Category Archives: Original writing

The Night I Woke Up (part 5)

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[I’m going into this post on the assumption that it will be the final installment of TNIWU. That could be the reason this entry is a day late: to increase the tension and keep you on the edge of your collective seats. Would that it were true. The fact is that I was swept up in the details of yesterday like a leaf in a dust devil. Further, although ready to continue the story in the morning, I decided to wait until the mists of evening fell. Far more conducive to conjuring the mood of this tale, wouldn’t you agree?]

It was true. The person, beast, or thing on the other side of the wall was moving once more. To my overwhelming relief, the steps I heard now were receding. They followed the same direct path they’d taken to reach the window, but in reverse. It was moving back to its lair or den or craft or bog hidden in the swampy woodlands bordering my aunt’s back lawn.

As each impression sounded on the debris-strewn grass, it felt as if one after another leaden blanket were lifted off my prone body. I lay there just the same, still as stone. There was no chance I was going to make any kind of movement as long as there was even a slight chance I could be seen in that glaring chamber.

The steps continued toward the woods until I could hear them no more. Gradually, the silence faded, once more yielding to the sounds of nature: croaking frogs, screeching insects, and the wind disturbing the fronds of the palm trees scattered around the yard.

Surely, it was gone. Surely, I was safe.

Other than the possibility of a cramp in my stiffened legs, there was no reason to rush my escape. What were a few more minutes when I’d spent… How long? I’ll never know. It mattered little. The adage, “better safe than sorry” was never more applicable nor more real. So I waited, until…

With all the courage available to an admittedly wimpy pre-teen, I didn’t so much get out of the tub as I did slither. As I made my way over the edge, no part of my body left the surface. I was nearly one with the fixture. I continued my low profile slide to the floor and across the grimy tile.

When I hit the door across the room, decision time was upon me. Getting through that door would unquestionably require my hand to rise up to the knob, putting that part of me in an exposed position. The alternative would be to lie on the floor until dawn. The choice was not as easily made as it would seem. In what to my mind was possibly the most courageous exploit of my brief existence, I reached up to the door knob.

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As excruciatingly slow as the entire experience had passed, that much quicker were my next set of actions. In order to limit my vulnerability, the time it took me to grab the knob, turn it, open the door, close it, turn off the light (no more advertising my presence to the world of the unknown), scurry down the hall, jump in bed, and cover myself with a blanket, was probably less than two or three seconds. Fear is a powerful accelerator. It isn’t, however, conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Thus the active portion of my adventure ended. And thus began a night of wakefulness followed by years of disturbing thoughts, hidden fears, and self-inflicted silence. It was at least a decade before I could dredge up the courage to recount this nightmare to others. By that point, in my 20’s, there was nothing to fear about reliving the experience. I was an adult, after all, and the events of that infernal night were far off in both time and distance. No residual effects of a night of terror could interfere with my more mature life.

At least, that’s the theory.

~ the end ~

The Night I Woke Up (part 4)

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[People have been asking me where this is going and how long they have to wait to find out. Well, I know where it’s going – I lived it, after all – but the length of that road is as unknown to me as it is to my readers. There’s no GPS to help us along the way this time. We’re feeling our way in the dark through uncharted territories of memory.]

It’s not uncommon to hear someone speak glibly about a few moments feeling as if they were hours. We’re wise not to buy into such claims. Any imaginary extension of the time-space continuum is invariably a gross exaggeration. Whether they’re spent in a dentist chair or at a job interview, a minute is a minute and an hour is an hour.

Not so in a bathtub, evidently.

The time I spent cowering in that fixture might have been no more than two minutes, but it could have been hours. Time had truly lost meaning for me. The only concept I understood in those moments was terror.

The sound of raspy breathing wheezed through the open jalousie window above me. If I had reached my arm up, I could have touched it, but that was the last thing I would have done. A more immediate, if unrealistic, desire was to somehow slip between the porcelain and cast iron of the tub. Instead, I made myself as low profile as the film left by the previous bather.

What was there, standing, squatting, or otherwise looming on the other side of that wall? No imagination is more active than that of a young boy and mine was in overdrive. With plenty of time to dwell on my peril and more than enough fear to fuel the flame, all manner of evil tidings occupied my thoughts. An escaped convict? An alligator that had somehow acquired the ability to scale a wall? Why stop with known creatures? It could have been some mythical juvenile-eating beast that had caught the scent of fresh meat. Giant irradiated arachnids, dinosaurs, and aliens weren’t too far flung for my phobias.

