CAN A STORY COLLECTION
HEAL THE SICK,
CURE THE AFLLICTED?

Tenneshaw, WI—Thousands of journeyers crowd this town’s small village square every afternoon at 2:44 where a natural phenomenon has turned into a daily spiritual event.

Two weeks ago, it was first noticed that the sun, positioned at this point in its day’s passage, sent a beam shining through the window at the HiRiser Bookstore which coalesced through the rippled thickness of the glass and fell on a book cover in a form reminiscent of the Madonna and Child.

The book cover it fell upon was called “How To Train A Rock” by Paul Steven Stone, a collection of Short Insights and Fiction Flights. Up until then, a book that had succeeded in remaining anonymous, undiscovered and unknown.

The first day of the phenomenon the Madonna and Child sunburst was noticed by a few passers by and mentioned in the Tenneshaw News ‘Around Town’ section. On the second day, there was such a large, mostly out of control, crowd that three people were crushed to death. Fortunately, two of the dead were brought back to life by being held against the bookstore window facing “How to Train A Rock”, the first of many recorded miracle cures.

From then on there were numerous tales of miraculous healings—cancers shriveled to nothing, broken backs made whole and straight, cripples dancing in the street, lepers with skin so clear teenagers would be envious. And, one or two resurrections of political careers, it was also rumored.

But then, not surprisingly, time moved on. And, as any astronomy student could tell you, the sun’s passage changes slightly everyday. So there should be little surprise that the quasi-religious effect of the light breaking through the glass at the critically precise moment of 2:44 PM would eventually cycle itself out of existence. And so it did. So that yesterday, two weeks- two days after the Madonna and Child first appeared, they were gone.

Today, a smaller crowd, maybe 15-25 hopeful souls, showed up and hung around the bookstore window where “How To Train A Rock” sits patiently waiting for someone to pick it up and take it home. They stare down at the book and wonder whether any of the Madonna and Child’s healing properties might have melted into the pages of this undiscovered jewel of a book filled with humor, wisdom and unexpected points of view?

“Nah!” the elder of the group decides, eventually leading the rest of the assembly away. “And besides,” he says, asking no one in particular, “how would Paul Steven Stone even know how to train a rock?”