Wood Made Flesh: The Twelfth Imam

By Paul M. Perkins

P A U L M . P E R K I N S was born in San Diego, California in 1948 and moved to Hawaii in that same
year. His father, a submarine sonarman, was stations between Pearl Harbor and San Diego for twenty
years. The novel (Wood Made Flesh) was a result of Pauls hard work studying at Long Ridge Writers Group,
where he was enrolled in Writing Courses, Novel Writing, Short Stories and Magazine Articles.
The novel is fiction, however, is inclusive of facts about Pauls life growing up
and his interest in the three monotheistic religions of the world. Paul, now 62,
has seen prophecies unveiled. He has read and studied hundreds of books and
articles about religious prophecies and has concluded that The Third Secret is
a forewarning of what will take place in our times. Just look around and see
what was right 100 years ago is now wrong and what was wrong 100 years ago
is now acceptable by our deeply sinful world. This novel, although fictional,
is eighty percent factual.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456895747

Paul M. Perkins

P A U L M . P E R K I N S wwas born in San Diego, California in 1948 and moved to Hawaii, in that same year. His father, a submarine sonar man, was stations between Pearl Harbor and San Diego for twenty years. The novel (Wood Made Flesh) was a result of Paul’s hard work studying at Long Ridge Writers Group, where he was enrolled in Writing Courses, Novel Writing, Short Stories and Magazine Articles. The novel is fi ction, however, is inclusive of facts about Paul’s life growing up and his interest in the three monotheistic religions of the world. Paul, now 62, has seen prophecies unveiled. He has read and studied hundreds of books and articles about religious prophecies and has concluded that The Third Secret is a forewarning of what will take place in our times. Just look around and see what was right 100 years ago is now wrong and what was wrong 100 years ago is now acceptable by our deeply sinful world. This novel, although fi ctional, is eighty percent factual.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Leaving Paradise

A glittering tropical sun was rising out of the eastern sky, like an exotic flamboyant gem, and began its daily journey across the auspicious celestial sky, transforming and refreshing the essence of the island. On this tenth day of September, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, sunrise ushered in the most captivating day Seth had ever seen. All passengers were boarding the troop transport ship at 7:00 AM. This was the last day, the elapsing hour, the final moment, which filled Seth with memories of fun, sun, and great friends – friends who were seeing him off for the last time – to a world more than three thousand miles away. Seth’s kindhearted friends were temporary residents of Oahu, the third largest of eight Hawaiian islands, and referred to as The Gathering Place. Permanent residents only comprise about one-third of the population; nevertheless, bases for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines occupy a large percentage of the island.

Seth boarded the USNS Fred C. Ainsworth, an army troop transport, a ship that was on its last voyage. The Ainsworth left the port of Honolulu in September of 1959, one month after Hawaii’s acquisition of statehood, sailing for the port of San Francisco, California, with 753 passengers including all five members of the Walsh family. Anna and Robert were Seth’s mother and father; Rob, the younger brother; and Mary, younger sister. His father had his orders to report to the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California.

As the Ainsworth left the port, four large Moran tugs maneuvered the boat away from the dock and escorted it into open water. Passengers on the ship were throwing garlands overboard into the vast, clear blue water of the harbor below. A group of young Hawaiian hula girls, wearing green grass skirts, bright red hibiscus flowers behind their ears, and as many as six leis hung from their necks, danced on the pier below. The most common use of a lei in Hawaiian culture is to drape the wreath of flowers around the neck, upon arriving or leaving, as a symbol of affection. This tradition is offered as a guarantee that you would someday return to this tropical island in paradise. The word aloha is used for arrivals and departures, which could be heard throughout the piers and decks of the ship. The fresh, pungent, dulcifying aroma of the leis filled every olfactory receptor inside the human nose with the smell of paradise. Seth, Rob, and Mary wanted to keep their leis; however, by keeping the leis they had no guarantee of return. All three children made their decision to throw their leis at the last minute as the boat rounded Diamond Head, the most prominent landmark on the island.

Diamond Head is the name of a volcanic tuff cone on the Hawaiian island of Oahu and known to Hawaiians as Leah because the shape of the ridge line resembles the shape of a tuna’s dorsal fin. In the nineteenth century, British sailors gave the volcano the name Diamond Head, mistaking calcite crystals embedded in the rock for diamonds.¹

Seth had tears in his eyes as he was leaving four glorious years of his life behind, which included all of his friends. Rob and Mary ran to the recreation room, removed two shuffleboard sticks from the rack, and began a game on the boat’s upper deck. The red triangle markings on the wooden deck readied them for the game. Anna and Robert went below to get the bunks ready for the thirty-five-hundred-mile journey across the Pacific to their new home in San Diego. Seth stood at the stern of the boat staring back at Diamond Head, wondering if he would ever return to the Gathering Place, which was visible at sixteen miles out.