To be honest, I was totally ignorant of the fauna of the east coast of Florida, as I was of most things that didn’t affect me directly. Such is the self-obsession of the average pre-teen boy and I was no exception. In this case, it might have done further harm as my imagination roamed far beyond the limits of local wildlife. Bears, lions, dingoes, and wolves might not have been native to the area, but they freely ranged in my mind.

I fully expected an arm or a claw or a fang to come crashing through that window, showering my puny body with glass before it was pierced and carried away by the nameless and faceless monster.

The breathing continued. Otherwise, the silence of the house and the outside world continued. The light in the bathroom only seemed to grow brighter, my vulnerability more intense. I was aware of my own trembling. How long can a boy hold his breath?

Then another step.

Crunch…

The Night I Woke Up (Part 3)

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[They say (correctly) that writing is rewriting. The current exercise is reinforcing that precept in a most humbling manner as I dash off this stream-of-consciousness true story from my youth. I’m already inclined to change much of it, including the title, were I given the chance. But I don’t have the chance. That’s part of the excitement of this challenge. What I write is what you and I get, for better or worse. So now we continue into the unknown and unchanged…

When last we saw our intrepid prepubescent protagonist (me), he was standing alone, “shaking the dew off the lily” (as Donald Miller so colorfully put it)  in a bright white box in the middle of the dark, unfriendly world of Florida swampland. As we left him, he was hearing the sound of footsteps coming from outside the bathroom window.]

Without question, what I was hearing were footsteps. There was no mistaking the rhythmic sounds of the crunching of yard debris underfoot. Worse, those sounds were most assuredly coming from outside. The house itself was completely devoid of movement and sound. As exposed as I was, I didn’t want to so much as twitch. But I had to. Those steps were getting louder and, by an inference even my underdeveloped mind could make, closer.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

To minimize movement and draw less attention to myself, I dropped straight to the soiled tile floor in front of the toilet. The footsteps, seemingly drawn inexorably to the only light within a quarter mile or so – the bathroom window through which I was on display for all to see – continued without changing stride. Only the volume changed, increasing as the footfalls drew nearer.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

My only hope was that I hadn’t been seen yet. Crouching on the floor in plain sight of the window above the bathtub on the opposite side of the room, I wouldn’t be out of view for long. The footsteps not only continued, they were without question following a beeline path to the little aquarium of light in which I dwelt. I’d soon be on display once more.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

I pondered my next move. I could simply reach up, open the door, and sneak back to the relative safety of my guest bed. In retrospect, that might very well have been the prudent choice. Instead, pursuing a strategy that is best filed under the heading of, “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I slunk across the floor and into the bathtub. By cowering there, I would be out of the line of sight of anyone or anything looking in that window, which was now directly above me.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

There I sat trying to merge with the cast iron of the tub. The footsteps continued relentlessly and mercilessly toward that window, as if whatever was making them sensed my presence there. They grew louder and louder and closer and closer until at last …crunch… they ceased. They could go no further. They had reached the exterior side of the wall at which I crouched.

I was separated by a few inches of flimsy shingles and sheathing from something that for unknown reasons had emerged from the murky blackness behind my aunt’s house and pounded a path dead straight toward the room in which I was exposed. Shivering with fear, I listened. The living sounds of night were gone, the insects possibly as frightened as I was.

I heard nothing… except the labored breathing coming through the open window a couple of feet above my head.

To be continued…

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The Night I Woke Up (Part 2)

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[The point here is to write a story about something that happened to me a very long time ago. I started it last week not knowing where it would go or how long it would take to get there. Let’s all find out together, shall we?]

While living in the limbo of preadolescence, all things appear alien to a boy. To this boy they did, anyway. At the same time, the world of fantasy becomes increasingly attractive since the one he’s living in grows increasingly hostile. The sense of estrangement from all things familiar is thoroughly disorienting. Nighttime only intensifies the resulting wonder and fear.

Today, waking up from a deep sleep is a nightly occurrence. At least. In those early days, sleep was a jailer to whom I was willingly incarcerated. A raucous day in the Florida sunshine made sleep that much heavier. How to explain, then, awakening to nothing in the blackness of the night? Perhaps I’d consumed too much Coke or lemonade to relieve the oppressive Florida heat and humidity. The pressure on my bladder attested to that possibility.

In the surrounding darkness and unfamiliar environs, inertia and fear battled nature’s urges. For a few moments, I was able to hold back the dam and, there being nothing to see, I listened to the sounds of night in the swampy neighborhood.

