Clouds are especially interesting to me when I'm flying above them and can see them from a different angle. They look so angelic, so pure, and so easy to turn into sculptures of the mind in which you can read all kinds of strange stories. I watched as the Volkswagen beetle cloud started to change into letters of the alphabet. At first, vaporous patches seemed to break apart and almost disappear before my eyes. This strange cloud changed shape again, as if it had a mind of its own. How amusing! It could have been the angle or the way the light was shining. It looked like the letters G...D...N were made out of the pieces. Then they went away, changing into different shapes like some animated caricatures.
It's amazing how the analytical computer of the mind can link random thoughts and images to other thoughts and experiences from the past. When I saw the letters GDN after the Volkswagen cloud, it reminded me of a long time ago when I saw the name GIDEON on a Volkswagen's licence plate.
As I thought about the adventures a mysterious friend of mine named Gideon told me about, my mind went to memory banks and put the pieces together. Marla, his friend, was just as spiritual as he was, and between the two of them, I learned a lot about the bigger picture of this confusing thing we call life. Their looks and actions were so strange and mysterious that sometimes I didn't even believe they were real. Still, I still have the books1 where we wrote about our earlier adventures.
As the day turned into night and we moved through space toward the east coast of North America, I thought back to the first time I met them and how interesting they were. Whenever I was having a hard time in the past, like when I lost all of my material possessions or when my wife, Mardai, died, Gideon and Marla would appear almost magically to give me a much-needed dose of hope and spiritual vision, and then they would disappear just as magically. They really were angels who had come to earth.
