After a serious marathon couple of days of writing, I finished the NaNoWriMo challenge. 50,000 words in 30 days. I stopped writing mid-month for about eight days, it then decided, on November 27th, that I did want to complete the challenge. So on November 27, with only about 25,000 words written, and a story that I wasn't sure where to take it, I picked up the thread of the idea, and ran with it.
I have to say, I am very pleased with the outcome! Just like last year, it is by no means finished, but the ideas that it generated, and the paths the characters have taken, are fascinating. The more I write lengthy pieces, the more interested I get in the creative process, and how it is different for everyone. I've read several books now on how to write, and each one is different, which I suppose is the message to take from that. If you are a writer, or want to be one, then you just have to find what works for you, and run with it. The important part is to just keep trying. And that's the hard part for me.
Laziness is a constant problem for me. I don't usually feel terribly motivated to do much of anything, other than hang out with my kids and play games with them. Which, as a father, is pretty much what I am expected to do. So I suppose that is a win for me. Or them. Or both.
When I was younger, I was a lot more driven. I had long term goals and intended to follow through on them. But as I have aged (and the big 40 is on the horizon, a month or two away now) I have found that I seek out goals and thrills less and less. And that is OK. There is nothing wrong with being happy with where you are. There is a great deal of satisfaction in feeling that the place you are in your life is a good one and you don't really want to change. But... There is always a but, isn't there?
There is a fine line between satisfaction and complacency. And complacency can very easily lead to stagnation. It is important for us to challenge ourselves, it is important for us to learn new things and try new experiences, if we don't do that, we may be cutting ourselves off from something we would love, if only we tried it.
I suffer from "man-itis" - a common condition among men where we find the things we like, and then just stick to them for ever. Ask any man about his clothes, and most of them will be able to tell you where they always buy their pants, and even that they don't have to try them on anymore, as that style and cut fit them perfectly, so they can just walk into their store of choice (mine is Mark's Work Wearhouse for pants) go over to the pant section, grab two pairs (one khaki, one blue) and take them to the counter. Ditto our favorite restaurants and pubs. We have our beer and our dish that we like. We get them every time. If it changes because the menu changes, we will be upset.
Now I don't mean to suggest that man-itis is a bad thing. It isn't wrong or bad to stick to something that we enjoy. But it does mean we don't learn to enjoy new things. We don't discover new loves, new passions. We need to make that effort to try new things all the time. Or at least I do. The rest of the men, you guys do what you want, but I am going to try a couple new things this week. I have no idea what they will be, but they'll be new.
I have no idea how this turned from a quick "Hey! I did it!" about NaNo into a discussion of personal habits and expanding horizons, but hey, that's the writing process for you. :)
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Zombies are Coming!!!
Vancouver International Airport had quarantined a small section of the airport after several passengers on a flight from Mexico were "very ill." As of this time though, the plane is back in service and the people are fine. Or are they? This smells of cover-up from the highest levels. Of course Steven Harper doesn't want us to know that the outbreak is coming - and he definitely doesn't want you to go see World War Z when it comes out in June 2013.
He really doesn't want you to see that movie though, it might give you ideas on how to overthrow both he and his voting base.
I kid, I kid.
On a more serious note, I was a busy boy today, getting in over 7,000 words on my Nanowrimo project, hereinafter titled "Lucid". Par for course, the main story hasn't even taken off yet, and we are almost 17,000 words into the thing. For those playing along at home, that is slightly more than 1/3 of the way through it. Yes, I am aware that I am behind, but I am confident that it will all work out in the end. If I can nail 7K words today, then I can maintain the 1,900 a day that I need to finish on time without even breaking a sweat. Hell, I just wasted over a hundred here!
He really doesn't want you to see that movie though, it might give you ideas on how to overthrow both he and his voting base.
I kid, I kid.
On a more serious note, I was a busy boy today, getting in over 7,000 words on my Nanowrimo project, hereinafter titled "Lucid". Par for course, the main story hasn't even taken off yet, and we are almost 17,000 words into the thing. For those playing along at home, that is slightly more than 1/3 of the way through it. Yes, I am aware that I am behind, but I am confident that it will all work out in the end. If I can nail 7K words today, then I can maintain the 1,900 a day that I need to finish on time without even breaking a sweat. Hell, I just wasted over a hundred here!
Friday, November 02, 2012
NaNoWriMo
I decided, somewhat on a whim, yesterday that I would try to do the National Novel Writing Month experiment once more. Last year was a success - well, I completed the task of writing 50,000 words in the month of November - and I am confident that I can make it two in a row by doing the same this year.