The weather on the sea was in the fifties, and everyone on deck was wearing warm clothing; Seth had on his large, puffy goose down jacket.

It was mandated that all passengers go through the abandon-ship drills, two hours out, and that meant that all had to learn how to put on life preservers, report to the lifeboat to which a passenger was assigned, and a crew member took head counts.

This all transpired over the course of half an hour, and the master of the ship, dressed in his bleached snow-white shirt, pants, and hat, was standing on the bridge with his thumb on his stopwatch. All passengers and crew had to repeat the procedure in order to comply with the fulfillment of maritime regulations. The lifeboats hung high overhead off two steel beams – called davits – which resembled candy canes, with double sheave blocks that were attached at either end of the lifeboat, one at the stern and the other at the bow. All passengers were to climb into the lifeboats, and when full, the crew lowered it into the water.

Seth, Rob, and Mary found this to be one of the highlights of the trip. However, Anna was never so frightened in all her life; it was seventy-five feet from the water. The lifeboats were able to accommodate everyone and ensure their safety.

Because of the tremendous loss of life on the Titanic, this procedure became maritime law for all commercial vessels. The unsinkable Titanic sank in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in the spring of nineteen hundred and twelve; fifteen hundred people lost their lives because of the deficiency and utilization of lifeboats.

Life aboard a troop transport ship can be jading. Seth’s time was spent eating and engaging in all the natural changes in the sea, sky, and below the ocean. Seth noticed the impressive dynamics of flying fish jumping out of the water and gliding as far as one hundred and sixty feet into the air alongside the ship, as if they were escorting the ship to its destination. Their pectoral fins were large and enabled the fish to escape from predators, which were larger fish attracted to the ship’s movement. Seth could see large numbers of humpback whales migrating south to warmer waters.

Humpbacks live in all oceans and migrate to warmer waters during winter where they breed and give birth to calves. They do not feed while in the warmer waters since cooler waters are where the humpbacks will find their favorite foods. Scientists have discovered three distinct populations of humpbacks: Southern Hemisphere, North Atlantic, and North Pacific. All are baleen whales, which use throat pleats to filter out small fish, krill, or plankton from large mouthfuls of water.²

Seth was most impressed with the excitement of the dolphins riding the snow-white wake off the bow.

Following lunch, Seth took a stroll up the staircase to the upper deck and walked toward the bow of the ship looking over the rail at the wake below. While looking down at the white water created by the forward wake, he noticed a door two decks down that was open to the sea. The dishwashers were dumping five-gallon buckets of waste into the sea below, drawing large schools of fish. He could also see blue sharks, which were thrashing against the hull, causing a bizarre feeding frenzy; all were fighting for their territorial rights. The mayhem attracted many other species of fish. He could see how the food chain was in full operation as after every human meal, it would be time for the larger fish to eat and continually move all the way down to the smallest. He made sure after every meal he would go to the upper deck, as this became one form of entertainment.

Seth had purchased dried salted plums, smoked squid, and Pixy Stix, which were a mixture of sugar – and cherry – filled candy into a spiral straw and closed off at the top. These items were special items on the islands, and he had stocked up on them before he left. His suitcase was loaded with squid, plums, and Pixy Stix. He reassured himself he would never run out. This was his secret, and he kept it to himself.

The alarming voice of the captain announced over the intercom, All crew members are to keep passengers off the deck of the ship and confine them to their cabins. We are running into gusty winds and heavy seas, and you will be washed over the rail if you even attempt to venture out above deck. Everyone listened with a trustful ear.

For twenty-four hours, the captain of the ship had to take into the seas and ride the storm out. The anemometer reached gusts of one hundred and thirty knots, and seas rose to ninety feet. At times, the glass porthole in Seth’s cabin immersed into the darkened sea, causing visibility to become impaired. Seth’s father strapped him into the upper berth and Rob into the lower. The ship began to shudder, as it was no longer riding on the sea. It was riding under the sea which would engulf the ship completely underwater.