In complete darkness and with no one stirring in my aunt’s house, I was surprised to hear, not silence, but a near deafening din. All manner of creature filled the sonic vacuum left by sleeping humans: frogs, insects, wild and domestic beasts. Low murmurs, high-pitched screeches, and everything in between created a symphony of the unknown to my immature ears and overdeveloped imagination.

I was in no hurry to leave the safe confines of the bed, but my bladder had other ideas.

With stealth befitting a more perilous predicament, I slipped out of the room and along the length (maybe seven feet) of hallway to the only bathroom in the cramped ranch house. What’s the first thing to do when one finds oneself in a dark bathroom, preparing to do one’s business? Turn on the light, of course.

Bad idea.

Imagine yourself under a spotlight on a stage in a coal-black hall with innumerable… somethings you can’t see watching you. That was me. The world was black and I was immersed in glaring brightness to which my eyes had yet to acclimate. I’ve never, before or since, felt so vulnerable. I was in a cube of light in a world of dark. The single window in the bathroom shone like a beacon out to the unknown outside.

It was unnerving to a boy who had no idea what it meant to be unnerved. My consuming thought was to finish what I went in there for and get out as soon as possible. My fear, unfortunately, inhibited the process, forcing me to stand exposed. The task took far longer than it normally would but I finally finished.

It was at that precise moment that I heard the first of the footsteps. From outside.

To be continued…

Script Reading On Again!

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M4Y-SRposterThe staged reading I wrote a post about several weeks ago that was cancelled a few weeks after that is on again. This time for sure. I’ve rescheduled it for Saturday, June 13. Other than a couple of minor changes: the date and the benefactor, it’s the same event. Read all about it HERE.

Please consider coming out and supporting me and the MS Society. It’s entertainment with a purpose. Win win. You can’t do better than that.

The Night I Woke Up (part 1)

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Memory plays more tricks on us than Penn & Teller combined. After the passage of enough time, it becomes as unreliable as a Ford Pinto. And sometimes, just as dangerous. The following is a true story to the best of my addled recollection. The fact that it occurred many decades ago only increases its allure of mystery even as it decreases its credibility.

For reasons that elude me to this day, every few years my parents wedged us all into the family station wagon and made the long drive to Florida to visit my aunt. I can’t even begin to imagine how my mother and father survived those trips. Why would anyone, of their own free will, drive more than 1,000 miles over two interminable days with three sons who probably hastened the need for the ADHD diagnosis? We bounced around that vehicle’s back and way-back like electrons on amphetamines.

Our road trips came before the days of portable entertainment devices and we were too restless for passive activities such as books or radio. Our primary means of passing the time was incessantly attacking one another then appealing to Mom or Dad for justice that was as futile as the discipline they tried to impose. Another diversion was reading the countless “South of the Border” signs (“Pedro’s Weather Report: Chili Today, Hot Tamale”), which seemed to us to stretch from Connecticut to the resort’s South Carolina location.

We usually split the trip into two supposedly more manageable segments by spending a night in the cheapest, i.e. sleaziest, motel in North Carolina. (If you think sleazy, motel, and North Carolina is a redundancy, you’re not far off the mark. One of those joints could justify a story in itself. More than likely, it will.) By the time we staggered into my aunt’s house, we were in need of sleep and therapy.

This was called a “vacation”.

My aunt was widowed before I was conscious of such fundamental matters as death. To my prepubescent mind, she was just an old woman to whom I was somehow related. My innate ignorance of anything outside my proper skin excluded any need or desire to understand that she was my father’s sister. It didn’t occur to my self-absorbed state that my father had parents, never mind brothers or sisters.

The old girl had been alone for as long as I could remember. She dealt with her solitude by engaging in a series of polygamous – but purely platonic – canine and feline relationships. We had never encountered an adult who was anything like her. She was as uninhibited as she was eccentric. None of the descriptors for “grown up” applied to her. More appropriate labels were boisterous, spontaneous, and extravagantly loving. And, of course, we adored her for it all.

A stay at my aunt’s was a treat for us boys. Besides goofing around with her, it also meant long days at the beach, exploring the most unappetizing dining establishments on the east coast of Florida, staying up late, playing with the pets du jour, and lots of yelling. The reason for the increased volume is that, in addition to her many other virtues, she was almost completely stone deaf. We had to use our “outdoor voices” to have any hope of being heard.

Thus we spent many fun and carefree days. Nights, on the other hand, were less pleasant. The good news is that we slept through them. Most of them.

