Chapter 1

The Prophet

 

"What? You want me to do what? Janet, I'm a minister, not a psychiatrist!"

Bill Parks graduated from the seminary only two years earlier and took an offer from a small church in a rural farming/ranching community in the Texas panhandle. As with most ministers, he was on-call from the local hospital to administer spiritual council to those in need. When he received Dr. Janet Mercer's call from the hospital he immediately assumed someone was in need. He did not expect what she asked him to do.

"Mr. Parks, can you come over to the hospital and advise me on a patient? He looks like he is in a trance and is speaking in 'tongues', at least it sounds like it. I hear him talking about God, anyway." After I made my previous response, she continued, "Really, Mr. Parks , I have no idea what I'm dealing with here. An ambulance brought him in from his farm. He apparently went into a trance and his family freaked out and called the emergency line. Now he is here at the hospital, and I don't have any idea what's wrong. At least come take a look and see if you can make any sense out of his rambling."

Apex was a small town, so he knew Janet Mercer, hell you knew most everyone, or at least seen them. He had made it a point to meet and know about Janet, but truth be told, he wished he knew her much better. Neither of them were married, and he thought it kind of made sense for them to gravitate toward each other. They were both around the same age and both of them were relative outsiders, having relocated to Apex because of professional job openings. He came to replace a minister that was retiring, and Janet was recruited to be the resident doctor at the Apex Hospital.

As typical for a small, farming town, the tallest structures are a grain elevator and a water-tower projecting into the sky with APEX written on the side of the elevator and on the top ball of the water-tower, both naming the town. Apex was, however, large enough to have a Baptist church and a hospital, although both were on the small side. The hospital was a fully functioning hospital, but it was single story and minimally equipped.

Both Janet and he were isolated in an unfamiliar town and alone. Most everyone else had been born and raised here, and it had been difficult for them to be accepted in the community. So far they had both been overwhelmed with their new professional responsibilities and hadn't had much time to socialize or worry about being outsiders. Janet's call was the first real opportunity to get together. It was a strange request, but one he was happy to help with.

Bill left immediately and drove the few blocks to the hospital. The sun was just setting as he pulled into the parking lot. When he entered into the emergency room entrance, he was greeted by the nurse/receptionist and directed toward the emergency room.

As he neared the emergency room he could hear a deep monotone voice coming from behind the sliding curtains. The words were unclear, not mumbled but echoing a strange accent. The words were obviously in English, but the heavy accent sounded like Hebrew he had heard from tapes in seminary. But, the accent sounded more pronounced ... more ancient.

When he slipped past the screen he saw the patient. He was a muscular man of about fifty, rugged and tanned, obviously a farmer. He was still in soiled coveralls. A heavy stubble of greying beard covered his cheeks and chin, but what caught his attention was the stare. The man's eyes appeared to be focused on something far, far away, seemingly a distance beyond measurement. Bill had seen him before and even talked to him in passing. He remembered the man having a pronounced accent, but it was more of a slow Texas draw, nothing like what he was now hearing.

Janet looked around at him and said, "Hi Reverend Parks. Thanks for coming over."

"Bill. Just call me Bill." He didn't feel like he was here in a formal capacity as a minister.

"Thanks, Bill. I wanted you to meet Mr. Harper and see and hear his symptoms. I don't think I could explain them to another without them having witnessed them. This is just something that must be seen and heard. It's like he is in a trance and isn't aware we are even here. What do you make of this."

Bill, still shocked, said, "Has this happened before?"

A frantic Mrs. Harper said, "We have been married thirty-two years and this has never happened before...ever."

"His accent is definitely a dialect of Hebrew. Is he by any chance Jewish?"

Mrs. Harper said, "Jewish? Are you kidding me? No way! Irish, his grandparents came directly from Ireland, and he is third generation Texan. We have lived on our farm for twenty-five years."

Janet said, "See what I mean? This doesn't make sense, any of it."

This really had his attention now, and Bill turned his focus toward the actual words being spoken. He concentrated on trying to sift through the heavy accent to identify the English words. The monotone cadence made it more difficult. Some words were easily understood, and the more he concentrated, he began to decipher additional words. He heard isolated and random words like: God, Harvest, Render, Fire, Alien, Destroy, Judgement, End of Time, and others.

Bill said, "Are you by any chance taping this so we can analyze it later?"

Janet said, "Yes, both video and audio. I set it up after he came in, and I saw what I was dealing with."

"Great! It will take some time, but I think with a little practice I will be able to understand it. It's just a matter of getting past the accent."

Bill looked intently into Mr. Harper's unfocused eyes and loudly said, "What is your name." He tried to mimic the accent, somewhat successfully."

Suddenly, Mr. Harper went silent, and his eyes refocused to look directly at him. He spoke more clearly saying, "One of my names is Abraham." His eyes then lost their focus, but he remained silent.

All in the emergency room passed shocked looks back and forth.

Bill asked, "One of your names? How many names do you have?"