Seth felt the ship begin to hesitate as the bow plummeted deep down into the trough of the wave, not escaping its grip but burying the entire ship and slowing it down from the mighty power, trying to force the ship into the opposite direction. This also would cause the ship to shudder, chatter, and squeak for ten seconds, then the ship would propel itself out the opposite side of the wave sending it through the air as if the ship had been projected through the barrel of a cannon. This action launched the ship into the air, exposing more than half of the forward keel. As it lurched forward, it would come crashing down some ninety feet into the trough of the next wave, and this pounding repeated until the wind direction changed. Bells and whistles, horns and hollers attracted the attention of all passengers, who were expressing strong emotions. All added to the pandemonium of the ship’s possible final moments.

One full hour of calmness, the eye of the storm came and went until the ship was riding a following sea. The sea changed as the eye passed, the ship now began to be hammered from the opposing wind direction. During the beginning of the storm, the winds lashed out of the northeast, and after the eye passed, they started to see winds out of the southwest. The feeling of a following sea has almost the opposite effect; it is like surfing a wave on a surfboard. The wave will pick up the ship from the stern, and the gravitational forward movement of the ship propels it down the wave. As the wave passes amidship, it creates a teeter-totter effect, causing the stern to rise and fall in an opposite motion from a head-on sea. The last voyage of the Ainsworth could have been its demise, its obliteration by the persecuting Pacific.

Seasickness struck the entire ship. All were below, fighting the nauseous feeling of seasickness. Passengers jostled about like a rag doll in the jaws of a pit bull as the vast seas blustered and brutalized all who tried to walk to the restrooms. Seth and Rob would pee on the bed and vomit in brown paper bags, compliments of the United States Navy. Was it absolute chaos or the bitter end? Everyone was praying to see it subside.

Five days passed; the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, aglow in a flaming brillant red, illuminated the bridge and hilltops with an alpenglow, a glorious golden sunrise. The rough seas and winds had conceded to an alluvial plain that mirrored the profile of the bridge and cities. Everyone came out on deck to get a glimpse of this most spectacular scenery. Seth and Rob were the last ones out, and as Anna and Robert caught sight of them, they smiled knowing the joy they felt at that moment; they knew all were sharing the glory of a wonder of the world.

The Ainsworth was retired from naval service in November of nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, and Seth and his family sailed aboard the ship for the last time.

CHAPTER 2

The Lost Secret

December 31, 1959

The secret, the secret, Seth muttered as his morose body battled the insomnia causing his body to pule, pavid and rustle. Seth was twisting and twirling, pitching and lurching minute by minute, hour by hour, crying obsessive tears of terror. This conflict was not normal for this thirteen-year-old adolescent and part-time man of the house.

As the night dragged on, Seth’s eyes became aqueducts for continuous tidal waves of warm, wet fluid. He was fighting the gushing current running down his cheeks, turning his bed into a saltwater tidal basin. He began to bleat and baa like a scrofulous lamb.

Seth’s tears deepened. They had their origins somewhere in the extremities of the deepest, darkest cisterns of his soul, which he found difficult to execute. Feelings twisted and woven within his innermost soul caused this havoc. Seth was facing bewilderment and chaos. Turbulence for the treacherous, his inner voice repeated. Cataclysm and disaster was about to overtake the whole world. Was this exaggeration or undertaking?

At this young age, it was confusing; you do not know what to think. Was this the night of the Parousia?

It was not the flu nor was it a fever that Seth was trying to fight off; it was far more chilling and disturbing than that. It was the secret, the secret that was paralyzing Seth’s thoughts, the terrifying fear that kept winding around and weaving webs through the depths of his mind, trapping him as prey of a spider going in for the kill. For Seth, these trying times would never end.

Ten minutes after four, Seth’s bedroom door came crashing open. Standing over the bed, a silhouette of a phantom screamed in a strident voice, Get up, get up, get your sorry ass out of bed, it’s that time, and you are already late.

Ahh, sounds like a mad mom, mumbled a half awake Seth.

Seth looked over at his nightstand, noticed the glowing of the luminous green hands on the dial of his brass double bell alarm clock, ten after four; it was ticking away as a time bomb that should have detonated at 4:00 AM. Seth had failed to set it because of all the waffling the night before.

Oh shit, I’m late, Seth chuntered.

"Your customers are waiting for their morning issue of the San Diego Union Tribune, it’s the first copy of the New Year, annoy them, and you will become an unemployed paperboy. Being fired for being late won’t look good on your résumé!" exclaimed Anna.

As Seth threw off the heavy tear-soaked bedding, he reached for the pull chain of the lamp on the side of his nightstand; he yanked it, and a gloomy 25-watt lightbulb illuminated his bedroom enough to take a bit of the real world. That silhouette, which loomed over him, now became a little middle-aged woman with a thin body. Hair curlers covered her head, and perched in the corner of her mouth was an Old Gold cigarette aglow with a half-burned ash that curved toward the floor. She did not use an ashtray; her hacking cough would cause the ash to submit to the floor.