This is the story of The Night I Woke Up.

To be continued…

Frog Pond Skater

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This week is all trivia, all the time. Thus, my time for writing is severely constricted. To save time, I’m reposting something that first appeared on my other blog nearly five years ago.

This short story was written several more years before I first posted it.  I’ll give the same disclaimer I did then: If you think it stinks, we can all pretend I’ve become a better writer since.

The story is called “Frog Pond Skater”.

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A Childe Hassam sunset descended upon Boston Common, the surrounding towers outlined in a golden haze.  She approached the skating rink – already overflowing with rosy-cheeked children struggling to stay erect while socially-challenged teens fell in each other’s paths – with a poise that was well studied but forced, already wearing thin even at her young age.  She seemed to be chased through the gate, leaving her three dollars with the attendant and barely acknowledging the greeting that came from within the badly weathered booth.

Some of the youngest skaters saw her arrival and chirped with glee in anticipation.  Not a few muffled laughs were also mixed in but if she heard them, she didn’t let on.  Her fingers laced her skates with the deftness and care of a surgeon.  She left her shoes at the rink’s gate.  Though they would be unattended, she never gave another thought to their safety.  There was no tentative step as her left skate hit the ice.  Where others tiptoed to a safe starting place, her first motion was a perfect glide already in synch with the whirlpool of skaters that had begun at ten that morning and would continue unceasing but endlessly changing for several more hours.

She was as different from the rest of the skaters as she was a mystery to them.  What was this statuesque beauty with the perfect form and designer outfit doing amongst the tourists and assorted riffraff of the city?  Her subtly muscular body moved with the grace of light.  Those who were not in awe of her were trying to suppress an envy that was without pity.  In vain, women did their best to distract the attentions of their partners back to themselves.

The girl, oblivious to the stares and glares of the onlookers, made a couple of turns around the rink before, now fully warmed up, she headed for the eye of the skating storm.  Many of the children stopped their revolutions as well; this was the time they had been waiting for.

The girl paused in the center for a moment as if she didn’t wish to continue.  There seemed to be a struggle within her.  With a deep sigh of resignation, she threw her arms out and with a single move began a slow spin that increased in speed as she pulled her arms closer to her body.  A voice in her head screamed at her to go faster.  She must go faster if she was to get it right and faster she went.  Still, the axis of her spin never wavered and it seemed as if she was rooted to a single molecule of the ice.

The children, some of whom witnessed this sight every week, were no less impressed by it, their mouths open in naive adoration.  They were at least as amazed that she didn’t simply fly away like a missile or drill straight through the thin veneer of ice and the concrete slab beneath it, so fast was her turning.

She didn’t slow down as she gracefully raised and lowered her hands in perfect time.  Finally she threw her head back and extended her arms, reducing her speed to the point where her facial expression could once more be seen.  She wore the same joyless countenance that had clouded her face since she had arrived.  Most who observed it discounted it as nothing more than professional smugness, but if any took the time to look beneath the facade, her pain was evident.

The skater returned to the rotating mass of visitors, blending in as best she could.  Some of the children followed her, hoping to glean some of her magic.  They could see the muscles in her legs ripple under her tight leggings belying the ease with which she glided effortlessly over the ice.  Her movements were as smooth as the ice itself had been when it was first laid down, before it had been carved so violently by the hundreds of skaters who left their marks with their blades, hands, knees, and bottoms.  If it had occurred to her, she might have winced at the irony of this, if she considered how her life had once shined but was now also scarred, though much more permanently.

As if the thought itself threatened to invade her mind, she distracted herself by heading back to the rink’s center.  This time she didn’t hesitate before spreading her legs, toes pointing outward, leaning into the large circle she traced in the ice.  She leaned so far that the children thought that surely her defiance of the law of gravity would bring her face down onto the frozen surface.  When she straightened up, leaned back, and reversed the circle, the children sighed with relief.  Although they had seen her perform the maneuver many times, they watched her like they watched a much-loved movie, clinging to the suspense in spite of the fact that they knew the ending was a happy one.

The skater left the center stage as quickly and easily as she had entered it.  She may have been contemplating her next move or she may not have been thinking at all, but she never saw the teenage boy who was flailing his arms trying to keep from stumbling as he cut across the steady flow of skaters in the perpetual circle.