Writing, as of late, has really fallen by the wayside. I have no idea why. Writing relaxes me, lets me get rid of stress and gives my creativity the outlet that I so desperately crave. I love watching my characters come to life on the screen, and can't wait to see what they are going to get up to next. An hour of writing is probably the best hour I will spend in any given day. Yet, for some odd reason, I find myself finding excuses all the time not to write.
It is probably the simple fact that, as enjoyable as it is, writing is work. Hard work. A good writing session leaves me tired, just like a good work out session. And a great marathon session of writing, where the words just flow out onto the screen as fast as my thick fingers can kit the keys, leaves me exhausted. But, like a good workout (or good sex), it is a good kind of exhaustion, the kind where you have that afterglow of endorphin fueled euphoria.
So why don't I write more? I have no idea. But I am working on it.
Long story short, I am writing like crazy this month, so if I don't respond to your email or telephone call, I'll get back to you later. Maybe in December. See you then.
Writing, as of late, has really fallen by the wayside. I have no idea why. Writing relaxes me, lets me get rid of stress and gives my creativity the outlet that I so desperately crave. I love watching my characters come to life on the screen, and can't wait to see what they are going to get up to next. An hour of writing is probably the best hour I will spend in any given day. Yet, for some odd reason, I find myself finding excuses all the time not to write.
It is probably the simple fact that, as enjoyable as it is, writing is work. Hard work. A good writing session leaves me tired, just like a good work out session. And a great marathon session of writing, where the words just flow out onto the screen as fast as my thick fingers can kit the keys, leaves me exhausted. But, like a good workout (or good sex), it is a good kind of exhaustion, the kind where you have that afterglow of endorphin fueled euphoria.
So why don't I write more? I have no idea. But I am working on it.
Long story short, I am writing like crazy this month, so if I don't respond to your email or telephone call, I'll get back to you later. Maybe in December. See you then.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
NaNoWriMo
Is going OK. Not great, not fantastic, but OK. Not meeting my daily writing goals the last few days, didn't write anything two days in a row, but in my defense, I was in bed sick by 6:30 on Tuesday and by 8:30 yesterday. Most (all?) of my writing is usually done after the boys go to bed, so....
The story is terrible, in a really bad way. I went with what I love, zombies. So yes, it is a post apocalyptic zombie novel, featuring family, love, loss, betrayal and hope. Above all, hope. That's what life is about after all, with or without the undead craving human flesh. A few of you have asked to read it, and the answer remains the same - maybe once it has been edited.
NaNoWriMo doesn't leave much (any?) time to edit or to cross check things. Basically its about getting your 1,667 words in a day and leaving it at that. Most days that hasn't been hard - I find that when I write, I average about 2,000 words, so its more about finding the time (and health, damn you flu bug!) to write.
That's it for now, just a quick update to let you know it was all still running. Back to the grindstone.
The story is terrible, in a really bad way. I went with what I love, zombies. So yes, it is a post apocalyptic zombie novel, featuring family, love, loss, betrayal and hope. Above all, hope. That's what life is about after all, with or without the undead craving human flesh. A few of you have asked to read it, and the answer remains the same - maybe once it has been edited.
NaNoWriMo doesn't leave much (any?) time to edit or to cross check things. Basically its about getting your 1,667 words in a day and leaving it at that. Most days that hasn't been hard - I find that when I write, I average about 2,000 words, so its more about finding the time (and health, damn you flu bug!) to write.
That's it for now, just a quick update to let you know it was all still running. Back to the grindstone.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Untitled: Part One 6 / 30
Damian couldn=t decide which was more annoying: the strobe lights flashing off of the chrome, or the bass rattling his teeth. As he watched the dancers moving and grinding to the rhythmic beat of Nine Inch Nails, Reznor loudly screaming exactly how they would be fucked, he settled on the strobes. It was the way that they revealed the truth of the situation more than any other factor. The dancers, when seen in constant light, were probably enjoying themselves, dancing, laughing and smiling - but when viewed in intermittent flashes, most seemed caught somewhere between ecstasy and agony, angels dancing with the damned. And that hit just a little too close to home for comfort.
Across the room a thin young man, dressed in the latest in urban chic, caught his eye and nodded towards the door against the far wall, unobtrusively painted to blend in with the walls and the other decor, but conspicuous due to its guardian, a six and a half foot blonde mass of muscle that hadn=t moved from the spot in two hours. Damian nodded twice, once to the trendily dressed man and once to the guard at the door. The guard only gave the young man a cursory glance as he passed through the door, his long coat flapping in his wake.
Damian settled in a bit, giving him a chance to get comfortable and watching the bar=s patrons with a practiced eye. They=d make the rent tonight, the line still ran down the block and it was already three in the morning. He=d watched his managers (heavily followed by security) take five cash drops already tonight, and his rule was not to take anything less than ten thousand.
