if to reveal patterns upon those pages. I still have that worn copy, its own images now unrecognizable from that which I sketched upon them.

  Beyond the images however was an understanding, a genuine comprehension about the past. I’d never read, nor had I been taught what was coming to my mind, to my imagination, but I knew it well nonetheless. It was all new and fascinating but maddening at the same time. I had wrestled with that angel, the message from the little old man, with what was happening; yet I instinctively knew that these visions were somehow only the beginning.

  I was gaining an unknown yet incomplete wisdom and memory from another time. It filtered into my consciousness like a fog, not all at once, not all at the same time, but in small pieces, every day and every night. Yet as it came into view, it was nonetheless a new and solid reality, a new world within.

  Others, my friends, family and co-workers, noticed my constant distraction. Some commented, some didn’t, but I’m sure the changes in my disposition made quite the conversation behind my back. I suppose I couldn’t blame them either. I’d wonder too if someone acted the way I was: fine one moment, the next, scribbling circles on a notepad like a madman. My mind was in the clouds, increasingly eccentric; odd myself, because now, normality was becoming odd to me.

  People are vindictive though. In their ignorance they question and gossip; they doubt and condemn what they don’t understand. But they could not see what was squarely in front of my eyes, nor could they feel the elation and joy of that event with the little old man. Some memories brought a tidal wave of emotions from which I could not hide: recollections that couldn’t possibly be real, yet were too real to be anything less.

  Thus the experience was a two-edged sword in that I couldn’t share it with those to whom I was closest. I did try on occasion, but mostly my friends and family knew me by the old Daniel, the other Daniel; and that’s who and how they wanted me to stay. More than once I was literally begged to keep quiet, to get my life together and to forget this nonsense.

  Yet I felt the warnings were more for their own good than mine. It seemed as though the new questions that accompanied my experience made those around me uneasy. These new revelations, however, began to expose certain hypocrisies and vanities within their own social-cliques. And though I meant no ill will toward them, my words were often met with violent rebukes from those who were normally quiet, peaceful country folk. But I gathered their reactions were because I rocked the bed in which they slept more than because I had morally trespassed. No doubt, people wake up grumpy when you shake their bed.

  At one point I confided in my minister in hopes of gaining some insight. However, this too ended badly as he was notably uncomfortable with the conversation and subject matter. Instead of engaging in a useful dialog, he too abruptly ended the topic. His plea was the same as others, with a request that I keep the event of the little old man to myself. Honestly, I could understand my relatives fearing the fallout of such an unlikely tale, but the leader of a church who claims to preach miracles, angels, and the supernatural? It struck me as odd that he too would shun the conversation.

  It was equally as probable that I couldn’t articulate my story. I knew what had happened and that it was real to me, but there were still loose ends. And if I couldn’t make total sense of it, how then could I expect others to understand? But the biggest missing p
iece was the total-meaning of the images themselves, and it was this lack of connection that was most frustrating to me.

  Here I was with this larger-than-life experience that in no way empowered practical change. I wanted something great to come of it. I wanted others to be as excited as I was, to know there are things more powerful than this life can offer and that real miracles can happen. Instead of helping, however, things were getting worse. People were avoiding me for obvious reasons. I had become the black sheep, the duck-duckgoose, the odd-ball out.

  But there was something else I was beginning to see, something that went even further than simple indoctrination and my own stagnant religious tradition. And though I sensed it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. At times, I swear, it was as if a veil were draped in front of my mind, a curtain through which I could almost see. It was if the movie of my life showed upon this screen every moment of every day, a thin fabric of separation that somehow wasn’t real.

  Who or what was this dark magician controlling the world in which before I had so blissfully partaken? What possible explanation was there for the contrast between my religious assumptions and what I was beginning to see? The beginning of my world, my life till then, was suddenly having its end, and though I had no idea what lay beyond, I could no longer be the person I once was. As of yet I was beginning to see the depth of a lie, but not its cause or solution.

  There were other changes within my personality and the depth of my being. I became much more serious and contemplative. Inventing new and dynamic contraptions became the norm, and though my job required mechanical knowledge, I had never been the creator of new ideas. Now, however, I no longer had the mind of a repairman but was thinking 10 to 20 steps ahead of what I’d ever before considered. Now my creative powers were going full-throttle, over the top.

  I became quite the polymath, though I was, by no means, before. Over eight new patents and trademarks were filed over the following ten years, not including over two dozen new inventions that I never pursued (I ran out of money): trademarked names, inventions for vehicles, food recipes, disaster-response programs, machinery, product branding, an unbreakable firewall against computer hacking, and even an engine that successfully ran on magnets alone. My mind was taking off like a rocket.