The boy was actually moving backward when he slammed into her broadside with his full weight.  Her legs came out completely from beneath her as she fell to her right.  She never had a chance to put her arms out to stop the fall and the side of her face hit the wooden fence that enclosed the rink.  The circle’s momentum never slowed.  A few of the people saw the girl fall but an hour didn’t pass at the Frog Pond without several such spills and they paid little attention.  The children were stunned.  The girl herself was stunned.  She hadn’t felt the cold of the ice on her skin in many years.  She sat for a long time as the pain began to overcome the initial shock.  She put her finger to her cheekbone and felt her warm blood as it slowly dripped down her face, mingling with the tear that was falling from her eye.  She had nothing to wipe her face with and she was not inclined to do so anyway.  Her body shuddered once and she lifted herself to her feet with great effort.

As she made her way to the exit, one little girl watched her slow progress and noiseless tears fell freely from the eyes that only seconds before were wide with wonder and delight.  The skater unlaced her skates with far less aplomb than she had tied them.  She put her shoes back on and as she walked slowly away, she never gave another thought to the safety of her skates, left unattended at the gate.

Mr. Burdick’s Burden

Posted on by under About writing, Books, Original writing

Hello, my name is Rick C and I’m a bookaholic.

It’s true. There is always at least one book I’m making my way through, sometimes a few at a time. My backlog of to-be-read books is out of control. I’ll read pretty much any genre, but there’s one I miss terribly. Children’s picture books are among my favorite reading matter.

FrogToadArnold Lobel, Don and Audrey Wood, Rosemary Wells, Peter Spier, James Stevenson, as well as old reliables like Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak. They’re my Tolstoy, Hemingway, and Faulkner. I miss having little children around to read to and it runs contrary to the societal norm for a man to read “Frog and Toad Are Friends” in public. Not that I haven’t done it anyway.

burdickNo list of children’s author/illustrators would be complete without the remarkable Chris van Allsburg, best known for his “The Polar Express”, as well as other great books that were made into mediocre movies. One of his books was an enigmatic masterpiece called, “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick”. Each page of the book consists of a magical (and sometimes downright creepy) illustration. On each facing page was written a single line from the book from which the picture was supposedly drawn (pun intended).

According to the book’s introduction, the collection of drawings and accompanying texts were dropped off at a publisher by a mysterious author named Harris Burdick, who never returned to pick them up.

All that verbiage was simply to lead up to an idea I’ve come up with for some blog posts. Since the extent of my backlog of writing ideas outstrips even that of my reading list, what better model to follow than Mr. Burdick’s? I can’t draw to save my life – hope to God I never have to – so I’ll write short snippets from stories that don’t exist, that I have ideas for but have no hope of ever pursuing. Consider them writing prompts on steroids. Maybe they are.

Confused as much as distressed, he watched the ship disappear beneath the waves, foam and oil bubbling to the surface, marking its interment. No one could possibly have survived the explosion that ended the vessel’s journey long before it reached its destination.

He still clung to the life preserver he’d carried with him when he leapt into the water just moments before the blast. The old man he’d dived in to save had certainly looked like he might drown out here, miles from any known shore. The prospect of playing the hero in front of the crowd of onlookers standing on the deck, some of whom were attractive young women, had triggered a shot of adrenaline that made him perform an act that was as uncharacteristic of him as the peaceful, beckoning look was on the face of the old man.

Now the ship was gone, the sea slowly settling from turbulent to placid. What had happened to that man?

Man of the tombs (rerun)

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Two years ago almost to the day, I wrote a little story about a man who had a confrontation with Jesus. We don’t know his real name. He is known by what possessed him. I post it again here for a few reasons. First, life is hectic and I need the break. Second, it’s a bit of original writing that, although it first appeared in my other blog, Limping in the Light, finds its more proper place here. Third, with Black Friday approaching, one message I found behind the story takes on greater urgency. I’ll explain in the “afterword” below.

 

manofthetombsI was free until he came into my life.

I could come and go as I pleased and no one could prevent me.  Believe me, they tried.  Crowds of men would come and try to hold me down, as many as ten men at once.  They seized my arms and legs, leaped on my chest, locked their arms around my neck, thinking they could choke the life out of me.  I threw them aside as effortlessly as a fisherman tosses his nets out over the nearby Sea of Galilee.  Back then, I had the strength of thirty, forty, fifty men.

Sometimes, just to taunt my assailants, I would let them bind me.  I feigned struggle as they wound the chains around my chest, legs, and arms then clamped my ankles in irons.  When they were done and stood back, finally satisfied that they had subdued me, I stared at them with all the spite that was in my soul and shook off the shackles as if they were made of parchment.  My would-be captors ran off in panic.

