In 1976, on a frozen field in the midst of the worst winter storm anyone could remember, gunfire rained down on a group of state narcotics agents near Columbus, Mississippi. A heroin deal had gone bad, and a sniper for the dealers opened fire with deadly accuracy. A wounded agent fell in a pool of his own blood, but what should have been fatal was not, because of a voice that commanded the young Captain to bring the bullet proof vests to what appeared to be a routine deal. I know this to be true, because I was that young Captain.
Similar stories of the paranormal and supernatural are to be found in a new book, “The Mystery of Fate: Common Coincidence or Divine Intervention?”
The Mystery of Fate: Common Coincidence or Divine Intervention, a collection of short stories, is a honeycomb of treasures for anyone who has ever walked alone–pausing to look back–feeling someone was near but seeing no one; for those who have shivered suddenly as if “someone just walked across my grave;” and for those who felt a faint buzzing, an enchanting melody or distant murmuring near their ears and asked a loved one, “What did you say?”–only to see quizzical glances and hear, “I didn’t say anything.” The stories in this anthology suggest that someone is shadowing us, and it just might be–goodness and mercy.
The book’s stories of love lost and rediscovered shrink our physical confines, detail close encounters with denizens of the deep, paint the thin line between happiness and disaster and life and death, and bear testimony to the smallness of the universe and the mutual commonality we share across many divides. The harvest of miracles contained in this anthology refutes those who embrace sterile paradigms and say that anything that is not measurable, quantifiable, or cannot bear the scrutiny of the scientific process should be thrown in the fire. Such a statement is not scientific itself, but philosophical, and violates its own rules and must be–thrown in the fire by its own standards. The Mystery of Fate is a book to rescue from any fire if only to gaze into tales with intimate flames that sear away comfortable dogma and call into question the randomness of life.
Hidden within the simplicity of Paul Harvey style “Rest of the Story” vignettes, the best of Reader’s Digest articles with a touch of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” moments, specials on late night Coast to Coast radio tales, and Robert Stack’s Unsolved Mysteries, is complexity converted to the rich simplicity that we poor temporal beings might understand.
If you have a void in your heart that needs to be filled–if you have ever awakened in this rented world and felt desperately alone, these stories just might warm your heart and suggest that, even in today’s world, there are still miracles that can lighten even the darkest skies and melt the most cynical hearts. The Mystery of Fate is a bookbinder’s dream. Arlene Uslander and Brenda Warneka have bound it with love and limitless faith.
Review by Merle Temple, author of the novel to be released in 2012, A Ghostly Shade of Pale.
A Book for Those Who Feel Alone in a Rented World
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