Again the eyes focused and Abraham said, "This soul has many lives and names. Souls never die, they pass on and join with others. This is God's design, why he created us. These souls are what God is coming to retrieve."

Bill couldn't believe what he was hearing, but then he could. The scriptures taught some of the same thing in a different way. Still, the situation as presented was so bazaar. For once he was speechless.

Janet said, "I waited for you to get here to see this for yourself, but I need to sedate Mr. Harper. I'm hoping when he wakes up he will be normal, like rebooting a computer."

Bill nodded, and Janet injected Mr. Harper. Soon his head began to nod and Janet lay him back on the bed. After Mr. Harper was asleep, she turned to Bill and said, "Thank you for coming over. I appreciate it. I'll get you the recordings if you want to analyzing them."

"Yes, I would love to analyze them. I'll take off now and go through them when I get home. Drop by my house when your shift is over if you like. I will probably have other thoughts by then."

Janet's heart did a quick flutter. Bill Parks was a handsome man, single, six foot tall with short brown hair and hazel eyes. She had seen him around and knew who he was, she had even admired him from a distance. They had talked but little more than greetings and casual talk about the weather. Bill's name and phone number was listed on the on-call minister list at the hospital, and she wanted an opinion from a minister, who just happened to be Bill. She was pleased that it was Bill.

Janet's social life was nonexistent since accepting the resident MD position at the hospital. That had been a year and a half ago, and her duties took all her time so far. Now, with Bill's invitation, her mind began to fill with nonprofessional thoughts, even in light of this medical challenge. She said, "I get off at midnight. Is that too late?"

"Not at all. I'll be up late working on these tapes."

As he was driving home he realized he hadn't given her his address, but she hadn't asked, either. So, she must already know the address, certainly she had his cell number if she needed to call for direction. Finally, they were going to meet, and he was excited.

Most of the audio could be heard clearly from the video tape, so he spent little time on the audio tape. He did, however, send the audio version to one of his seminary professor at the University of Oklahoma, explaining the situation and asking him if he could identify the accent or dialect of Mr. Harper's ranting.

He had just about finished reviewing the tape for the second time when he heard a knock on his front door. He quickly glanced at his clock and smiled to himself. It was fifteen past 12:00am, it had to be Janet. She had changed clothing, well maybe she had just removed her doctor's smock, but she looked different, very different, standing in his doorway She was actually beautiful standing in the light radiating from his living room. The light accented her long blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, and she was smiling...at him. He almost melted in her gaze, and the fragrance of the perfume she had obviously applied pulled at his nostrils.

Bill visibly shook his head, forcing himself to refocus. Bill said, "I'm glad you're here. I have been able to understand much more of Mr. Harper's rambling." He stopped suddenly, realizing his mistake. "Oh, I'm sorry. Please come in. I have fresh coffee."

"Thank you, Bill. Coffee would be fantastic." As they sat and began to sip their coffee, she asked, "Is his rambling as crazy as it sounded?"

"Even more so. After I listened for a while and got used to the accent it became easier to decipher. Mr. Harper is telling a story, but obviously not his own. Someone else is telling the story and is relating to a time from ancient history, really ancient, from a time of another's life. Actually, very few were alive from this person's recollection. The story is being told by Abraham, if we can believe it. He doesn't say who he is, but, according to him, he was there when an entity calling itself God visited Earth and planted the seeds of human male and female. Maybe Abraham was one of the males God planted. Abraham tells of God's instruction to him: Be fruitful and multiply."

"According to Abraham, God needs to feed on souls and has done so many times before and in many places. It seems God cannot create a soul (life force). The spark of life (the soul) is created by the joining of a male and female when they produce offspring. This process creates a new soul, which is nourished by living and gaining experiences, knowledge, memories, emotions ... life. According to Abraham, souls are eternal until God himself harvests and refines them; which he is evidently about to do."

"During this harvest God absorbs portions of these souls into himself to merge with others. The portions God absorbs are those he deems important. The remainder of the soul is imprisoned in his consuming fire. I assume we can call it the Good and Bad of the soul."

"This is where it gets really strange, assuming you don't already find this strange. I don't know if you noticed, but another voice and accent spoke on the tape, a later lived person, obviously. I noticed it when the voice mentioned the harvest is now full and ripe."

"I did a little Internet research, and if Earth was a field, a harvest is indeed due. There are approximately 8,000,000,000 (8 billion) people alive today and quickly growing far beyond what can be supported and fed. Now, if we assume Abraham is correct and souls don't die, the number of souls that have been generated on Earth since the beginning would be around 110,000,000,000 (110 billion). That is about 15 souls for every living person. So, projecting a harvest time in the future, the time would have to be now or very soon, before the population starts to quickly die off from the effects of overpopulation such as diseases, severe famine, war with massive deaths, etc. ." Bill stopped talking and waited for a reaction.

Janet said, "Wow! You have really gotten into this. It sounds like you believe it."

"Let's just say, the basic concept is based upon biblical teachings that are consistent in almost every known religion. Besides, we have to consider the information presented, not to mention the trance, accent and content. So, let's just say, I am interested in knowing more. Aren't you?"