They were afraid of me.  My strength frightened them.  My freedom threatened them.  They wanted nothing to do with me and that was the way I wanted it, too.  Their fear simply fueled my hatred for them and their common, contemptible lives.

I didn’t want to be anywhere near the people of the Decapolis – my home! – so I raced up and down the hills with abandon, howling my independence by day and night.  But most of the time I ran free among the tombs.  The dead didn’t bother me; they didn’t try to deny me my freedom.

One day, I found myself trembling.

Rumors of a fresh power sailed across the water before the boats driven by the winds over Galilee.  When they reached me, I was conflicted within.  Gazing over the waters from the top of a distant hill, I saw a man standing in a boat.  He stepped out and stood in the lapping water as if he was waiting for something.

He was waiting for me.

Like never before, I was driven to him.  Nothing and no one had ever compelled me like this man who was still merely a distant image.  Yet there was an opposing force inside me that was tearing at me to hold back.

What was this feeling?  The freedom that defined me now eluded me, replaced by an unnamed conflict within.  I could do nothing; I had no will.  Before I was aware of my own actions, I was at the feet of the stranger.  He spoke something in my direction, but it could not have been meant for me.  I didn’t understand his words.

Someone shouted a response in an acrid voice, or rather a chorus of voices that sounded like a mob all screeching at once.  “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  In God’s name don’t torture me!”

The sound came from my mouth.  I felt as if I was standing aside, watching the freakish scene play out before me.  The man the voices called Jesus asked, “What is your name?”  Before I could respond, the voices answered him.  I shuddered as I heard the wretched multitude of tongues growl “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

The voices terrified me, but they were the voices I knew.  It was my voice that spoke next the words that were a betrayal of myself, though I no longer knew who I was.  “Don’t send them away, Jesus.”  Maybe I was trying to convince myself because I repeated it over and over.

There was pity in Jesus’ eyes as he watched me writhing on the ground.  The Legion I feared and needed spoke from my depths, begging Jesus to send them into a herd of pigs that had been my only neighbors when I wandered these hills.  Jesus bade them go and they destroyed those pigs just as they had laid waste to my life all those years.

The citizens who wanted nothing to do with this wild man who ran naked among the tombs made it clear that they wanted less to do with my savior.  When they came out to drive Jesus away from their homes, they found me seated at the feet of Jesus, where I’d belonged all my life.  No matter where I would go, I would forever be his.

I was free indeed.

There is a literal meaning to this story, a tale of one man’s spiritual bondage and redemption. But, as with so much of scripture, there is a lesson for all of us, too. You can read my explanation of that lesson here in the post that followed this one in LITL. I commend it to your attention.

The Squatter

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Among the many things I’ve scribbled in the sand is a novel entitled “The Squatter”. Some folks to whom I’ve confided about the book aren’t crazy about the title. I find it hard to disagree. It’s not a very pleasant sounding word. However, it effectively and succinctly captures not only the protagonist, but her situation as well. Anyway, I’m sticking with it for now, but am open to negotiations, especially from editors and publishers.

This is all to preface the following post, which is the opening few paragraphs of the book. There’s danger, some might say, in exposing one’s writing (even as brief as this) this way. They would have us all believe that creative thieves lurk around every corner of the Internet. They could be right, but cowering in fear is no way to live. My protagonist, Fania, would say the same.

Chapter 1

January 12, 2010 – 4:45 PM

Anticipation hung in the house like the fine particles of dust that filled the air. The family had long since grown accustomed to seeing the air they breathed; the constant presence of the dust made it disappear. When something is everywhere, it ceases to exist.

But apprehension, anticipation’s malicious twin, followed like a rabid dog nipping at its heels. Good fortune never walked alone in Haiti. Hopeful elections carried with them violence and turmoil. A cool, refreshing rain inevitably brought streams of filth running through the tiny hovel that was the Dieusel family home. It had reached the point where they dreaded good news for the trouble it promised.

Still, Fania hoped. Her dreams were simple for a fifteen-year-old girl. An education. Reading and writing. Humble dreams, more remote than the far off peaks of the Massif de la Selle. Just as she couldn’t see those mountaintops from her home in the Village Solidarité neighborhood of Port-au-Prince unless she climbed to the roof, she couldn’t conceive of being in a school, reading books, or writing letters.

This was the day when all that could change. The news her father carried would determine whether those mountains would be brought within her reach or, if his news was bad, she would continue to dream of distant peaks.