Mulder and Scully, Open a File

Even if my ravings about my Neil Gaiman obsession bore you to tears, I recommend you read this post if you enjoy "The X-Files" or "The Twilight Zone." My life is turning into an episode of some paranormal prime time drama.

[NOTE TO THE READER: If you'd rather just cut to the intensely dramatic, amazing part, please feel free to skip the non-dramatic, milding amazing next five paragraphs.]

You guys know me, I'm eccentric but also very practical (like INTJ type people often are). I'm a fan of the scientific method and like to operate on facts, not feelings. That said, when I see wacko coincidences going on left and right, I still think they are worthy of note. So, Agents Mulder and Scully, get out your dictaphones and notebooks and get a load of this.

First, let's flash back to weird Neil synchronicity #1, from my March 19, 2008 entry, Notes on the Gaiman Crush, Part 2: While watching an interview with Neil on YouTube, I guessed what he was about to say concerning awesome Jungian author Joseph Campbell. No biggie there; could be explained by the simple fact that both Gaiman and I are authors, and rather Jungian in persuasion.

In our next episode, on May 20 I posted about Neil synchronicities #2 and #3, in I Need You to Help Me Figure Out My Brain. On these occasions I anticipated, with nearly inexplicable accuracy, what two of his stories were going to do. Spooky, yeah...but I figured these were just a couple instances of us thinking alike and having read the same books. Note, I said nearly inexplicable...but not unfathomable. But read the post...it was still damn weird and I have yet to meet anyone who guessed either one in advance.

Fast forward to August 17's episode aka Neil synchronicity #4: My Neil Gaiman Birthday and Other Musings. This particular evening my brain invited me to dig out an old unpublished novel of mine, and I found several coincidences between the first couple chapters and my evening's readings in Neil's The Sandman. Again, the skeptic in me will say, you can find some common ground between any two books, really, can't you? And that could well be all it was, indeed.

However...what I didn't post about in that entry was one more odd parallel I discovered that evening. (I just didn't want to go on and on like a crazy person, kind of like I am in this post.) I also read Neil's Coraline that night, and both Coraline and my Looking on Darkness feature a snow globe as a key object. Yeah, yeah, just a coincidence. People write about snow globes all the time.

NOW HERE COMES THE DRAMATIC, AMAZING PART!

I have lately been reading Neil's and Terry Pratchett's hilarious book Good Omens (subtitle: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch). I borrowed it from our dear friends Cherie and Andy. (Cherie...I bet you guys mentioned the cool thing about this copy of the book once, but I'd forgotten!) Well, while reading the first half of the book, I used the front dust jacket flap as a bookmark. I passed the halfway point the other night and switched to the back flap, thus liberating the front part of the book.

Well, I got tired and decided to go to bed, and I was checking out the dust jacket for something when the book fell open to the bookplate, to reveal...wait for it...this copy of Good Omens was autographed by Neil Gaiman! It said:

Andy, BURN THIS BOOK!

Neil Gaiman

Apply holy match here -->

Very cool, very hilarious, I was charmed. Nice, Neil! But now comes the spooky part, peeps...

I closed the book. I found myself overwhelmed with the urge to read one more chapter. An urge so intense I questioned it. And I thought to myself, what if I'm getting this urge because this next chapter includes something that ties in with the autograph? So I read on.

Please understand, in Good Omens there is an important book called, of course, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. And in the next chapter, only four pages further on, that book catches on fire. I absolutely had no way to see this coming. It was crazy to me.

I quit reading and went to bed.

Yeah, yeah, I know...just another crazy coincidence. But I just had to share. Excuse me now, I have to take this call from the FBI, or is it Rod Serling beyond the grave?