Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I live in my writing,
an odd place to be,
but you’d be there, too,
if you see what I see.
I live in my writing,
and lose track of time,
at least in this world,
but, to me, that’s fine.
I live in my writing,
enjoying the ambiance of life,
it’s an unlimited existence,
and has far less strife.
I live in my writing,
and some are dismayed,
so am I, really,
because I never get paid.
I live in my writing,
it’s a solitary existence,
and maybe existential,
but at least it’s consistent.
He’d died, but he didn’t know it. He’d been writing his novel, and then editing and revising it. It wasn’t until he’d finished it that he came up for air and discovered he no longer had a body, and wasn’t a part of anyone’s earthly existence.
As far as he could ascertain, he’d been dead for several months. Probate of his meager estate was concluded, his clothing and personal items given away, and his name moved from one set of records to another. The cause of his death wasn’t clear. It seemed that he couldn’t see that, no matter how he tried to view it.
After some reflection, he wasn’t too concerned. Being dead meant no more concerns about money, health, politics, and the environment. He didn’t need to worry about being killed crossing the street or shot by some madman with a gun. The worst part about his death appeared to be that he was out of coffee.
That was going to put a crimp in his plans. On the other hand, he had a new novel idea.
He couldn’t wait to get started.
“Magic,” she said.
She saw his eyes narrow and his facial lines smooth out, a typical reaction (although some laughed in scorn (or disgust) and others often swore and walked out on her). This reaction was considered the polite one, but he’d probably already decided that she was a nut, and that he would leave.
But he was still there now.
“Magic,” he said in a bland, heavy voice.
“Yes, magic. Magic is everywhere, and in everything, but magic takes different forms. Magic is universal, but the magic you have and how you use it can be different.”
Ah, a rarity. Pupils widening, his eyes opened a millimeter. The light in his brown irises changed.
“Consider water,” she said. “Broadly, water is the same everywhere, a transparent and tasteless liquid chemical substance with the formula H20. But water varies, doesn’t it? Water can become ice. Water becomes snow, hail, and steam. Sea water, tap water, and river water are different, aren’t they?
“Our magic is akin to water in this way, it has different forms and qualities. You have to find your magic in you and learn how to use it.
“That’s the secret to success.”
The cat had gone out during the night, but it was necessary to lock the petdoor behind him because the raccoons had figured out how to use it, and weren’t shy about coming into the house.
Now that the sun was shining, it was time to eat, and the big black cat wanted in. Removing the petdoor, the man lifted the flap and said, “Come on in, big guy.”
Responding with a light meow, the big cat put its front paws in and luxuriated in an extended stretch. As he ended the stretch, he began moving through the opening and into the house when he stopped. Staring, he emitted a disapproving meow.
The man looked back. Another of his cats was a few feet back in the room. The two had never gotten along. While they no longer fought with tooth and claw, they avoided one another’s presence and vocalized their dislike. In short, the black cat was not coming into the house with that other one in the room.
“Fine,” the man said with exasperation, releasing the pet door flap. “You can come in on your own, you stupid cat.”
It was so maddening that the two cats behaved these way, even after three years of living in the same house. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it.
In the meantime, he’d go check the mail. Glancing out the window, he saw a neighbor heading for the mail boxes.
He groaned. Peggy. He could not stand her. Her political views were…well, they were seriously crazy. Checking the time, he decided, he’d just sit down and wait until the other one went away.
Sighing as he sat, he thought, the world sure had become a complicated place.
Looking at the clock, he found that it was 2:15, so it was appropriate to go to bed. The cats, though, thought that since he was up, it was appropriate that they be fed. Being a soft touch, he headed toward the utility room to feed them.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. The sound froze him while injecting a thrill of fear through his muscles. It sounded like someone was beating on the house’s side. Glancing toward a cat, he saw that it wasn’t bothered, but continued its quick trot toward him. As he opened the closet and drew out a flashlight, he checked the second cat. It also seemed unconcerned about anything but getting fed.
Had he imagined it? No, it seemed real, he argued with himself, trying to think, what could he use as a weapon? He didn’t know where his baseball bat was. Any hammers he had were in the garage, which is where he thought the noise may have originated. As these thoughts raced through his mind, he thought, maybe his wife had beat on the wall to get his attention. Maybe something had happened to her.
He was moving toward the master bedroom as he processed those thoughts. Opening the bedroom door, he found his wife and another cat sound asleep. So it wasn’t them…
Returning to the front of the house, he turned on the outside lights and the flashlight, opened the front door, and stepped out. I should have grabbed the phone, he thought, looking around.
It was a gusty night, full of shivering tree noises and fluttering, dancing leaves. Even with the outside lights on, the night seemed as dark as a coal mine, sparking new fear and anxiety in his stomach. But, this had to be done. Flashlight lighting the way, he walked around the house, peering into the bushes’ shadows for someone ready to jump out.
Finding everything in order in the front, he went to the garage and confirmed, no one was in there, and the door was locked. Inspections of the back and side yards found no one there. Everything was in order.
