Snake,
The following is something that I wrote down...trying to document the many aspects of what has happened to me...
Crazy Bird Dude
One day in the spring of 2000 (I think it was 2000), I received a very strange e-mail. I don’t remember the name of the person who sent the e-mail, but I do remember that I didn’t recognize the name at all. It seems that it wasn’t an easily identifiable name, or a common name, like Bob, or Jennifer, or whatever. But rather a fictitious name, like one that you would use in an internet chat room or message board…something made up. If I’m not mistaken, I couldn’t even tell which gender the person was by their name.
Anyway, the e-mail was strange to me, because it contained poetry. Really good poetry…or I assumed it to be, as I was unable to make heads or tails out of it. And the more complicated and complex, or metaphorical that prose seems, the better it seems, to me. Not that I can appreciate it…or do appreciate it…because I don’t get it…and don’t like it. I think that I’ve made my sentiments toward prose quite clear in an earlier chapter. It’s just that because I am so willfully inept in this regard, I guess I assume that the less I understand a poem, then the more accomplished the poet. Anyway…I had no idea what this person was trying to say to me. It seemed like they were trying to say something though…like the prose was not some that they found in a book and thought was clever, so they were sending it out to a bunch of people in some chain e-mail. My memory of this encounter, and the content of the e-mail, is very sketchy…but the prose wasn’t structured…like that which would be published or for a common appreciation. But it was conversational…and the with conversation being directed at me. So the only thing that I did understand about it, was that I was supposed to understand it, but did not.
Which of course frustrated me, because I hate poetry, and I totally didn’t get the message that this person was trying to convey. And so I e-mailed the person back, explaining to them that I didn’t get it. I apologized, but explained that I didn’t understand poetry, so I didn’t understand what they were trying to say to me. I asked them if they could possibly reword what they were trying to say…dumb it down a bit for me…so that I could understand.
And they responded to my request with more prose. It was just as complicated as the first message was…and I may have understood it even less. And after reading this second message, I also understood that this was indeed an intended form of conversation for this person, and not just some prose that they wanted me to appreciate. So this person was definitely conversing with me, and attempting to convey a message to me in the conversation. But their words were so metaphorical, and their vocabulary was so advanced, that it made the message extremely complicated and completely veiled. And I thought, “What an asshole!” I mean, didn’t they get what I was saying? I told them that I didn’t understand the first e-mail that they sent, and why I didn’t understand it…so they send another of the exact same fashion? Why would they do that? Were they purposefully trying to frustrate or annoy me? It almost felt as if they were being hostile…hostile with their prose. It sounds funny, but that’s what it felt like to me. After all, I abhor poetry…it makes me feel stupid…and not many things do. I hate feeling stupid…I’m not used to it, and I don’t like it.
So I e-mailed this person back, and I really laid into them this time. I can’t remember exactly what it is that I said, but I made it very clear, in my standard lack of tact way, that I didn’t appreciate their prose at all. I probably told them to stick it…you know where. I told them that if they wanted to communicate with me that they would have to speak my language, because for all I knew, they may as well have been speaking Chinese thus far. Like I said…I can’t remember what I said exactly. But I know that I was very angry when I wrote it…very defensive…as if I had been threatened. I felt that way because this person seemed so weird that they were beginning to scare me. After all, I didn’t know who they were, and I had no idea what they wanted from me, or were trying to say to me…and it was like they were harassing me, or threatening me with their words…because I didn’t understand them. It was as if they didn’t want me to understand them…especially when I had told them once to stop with the weird language, and they didn’t stop. And when I get scared or feel threatened…I can have quite a harsh tongue. I’ve scared many with it…intimidated the hell out of some…once some 6’4” 250 lb man believe it or not, who was holding a beer can in one hand and a hockey stick in another…but that‘s another story. I just know that afterward…well afterward…I remember feeling as if I was way too hard on them. Like I had over-reacted for some reason. And I couldn’t really figure out why I had reacted the way that I did…as it seemed strange to me to feel so threatened by some weird e-mail with some stupid prose in it. I mean, what’s the big deal?
So anyway, this person finally did respond by dumbing it down for me. Actually, I don’t think that they ever explained what it was that they were trying to say to me in the first e-mails…they just simply started conversing with me in English that I could understand is all. And I can’t really remember what all was said. It doesn’t seem like much was said…but I remember two things. One is that they said that often, they would get into their car, and just drive around looking for signs. Not street signs per se, but spiritual signs…like signs from God…regarding what I had no idea. So with no particular place to go, they would just drive around, and if they saw a “sign”, then they would follow it, or stop…and they would see where it led them…or who it led them to. Maybe some thing…maybe a person…maybe a conversation…maybe a place…who knows. So I’m thinking to myself, “What an absolute flake.” Seriously, this person sounded like a real weirdo to me, and at this point, I was simply humoring them with the conversation, while at the same time, rolling my eyes, and flipping off my computer screen. Then they said that they had seen my name on a street sign and had followed it…and I guess that is why they had e-mailed me. I had gathered that this person had seen my name on, and gotten my e-mail address from, the exoscience message board…I believe that they had explained this to me during our “normal” conversation, well, for lack of a better term. And I don’t recall that they told me where it was that they ended up when they had followed the street sign either…and you know, I can’t really see myself asking. Like I said, at this point, I didn’t really even want to know…to encourage this crazy person would have seemed a stupid thing to do.
The second thing that I remember them saying to me was that they liked birds. And I’m sure that my response was something along the lines of, “that’s swell…so what?”…and again, rolling my eyes at this freak. And so upon my effort to end the conversation with this person, they told me that they would “send me a bird”, or “send a bird to me”…I’m not sure exactly how they worded it, but it was something like that. And to that I said, “Great…send me a bird…you freak.” Or something along those lines anyway…I may have been a bit more diplomatic, but that was surely what I was thinking…and I do know that I had no interest in talking to this person again. And so that was the end of our “conversation”…for lack of a better term.
A few days later…maybe three days later I think…I was laying out in the sun in my back yard. I was laying in the grass, right underneath the utility line that ran to my house. And on that line there came to sit a bird. It was a black bird…with a hideous voice. I think that it was a starling. And it sat there directly above the spot where I was laying, and screamed in this hideous voice. It’s call was so ugly…just awful…and loud. And it just went on and on and on and on. It must have sat there screaming like that for a good fifteen minutes. To the point where it was no longer simply disturbing me…but it was scaring me…giving me the creeps. It was as if the bird was screaming at me. And so I yelled at it. Screamed back at it…told it to go away…and probably using some choice expletives to do so. And it flew away. And I thought to myself, “Could it be?” And then I scolded myself for being so ridiculous as to entertain the very idea of it, and just resided to put the whole experience out of my memory as quickly and completely as possible.
Hmm…what about some of the nut-jobs you can meet out on the internet, huh? A strange bird indeed.
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This person who emailed me was my rock star. He was trying to reach out to me. He had seen something regarding me...knew something...been given a sign, and he was trying to...insinuate. And I had absolutely no idea what was happening...obviously. I didn't recognize him as the guy from the forum either...he used a different name, and he came across very differently in the email than he did when posting on the forum. But that was the beginning of what has become "my miracle". Way back then...I had no idea. I hadn't thought about it for years...until this all happened...and God told me that it was him...that crazy bird dude was in fact my rock star. Dude...it gets even weirder than that...lol.