It was his backup alarm clock, which never failed.

Seth, how about I rustle up some warm Ovaltine before you go to work? Anna asked.

As Seth reached down to pick up his jeans and sweatshirt off the polished oak floor, he replied, Sure, that would be great, Mom. He scooped up the mundungus ash off the floor and threw it into the wastepaper basket. His father would always go around cleaning up ashes, which he called the asheanna trail.

Seth was a handsome boy, and at five feet eight inches tall, he carried a large structure of 145 pounds; he could pass for a young man of sixteen or seventeen. He began to shave the dark-brown facial hair off his chin every Saturday morning.

Dress warmly, it’s a nippy morning out there, and I don’t want you catching a cold. There was a hard frost last night, the first since nineteen hundred and forty-eight.

Yes, Mom, Seth said in a flaying voice.

Seth was dressed as he charged down the long hallway, which was part of the house which was occupied by three bedrooms. He stopped for a moment in front of a picture hanging on the hallway wall, which was an antique gold-framed photograph of his father, Lieutenant Robert Walsh, and Rear Admiral E.W. Grenfell (COMSUBPAC) shaking hands on the deck of the USS Bluegill, a submarine launched in August nineteen hundred and forty-three and one of the submarines Robert served on. Everyone on the deck of the submarine was wearing a white dress uniform with white shoes. When Seth was younger, he thought they were good humor men, and some were.

Seth’s father was receiving ribbons for his dedicated service to Sub-Pac, the Pearl Harbor Flotilla. Seth passed by this photograph many times, but this morning it had a fascinating draw. Lieutenant Robert Walsh spent six months at a time away from home doing duty in the submarine fleet somewhere in the world, and this first day of January was no exception. Anna told Seth his father was on patrol east of the island of Guam, which was a colony of the United States. As he gazed at the photograph, he noticed his reflection in the glass. His hair was snow white; it turned from fear. That fear summoned the details of the horrific nightmare.

CHAPTER 3

Plague of Fear

Seth is tossing and turning in his bed. The chattering, and the grinding of his teeth – all sounded like the cacophony of a novice teenage drummer, noises made by a shivering, radical bristlelike body, his knees knocking as the great risk of death plagues his mind as he mumbles gibberish and moans.

Seth does not sleep; however, he manages to submit to a lucid state of ecstasy. Seth is now looking back at his body fretting on his bed as his soul heads off on a sojourn.

This sojourn takes Seth halfway around the world into the South Pacific Ocean where a demonic force pulls his soul into the Erebus, a cone-shaped tunnel within the earth’s surface, which is as dark as thousand moonless/starless nights. Seth drops forty thousand feet below the earth’s surface, deep into its core. As he is drawn deeper toward the center, the heat intensifies to two thousand degrees.

At the exit to the cone, a conflagration is glowing with white-hot gas, which is coming from the large lakes within. The lakes were lined with Venus flytraps, whose splendor would persuade the condemned through the heavy iron gates and, once inside, would swallow its victims alive. The traps would then vomit their victims into the fiery pits.

Seth passes through the two large iron gates, which allow for egress. He noticed five hundred thousand men, women, and children of all races, religions standing inside the gate.

OK, we got the quota, let’s lock up, a demonic voice could be heard as this sent fear through the minds of all wailing, whining, and whimpering, which could be heard above the gnashing of teeth.

The vast iron gates, each weighing 200 tons, slammed shut with a tremendous impact that shook the foundation of the earth. Looking up, Seth caught a glimpse of the black smoker he entered, now contained, with no way out. The sounds of growls, groans, and grunts coming from the tenants, secure tenants, were now coalescing with their environment.

You have entered through the wide gate and are free to continue your sinful ways, for you have now lost all spiritual affiliation with God. You will now spend eternity in this sad and forsaken tundra of torture, a deep penetrating demonic voice uttered.

I am excited that you all made it, for it shows me your weaknesses, and I feel great pride in having you all here as ‘resident evil spirits,’ the tribe of hell. I will make your eternal stay as torturous as possible, for this gives me great pleasure knowing I have many companions.

"Welcome to my home, I am glad you all decided to enter through the wide gate. Please read all the placards hanging from above, these placards are reminders that you cannot return to the other side of the abyss. This is my way of showing you what our Maker wanted from all souls, and we are all guilty of neglecting