"Well, it certainly is strange indeed. That's why I called you. I wanted you to hear it for yourself, but I don't consider it an epiphany like it sounds like you do."

Bill was certainly getting excited about what he was discovering, but realized he might be getting overly excited. He didn't want to sound like a religious zealot and scare her away, not when he seemed to be making some headway with her. After all, she did come to his home.

Bill asked, "How is Mr. Harper? Is he still in a trance?"

Janet said, "When I gave him a sedative he went out. He will sleep for many hours. Hopefully, he will be himself when he wakes up. I told the attending nurse to call me when he showed signs of waking up, and I'll go back in to check on him. Want to come with me?"

"Sure, I'm curious. Just give me a call, and I'll meet you there." Janet nodded.

They were continuing to sip their coffee and talk casually about their lives here in Apex, when the call came in. He looked and saw that it was his OU seminary professor. He found that strange, since it was 2:00am. He looked at Janet and told her who it was.

"Hey, Bill, this is Dr. Simpson from OU."

"Hey Phil, I recognize your voice. I've listened to it for years. Remember? I assume you are calling about the tape I sent you? I have Dr. Mercer with me, she is Mr. Harper's physician. Do you mind if I put you a speaker?" Dr. Simpson apparently agreed and Bill lay his phone between him and Janet on the table.

Dr. Simpson said, "Of course this call is about that tape you sent me. I don't mind telling you, that recording has been a major source of discussion for the last few hours. It's gone viral on the Internet."

Janet said, "Viral? You have got to be kidding me. Why?"

"The consensus of opinion around here and other's feed-back is that the accent of the person talking is from the ancient Canaanite era somewhere between 1200 - 586 BC. This dialect of the Hebrew language is long extinct, but some of our linguists swear that by the use of some words and the way they are pronounced that this is the accent detected. The second English language being used in this tape has the scholars puzzled. Some of the words used come from medieval England. By all rights these two languages shouldn't be used together. These languages would have been separated by far too great a distance and the low population of that day would drastically reduce the odds even more. It doesn't make sense."

"We have only begun to address and discuss the actual story this Mr. Harper is telling. It's amazing and will be, I'm sure, a topic for many lengthy discussions. Is Mr. Harper still talking from his trance?"

Janet said, "We won't know until he wakes up from the sedative I gave him. I hoping, for his sake, that he will be normal again."

"Well, we would definitely like to be kept in the loop if you don't mind."

Bill said, "I can give you the video report I have and provide another report by tomorrow evening."

They ended the conversation with agreements to keep each other informed.

Janet looked at Bill with renewed interest and said, "They seem very excited about this situation, as much as you. What they had to say about the accent and its origination is shocking, to say the least. I guess it is hard to explain. I guess you now have my interest, too. But, I hope you understand, my primary focus is helping Mr. Harper, not the research."

"Of course. I understand." Janet seemed to be satisfied with Bill's response, and they settled down to a normal (non Mr. Harper) conversation. They had another cup of coffee, then Janet excused herself to go get some rest. He decided to do the same.

After a late night, Bill was still asleep when Janet called. He quickly jumped up wide awake when he noticed the call was from Janet.

Bill quickly answered and Janet said, "Good morning, Bill." He thought using his first name was a good sign. "I had to come in early, because Mr. Harper woke up earlier than expected. His reboot worked and he is back to normal ... almost. He doesn't remember the episode at all, and had no idea why he was here at the hospital. But, and you will find this very interesting, Abraham is still with him. In fact Abraham asked for you. Abraham is not in total control, like he was initially. Mr. Harper is aware of Abraham now, and seems to know or accepts him, at least he didn't freak out when Abraham spoke through him. As it was last night, the heavy accent returns when Abraham speaks."

Bill said, "You said he asked for me?"

"Oh, sorry. Yes, he wants you to come see him, something about you having more questions to ask."

Bill's emotions got the best of him and he blurted, "You bet your ass I do. I will be in as soon as possible. Thanks for calling, Janet."

As he was speeding toward the hospital, he laughed, thinking that that was the fastest he ever showered, shaved, and dressed. His car slid into the closest parking spot, pleased that the local police wouldn't have believed it was him driving like that. Bill ran through the emergency room doors and into the area with the sliding curtains, but the room was empty. Backtracking his route, he stopped at the check-in desk for Mr. Harper.

The nurse immediately said, "They are waiting for you in Room 130." Pointing down the hall. "We needed the emergency room and Dr. Mercer wanted the privacy."

Bill nodded his understanding, said, "Thank you" and rushed in the direction the nurse had pointed. He stopped outside the room to catch his breath, then entered through the open door.

Janet quickly said, "Hi Bill. That was quick." Bill just nodded, still out of breath.

Mr. Harper said, "Thanks, Rev. Parks. Abraham told me about you, and believed you had additional questions for him."

Bill said, "You know about Abraham?"

"Yes, he explained who and what he is, but he really didn't have to. He has always existed in the back of my mind. I now understand and accept the sharing of our souls."