I randomly happened to start reading (rereading) a novel by SF classic author Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicals) last week for the first time in decades. I am reading it aloud to my oft-bedridden housemate. The novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes  -  title taken from a line of Shakespeare (MacBeth) “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks!” 

We started the book about two weeks ago. Last week we reached a place in the story where a demon in a balloon (Dust Witch) with supernatural powers (much like the ring-wraiths of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings) searches for two boys (to kill them). The demon in the balloon senses thoughts/minds/feelings of those she passes over. Without giving away the plot too much, the balloon is brought down violently. The Satanic circus/carnival with which it is associated, treats the balloon's destruction as the death of a living thing and has a funeral parade for it through town.

This is the part of the story I had just finished reading just a day or two before the spy balloon was shot down. What are the odds? Pretty damn high, I'd say. That's a "cosmic concurrence" aka God havin' a laugh with us... 

The manifold correlations and random timing were remarkable. RM Forum member Teebone (Barry Hirsh) was the only other member who paid much attention to synchronicities, so this post is partially for my brother from another mother in Heaven lookin' down on us all... heh I know he'll get a kick out of it ('firm believer in God).