Looking out over the dance floor and onto the stage, his blue eyes settled on a petite brunette, dancing with wild abandon, wearing as little as club rules allowed. She felt his gaze on her and looked up, trying to feel where the weight of it was coming from. Finally seeing him, her eyes lit up and she ran her hands down over her body, cupping and stroking suggestively, grinding against her dance partner, never taking her eyes off him. She must have liked what she saw – many women did. He nodded and sent a waitress her way with a note and a drink. When she pulled the folded card off the tray and smiled back at him he nodded curtly and pulled himself out of the heavy chair he sat in, heading for the office door.
As he closed the heavy door behind him, the sounds of the club were instantly silenced. Three inches thick, the door was solid tungsten steel, paneled in walnut and layered with cork for sound proofing. His gaze traveled around the room, taking in the Monet on the wall, the small bar - stocked only with his favorite scotches and wines, the elaborate and expensive media centre behind the desk and the young man, quickly rising from his seat behind the desk, looking faintly guilty.
AColby, that=s fine, you can sit back down. That is the most comfortable chair in the place. Why should you not take it from me? After all, you are taking my money.@ As he spoke, his precise London accent all the more pronounced in his irritation, the young man=s expression changed from worry to relief to confusion. Damian had to give him points for that, no fear showed on the boy=s face, even though his mind must be racing at light speed.
AI don=t know what you’re talking about Damian. Your money is right here,@ he said carefully, pointing to stacks of bills neatly laid out on the desk in front of him, Atwenty bags, a hundred bucks a pop, that=s two grand. You can count it if you want.@ His grin was back, and he started to lean back in the chair a little.
AYou are partly correct Colby. I did provide you with twenty bags, and that would be two thousand dollars. What you left out is that you took those twenty bags, and cut them with something, turning them into thirty bags and pocketing one thousand dollars for yourself.@
Colby stood back up and started to shake his head but Damian continued, not giving him a chance to speak AIt is not so much that you are cheating your customers, who are really my customers and as such have grown to expect a certain quality from my products, but you are also stealing from me. And that, I simply will not tolerate.@
As he spoke, he felt Colby grow more and more nervous and could almost see the thoughts running through his mind, one image in particular came to the fore and Damian spoke even as Colby=s mind formed it. "I would not go for the gun if I were you Colby. Though you did a good job getting it past the girls at the front, all that it will really do-" Colby started to reach into his pocket, but quick as he was, Damian moved much, much faster. Even as Colby=s hand closed around the gun, Damian blurred across the ten feet between them, and with a casual seeming shove, sent the desk sliding out of his way. His backhand slap smashed into Colby as the drug dealer=s eyes widened in fear. Fear that quickly turned to pain and bewilderment as he flew against the far wall, crashing to the floor in a heap. While he started to roll off of his stomach and once again his hand flashed for his coat pocket, Damian stepped over to him and slammed his foot down on his hand, bones snapping and pinning it to the floor with his weight.
AAs I was saying, before you forced me to such rude action, all that drawing the gun is going to do is make me very, very upset. And, if I might steal a phrase, I don=t think that you would like me when I=m upset. So let us just remove your little toy so that you are no longer tempted to use it.@ He reached down into the pocket that Colby had been scrabbling for and pulled out a sleek looking pistol. AHmmm, a very nice gun. And that is a very nice coat. I would seem that you are spending my money well.@
Between sobs of pain and trying to catch his breath, Colby was trying to stammer out a question AWha... wha... how... you...@ His eyes danced between Damian and the desk where it sat, against the far wall. Carved of a solid piece of redwood and beautifully tooled, the desk had required six men to bring it into the room and then the inner wall could be built - a conservative estimate of its weight still put it in the neighborhood of 600 pounds.
AHow did I do that? Is that what your feeble mind is trying to comprehend Colby? Why not ask how I knew about the gun, or where I learned about your dealings on the side? They seem like equally valid questions, do they not?@
As Colby stammered out an affirmative, Damian realized that the dealer had seen too much and, as much as it was going to inconvenience him, Damian wasn=t going to be able to let the punk leave. As he raised the gun Colby=s eyes widened and his mouth began to open in a scream. The shot that exploded through the room drowned out any other sound.
Damian reached for the phone, the smell of cordite thick in his nostrils, as he watched the life fade from the young man=s eyes. His finger pressed a single number on the speed dial pad as Colby died. Damian watched with something akin to fascination as the spark of life faded from the young man at his feet. Once again a human being was reduced to so much cold meat.
