Meeting Mark - An Introduction to Strange Events

My name is Jonathan Wilshire and nothing fantastic or whimsical has ever happened to me in my entire life.   Forgive me, what I mean to say is that that statement was perfectly true until I had a chance encounter with a strange man in a bowler hat - but, we will get to him and his eccentricity later.  At this time I feel compelled to demonstrate that of my many good and admirable qualities none are beyond the realm of perfectly fine and acceptably normal.  That is to say that nothing fantastic or whimsical... had ever happened to me in my entire life.

As I reflect upon the events that transpired and, ultimately, changed my life (for good or for worse I still do not know) I feel a sense of hesitancy in writing any of it down.  You see, writing such experiences as mine on a physical sheet of parchment has the, perhaps, undesired effect of making those experiences physical and real.  As I am not particularly fond of applying such descriptions to the things that have happened to me I am somewhat reluctant to continue.  Alas...

As I attempt to describe some of the experiences that I had over 20 years ago I will attempt to do so as if I am telling a story rather than recalling actual events.  I do this because I am still reluctant to believe that any of it actually happened outside the confines of my subconscious.  I sincerely hope that you, the reader, will not judge these events to be the imaginations of some madman, but, in the very least, the recollections of an extended dream that was had by someone who is perfectly sound of mind and has never had anything fantastic or whimsical happen to him in his entire life... or, I should say, hadn’t had - well, I think that you get what I mean.  I do not wish to scare you away by reiterating my normalcy.  At the very least it should be said that it is my hope that, given the abnormality of these events, readers should glean some sort of entertainment from reading these experiences.

My upbringing was quite normal - well, that is to say it was… well, it was perfectly… The events of my life that had transpired before what is to be recalled in this manuscript are very realy and, in every sense, they are completely... that is to say they… well, suffice it to say that before the day that I was asked to deliver the small, brown-paper package nothing fantastic or whimsical had ever happened to me in my entire life.

(Next Post - Chapter One: A Chance Encounter)