He went back into the house, fed the cats, and turned off the lights. It could have been imagination. It could have been teenagers pranking him. It may have been something that happened at a neighbor’s house.
He would probably never know.
Hearing unfamiliar banging and creaking sounds, he opened his eyes and found the ceiling.
Pink, and swaying. It felt like he was on a boat. Or would that be a ship?
He closed his eyes. Something was hung. Reboot. Try again.
When he next opened his eyes, he was looking at correctly colored sage green walls. Sunlight was streaming in.
Feeling better, he rose to hit the head and discovered a limp. He’d not had that before. As its presence was being digested, he passed the bathroom mirror.
He was female. Not bad looking, about the correct age, forty-five. Same colored hair. Those were starts to being the right person in the right reality.
More to digest.
He continued to the toilet. His cats and dogs must be out of the house. The primary reasons for keeping them was to help keep reality anchored. It didn’t work, if they weren’t around. Ergo, they weren’t around. That’s why his start-ups were hanging.
As he sat to piss, he considered going back to bed to reboot again, but it was already eight thirty. Time was the one constant that didn’t change when a start-up went awry.
Coffee, he decided, wiping, flushing, washing his hands and heading for the kitchen. He thought while popping a K-cup into place, coffee always helped release the hang ups. It was remarkable that way. Once he got the coffee into his system, he’d find the animals and bring them into the house. Then he’d decide. The house seemed correct, as did the reality outside his window. Maybe he’d enjoy being a woman for a day, or take a nap later and reboot.
Sipping the coffee, he smiled. Coffee always helped. If that ever changed, he didn’t know what he would do.
This dream was like a Hollywood-produced thriller. I thought of the Jason Bourne series of movies, or Taken.
The dream began with a friend being abducted. I was an operative as slick as black ice. Determined to get them back, I abducted an enemy operative’s ex-girlfriend. While she insisted she had nothing to do with the other man or the abduction, I kept her away from weapons and under constant watch.
Meanwhile, with her as my negotiating leverage, after a brief shoot-out, high-speed chase on snowy, slushy roads at night, and hand-to-hand combat, I coerced the enemy operative into an alliance. With him helping me, we started the hunt for the abductors.
Fast-paced, there were setbacks and fights — all taking place on a dark, icy night — it went well overall. Just as my ragged team cornered the abductors, the police showed up. As I argued with the police about what was going on, with me holding a gun on them, and they refusing to back down, with my enemy ally in another room, and the abductors holed up in another room in the building, my hostage turned on me. She’d acquired a gun and now revealed herself as part of the abducting gang.
They’d been five steps ahead of me, orchestrating everything to put me at their mercy, it seems, so they could force me to do what they wanted. She began describing what they wanted from me —
And then a cat awoke me.
Although I tried getting back into the dream when I returned to bed, I failed, instead going into another dream.
Bummer. I wanted to know how it ended.
Funny, but in thinking about the thriller dream, no names were ever used that I can recall. So, if I wrote this, I think my working title would be No Names.
Feeling his Fitbit buzz, Thomas leaped up, hurrying out of the house as he checked the time and confirmed, yes, 4:59.
It was sunny, which was helpful. He ran out of the house to the sidewalk, scattering the snoozing cats on his porch into three directions. On the sidewalk, he stopped, panting fast and holding still. He checked his shadow. It was crisply defined on the white pavement. The other wasn’t there.
The Fitbit said it was still 4:59. It didn’t show seconds, which he lamented. Cars rumbled by, breezes tousled the trees’ leaves, and the cats crept out to see what he was doing.
Then, it must have been five, because the shadow was there. “Who are you?” Thomas said.
“Your shadow,” the shadow said. “One of many.”
“Many?”
“Yes. You’re the one true person. The rest, like me, are just shadow.” The voice and shadow were fading.
“Wait,” Thomas said, a ridiculous request because the shadow couldn’t wait. It was a five o’clock shadow. Why did it appear? What did it all meant?
He didn’t know. At this point, only his shadow knew for sure.
In family lore, that first one was a tragic coincidence. Sitting in the waiting room, he stopped looking at anything, diverting focus to that day, doing the math that he’d done before. He’d been six, so almost fifty years had ridden by. Memories of that day sharpened, expanding in his mind. Running across the street, he’d only seen a sliver of turquoise and chrome after the car’s tires were screaming with braking noise and its horn was blowing.
He’d not felt anything. It’d been like flying off a swing and sailing through the air. He remembered seeing one of his red Nikes leaving his foot. “That’s all I remember,” he used to tell people who used to ask. Not many asked any more, halle-fucking-lujah. Truthfully, when he cracked the vault open, he remembered it all. Didn’t like telling people about the pain like a glove closing on him, or the view from above as people ran to his bloody body, and his sister’s screaming and sobbing. He’d need to be a masochist to enjoy remembering that day. No, thank you. Lost in that day to all but the family was Pancake’s death, like him, hit by a car, but unlike him, failing to survive.
