Today at 11:11 a.m., there will be a bunch of numbers all lined up in a row in the ‘numerals serving to explain our here and now in the universe sense.’ It’s pretty cool, when you think about it – 11:11 11/11/’11. Like a binary code being emitted by a one-fingered drunk.

WHAT DOES IS ALL MEAN?

Some see the world coming to an end; others see it as a start of a new world. Others see it as aliens giving us signals to be prepared, or perhaps to be basted in garlic butter.

There is a growing movement worldwide subscribing to a belief that those of us who see 11:11 all the time are being given secret winks and nudges from our angels, or the universe is tapping us on the shoulder, trying to get our attention.

Another person I’ve spoken with thinks it is a Matrix kind of thing, in which our internal software is flickering and we’re seeing beyond the veil that obscures us from a reality we may not want to know.  Subliminal cosmos, baby.

I have to admit that I am an ‘eleven elevener.’ I started seeing 11:11 on a regular basis (hell as much as twice a freaking day!) about 20 or so years ago, around about the time I arrived in Invermere, a place considered by some to be smack dab in the middle of an electromagnetic oogy boogy thingymabob.

The realization of 11:11 came to me like a dark shadowy figure emerging from a swirling brown fog (otherwise known as morning rush hour in Vancouver). One day I just stopped and thought to myself, “man I am seeing 11:11 a lot.” Not really a “Eureka” moment, I know.

What makes this a little more interesting is the fact I have never worn a watch and am not really a clock watcher. Yet whenever I would glance at a clock, there it was – 11:11. Weird eh?

A couple of years later, still managing to see 11:11, I was driving through Montana with a friend, delivering East Kootenay tourism propaganda to Montanutians, when I noticed 11:11 on the truck clock. Then I heard my buddy, Dingbat Alien, murmur, “huh, 11:11.”

This began a lengthy discussion about how we both see 11:11 all the time and that we must both be destined for savage riches and a life of carefree debauchery and golf.

To this day, we still regale one another with tales of 11:11. But I have the best one. It is contained in the above photo of a road sign in south-western Wisconsin. Check it out – give it a good look. Do you see the ghoulish face? I swear I have done nothing to that photo. It is untouched. Huh? Cool eh?

The natural curiosity of a journalist led me to do some research on 11:11 and further into symbolic numerology and that led me to actually write a novel called – wait for it – 11:11.

Now, you may have noticed that I am making a little fun of all the purported mystical hib-jibble, which a large part of me does not subscribe to. But a small piece of me, the bit that likes to eat mushrooms and run naked through a forest singing Carpenters’ tunes in a way Lemmy might if he were so stoned that he felt compelled to snarl out a rendition of Rainy Days and Mondays – naked, does think there may something to it all.

Experts who have websites filled with terrible grammar, sub-chimpanzee spelling skills and have run through mushroom forests a few too many times themselves, say there are “75 million” people who see 11:11 all the time.

How they are able to quantify that figure is beyond me. But I guess I am one of the 75 million.

Thinking of that led me to my computer one rainy day in northern Idaho and 18 months later I have the bulk of a novel concluded. Needing to do something that actually paid money, I had to put the book on a shelf for a spell. Besides, I lost my way to the initial ending and have been stuck in novelist limbo.

With much joy and happiness I can report the ending finally came to me a few nights ago, after about a year of back and forthing and dithering and harrumphing and threatening the computer with baseball bat violence. So with that staring at me down the final stretch, serving as a form of deadline, I am going to force myself to finish the book by laying out a chapter each week on e-KNOW. Please be kind and don’t judge me too harshly. Remember the mushroom forest story. It is an attempt at humor with a slathering or two of sci-fi social commentary stuffing and onions.

Lately, I am not seeing 11:11 as often as I once did. But I am seeing 12:34 a lot now, which apparently means I am either destined to become a voice actor for a toddler’s cartoon or my angel is trying to tell me that the answers to the great mysteries of life are simple and before my eyes.

So enjoy this rare day folks, and make sure you keep your eyes peeled for 11:11, because who knows, maybe the rapture or something really alien and cool WILL happen.

It’s the great mysteries that make our insignificant dense-cells-on-a-dust-mote existences worth bearing, when they finally unfold before our exploding eyeballs. The great “ah ha!” right before the bus to heaven arrives and the doors wheeze open. The bus arrives at 11:11. Make sure you’ve got your ticket.

And make sure you catch the right bus. The one going in the other direction is heading for Toronto.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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