The kind of sky you almost think has a texture you could reach up and feel.  The stars are the brightest I’ve seen in a long time.  Radio towers blink red lights from nearby peaks.  Everything is quiet and still.  The dogs roam around near the truck.  Their sniffing noticeable, almost loud.  On one side of the mountains lies L.A.  Its fake electrical sunrise shining up over the peaks.  The other side is a plain of darkness lit by a few twinkling lights.  It’s the desert.  I breathe in deeply and look out to where the ocean should be.

Then the entire sky flashes white.

I blink and shake my head slightly.  What happened to my vision?  I look over at Eric and Matthew who are in the truck bed with me.  They make no sign they noticed anything.  What did I just see?  For an instant, the whole sky flashed a perfect white.  It was as if, like hitting a light switch, night had become day for a moment.

I look over to L.A. and see the same hazy, steady glow.  Search the sky for clouds.  None.  I’ve never seen lightning in L.A. anyway but so near the desert… it could have been a freak lightning strike.  It’s cloudless.  For miles and miles there isn’t a single space where I can’t see the stars perfectly.

Then everything flashes white again.  The whole sky and everything around me goes from the dark blackness of night to completely, brilliantly illuminated white.

I rub my eyes. “What the hell..” I say out loud to see if I can get a reaction from either one of them without sounding crazy right away.

Matthew starts chuckling in his warm, cozy sleeping bag.  I look at him and he’s looking at me, a half-cocked grin on his face.  Eric’s grinning at me too.

“What?” Eric asks a little too innocently.

Ah crap… might as well ask.  “Did you guys see that?”  I ask pointing to the sky.  “It happened twice.”

“See? See what?” Eric asks again with a slight tone in his voice that I know means he’s having some fun with me.

I sigh.  “The sky, it flashed white like –“ suddenly everything, not only the sky but everything around me, flares with a bright white light.  I was looking up at the sky before but it’s everywhere!
“There!” I shout pointing at the mountain and then at the sky so they don’t think I’m pointing at a bunch of rocks. “There! It just did it! Did you see it?!”  They had to have seen it!  It wasn’t soft.  The whole freaking sky lights up bright white! 

They are the perfection of calm and indifference.  Matthew looks, oh-so-casually, at Eric and I can tell he’s having a hard time not laughing.  I don’t get it.  Can they see it too?  If they can why aren’t they saying anything?

“The whole sky flashed white?”  Eric asks me.

“Yeah!  It’s flashing bright white.  It’s done it like three times now.”

“Probably a search light from L.A.”  Eric suggests somewhat coyly.

“No!” I say excited by what’s going on and growing frustrated by their lack of response.  “It’s too bright, I mean L.A. is over there!”  I point at the dim glow over the mountains.  “It’s the same, it’s too faint.  This is bright!”

“Hrmm.”  Eric thinks out loud.  “The radio towers?”

“Radio towers? Uh…”  I ask forgetting for a moment about the weak little blinking, red, radio towers.  “What? No… look at them.”  I say looking towards the quiet radio night specks.  “It’s… it’s so bright…” I wait, listening to my breath.

Whooosh!  The whole sky, the mountains, everything around me, goes white.  This time everything seems slower.  I pay attention to how it looks.  It doesn’t look like daylight.  It isn’t bright like daylight is.  It looks paler.  Less color.  It almost looks like an electrical white.  It’s bright but void of color.  What’s more, when it flashes, I can feel it flash through my body.  For a moment, my entire body buzzes with it.

“There it was again…” I say quieter, confused, uncertain. 

“Maybe,” Matthew suggests, “it’s lightning.”  He chuckles.

“No, no, no.  I got it.  A weather balloon.”  Eric says.  They both have a good snicker.

Now I get it.  They’re giving me logical explanations.  They’re making fun of how they think I’d take it.  They think I would dissect it and cast it off with the best scientific explanation I could find.  Damn it, am I that bad?  Matthew’s always been more open to things. 

Am I critical or narrow minded?  I think back to the night in the park.  When Eric explained things and asked us to feel them Matthew had an easier time.  I can’t figure out why exactly.  I’m trying to understand but can’t seem to catch on like he is.  They must both be able to see this.  He’s taking it in such stride.  Maybe he’s seen it before. They said they found this together.  I sit forward and smile, laughing quietly through my nose.  It’s something I’d learned to do when I was young and didn’t want to smile with my teeth showing.

“I get it.  It isn’t a weather balloon, it isn’t the radio towers and there’s not a cloud in the sky. But I give up.  What is it?  I’m ready to listen.”  My voice humbled by the event.

Matthew looks over to Eric.  “Well,” Eric starts, “you guys have been around me so much lately you’re starting to tune into my frequency more.  You’re seeing things more how I see them.  You’re starting to operate on a higher level.  What you’re seeing is the planet shift.  When the planet shifts it flashes white for a moment.  It goes through everything, not just the sky.  Kinda like a heartbeat I guess you could say.  You know, like the electrical pulse that goes through your whole body.  Well, the planet has something sort of like that.  You’re tuning into that.”

Bending God: A Memoir is the beginning of my paranormal, spiritual adventure. Enter my world of invisible beings, a grown man being thrown backwards by nothing but the mind of another, and clouds that pour out of a hole in a brilliantly clear blue sky. All the stranger because it is real.

As you read this book you will doubt that what you’re reading is true. It is all true. No exaggerations. No distortions. It is an accurate account of the summer I met Eric Pepin who defied the limits of everything I believed to be possible.

I met him as a cynical skeptic. Years before I walked away from the religions of the world. They all offered pieces of truth but none fully had it. The world was only what science could explain. No mysteries. No wonder.

The moment I sat down with Eric Pepin he began to weave a tale beyond all time. He spoke of the creation of the Universe, the experience of God, and the purpose of those rare souls who feel a deep spiritual calling within them. The restless tug of an unknown destiny. 

Before it was over he offered me the briefest glimpse of another world. He peeled back reality to reveal a whole new dimension behind it. Shocked and numb, I did not believe what I saw.

Yet the voice of reason fought back. His existence was a riddle that I became determined to solve. I thought him, at best, insane. At worst, a fraud, parading his talk of mystical, paranormal abilities and profound states of enlightenment for the gullible to follow. In time I was confident his game would fail and I would prove him wrong.

Strange events quickly accelerated. The harder I frantically tried to crack the code, the more his unknown world opened up before my disbelieving eyes.

So began a journey where the world I once knew would suddenly be transformed into a place of magic and wonder.

Bending God offers such a world. A mystery beyond imagining. All the more fantastic because it is real. It is my life and now it is yours to share and experience.