That’d been the first time. Second was ten years later, when he’d had pneumonia, missing all of December. Most of the second and third weeks were spent weaving in and out of consciousness and delirium. When he emerged, they told him that Butterscotch had died. While that loss saddened him, they were relieved, because they were sure that he was going to die.
His third near miss was while he was in the sandbox. An IED took out some of his squad. As the scrambling to cover and save them commenced, three rounds went through him. He lived. Back home, though, someone shot and killed sweet little Crystal with fur like black velvet and emerald eyes.
This time —
The nurse called his name. He was led into the doctor’s inner sanctum. There he was, tall, black, and elegant behind his desk, managing to be solemn and smiling at once. “Please sit,” the doctor said, as he was doing it. The doctor was always courteous and polite.
He said, “You look concerned, doctor.”
“Because I am,” the doctor said with a smile flash. “It appears that all pancreatic cancer has vanished. There are no signs that I can see of it at all.”
It should have been good news, but he felt sad. “I’m not surprised. My cat died this morning.” He’d meant to say, “of cancer,” but he’d truncated the statement.
“Your…cat?” Puzzlement flickered in the doctor’s light brown eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“So am I,” he distantly said, extending the logic of what he was experiencing. The doctor spoke more, and he listened and responded, but mostly he was thinking, should I get another cat? If I do, and something else tries to kill me, the cat will probably die. I’ll live, but is that fair?
When he stepped into the California sunshine on the quiet street, he’d decided. He’d already killed four cats. That was enough death for him. As he started his car, he acknowledged, his decision made him very, very nervous.
It was a miracle that he saw the little flash of movement as he pulled his BMW out of the parking lot. Slamming on the brakes, he stared for seconds and thought, “What the hell was that?” Then he knew, it’d been a cat.
Rushing out of the car with sudden urgency, he found the little gray fellow under a bush. Looking up at him, the cat opened his mouth and wailed before jumping into his reaching arms.
He held the animal against him. A deep purr replaced its meow. With the feline against his chest, he closed his eyes. “I promise you, I’ll be very, very careful,” he said.
The cat chirped back. Resolve coursed through him. Of course, he’d be careful. He had no choice.
He was living for two now.
I’m feeling breathless, worried, and giddy today. You probably suspect that it’s the smoky air because I’ve been complaining about the wildfire smoke so often in July and August. Well, you’d be wrong, suckah. We have good air today.
I’m breathless and giddy because I completed the first draft of Four On Kyrios today. The novel has officially made the transition from beta to first draft. At the same time, I received feedback from two friends who volunteered to read the beta version as a second pair of eyes. They’d finished reading the manuscript and offered their comments. Both were enthusiastic and are ready to read the next book in the series. That pleases me, but I’m worried because, as a writer, I’m unique among writers, and worry whether others who read what I wrote will describe it as gilded garbage.
That was decent sarcasm, wasn’t it?
Four On Kyrios is the first book of the Incomplete States series. It didn’t take me long to read, edit, and revise it. I attribute that speed to several points.
One, it was the third book in the series to be written. That advantage means that a great deal of thinking about the concept, plot, background, and setting was already completed.
Two, I edit and revise as I write. My organic writing process drives this pattern. Writing what’s already written helps me connect with the muses and continue discovering and telling the story. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I fix grammar, punctuation, pacing, and continuity issues when they’re discovered. (Are you surprised?)
Three, Four On Kyrios is the smallest of the four novels in the Incomplete States series. MS Word clocks it at ninety thousand words and three hundred seventy-five pages.
Four, of the four novels, it has the simplest plot and the fewest characters. Those factors keep it easy to read and edit.
As this is the first novel in a series of four, it’ll stay in first draft status while I read, edit, and revise the others. The four books were written to tell one larger tale, so they’re interconnected. I came out of the editing and revising process with one page of notes. Some are reminders, a few are continuity questions, and the rest were issues. All of the issues except two were resolved. They’ll remain open until I complete the other three books.
Most of the changes in the novel were more about expanding some scenes to slow down and let the characters breathe. I’ve been reading a lot since I finished the beta draft of the four books. Reading others’ published novels impact my ‘sense’ of the book. To me, this is the instinct we develop as writers because we read. It’s a feel for what seems right and correct about something we’re reading. It’s about flow and story-telling.
Just for the record, I’ve read Lincoln in the Bardo, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Godless, The Midnight Line, Time’s Eye, and Diary in the past few weeks after finishing the first three books of the Dire Earth Cycle. I’m now reading The Pagan Lord and The Order of Time and searching for The Triggerman’s Dance. I think La Rose might be up next on my reading, though. The Order of Time is a fascinating book about time, physics, and quantum mechanics by Carlos Rovelli. I don’t agree with all of his points, but it’s fun thinking about them.
Now, on to the next novel in the Incomplete States series, Entangled LEREs. I’ll begin editing and revising it tomorrow. Right now, though, my stomach is posting orders for something to eat.
I think I shall comply.