AWhat?@ the voice on the other end spat out the word. He must have been occupied Damian mused, the thought bringing a smile to his face. AWhat do you want?@
AI am afraid I must call upon your services Greagor, I have a bit of a mess in my office and would like you to send an experienced janitor to clean it up. Someone skilled with stains and small holes in plaster if you have one.@ Damian knew that Greagor was fuming on the other end of the line, but then again, he always enjoyed making the other man angry. It had become something of a game between them - Damian would taunt Greagor nightly, trying to goad him into doing something rash. So far he had not risen to the bait - not completely.
AFine. He=s on his way. And Christ, you limey bastard, why can’t you speak like a normal person?@ A sudden click cut off any reply that Damian would have made. He smiled. Greagor=s getting more and more terse. That=s a good sign he thought to himself with a sardonic smile upon his lips. He must be just about ready to boil over. Maybe I can finally be rid if that incompetent fool.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Journey
The air, redolent with the stench of burned meat, stale smoke and vomit, swirled slightly as the door opened. A harsh ray of sunshine from the doorway slashed across her face, highlighting the bleary redness of her eyes and the bags under them. She feebly tried to hold up one hand to block the light, but before she could react, the door slammed shut and she sighed weakly. She knew that she should stand up from her pallet on the floor, but she’d been drinking quite heavily for hours, and was quite certain that her legs wouldn’t hold her weight, thin though she was. She craned her neck up, trying to see who had come in to her room, but had so much difficulty focusing her eyes that she gave up and let her head fall back down to the sack of rags she was using as a pillow.
“Phaw! What a stench!” She knew that she recognized that voice, but just didn’t care enough to organize her thoughts long enough to pin it down.
“Damn it, this room is going to need to be fumigated and bleached before I can rent it out again. Where’s my farging gold?” Again, the voice cut through the fog of her alcohol induced haze, making her head pound and her stomach churn.
Gold? She’d gotten some this morning. She’d been given 10 gold by that merchant off the ship… he’d said he liked his women skinny. She shivered just thinking about his touch, and the way he had smelled. But his gold was good, and she had rent to pay. Weakly she waved her hand towards her pouch on the rickety table. “Sheesh… yer… rent’s right there.”
She heard the clinking of bottles rattling together as the landlord searched the table, and that’s when she remembered that she had stopped at The Matchstick to get a drink before coming back here to give the landlord the coin. Just one drink, was all she needed, just one to steady her nerves after that merchant, after what she’d done – again.
“Shit bitch, there’s nothing here but a bunch of empty wine bottles. I told you to have my rent today, or you were out. Now, you have ten seconds to give me my 8 gold pieces, or my son’s’ll be tossing your skinny elven arse into the street.”
Her brow furrowed in frustration. She hadn’t spent all the gold on wine… had she?
“Rikell, Ish gots your gold. Its… its… its…” her voice trailed off, as she tried hard to rise to a sitting position.
“That’s what I thought. Darin, Mikel, get in here.” The door opened again, and Rikell’s two hulking sons walked in through the door. One alone would have blocked all the light coming in, between the two of them it may as well have been night in her room. She squinted up at them, trying to formulate a thought, trying to stammer out a plea, but nothing came out but a sickening belch. Before she knew what had happened, each had grabbed one of her arms, and she was being carried out the door, down the stairs and through the front door. She screamed and tried in vain to wrap her arms around her head as they tossed her, like a sack of trash, into the street. Her head cracked against the freezing, rain-slick cobblestones, and her vision filled with stars. She spit, tasting blood, and knew she had bitten her tongue.
One of the huge young men turned back into the inn immediately, but the other stood staring down at her for a while. He muttered something under his breath, she only caught the word “hero” and then he too turned back into the inn, with a look of disgust on his face, and slammed the door behind him.
She tried to stand up, to holler after him, to tell him that there are no heroes, but she slipped on a piece of offal, slamming back to the ground, her skull crashing against the stone, and blacked out.
* * *
“Miss?” A voice. She tried to not listen. She didn’t want to wake up. Waking up meant pain. Waking up meant suffering. Sleep was so much better.
“Miss? Are you all right?” A hand touched her hair, dropped down to her shoulder and shook her gently. She whimpered, and tried to wave him away, tried to explain that she didn’t want help, that she just wanted to lay here and sleep, but nothing came out.
“Miss, I am a healer, please, let me help you.” She felt strong hands grab her gently at the shoulders and turn her over, face up to the light. Though she kept her eyes screwed tightly shut, the little bit that leaked through her lids sent stabs of pain into her skull.
“Leitha?!” The voice was unfamiliar, but incredulous. “Leitha? Is it you?”
Hoping to find something to say, anything that would make him just leave her here, leave her to just die, she dared to open one eye and stare up at him. A human, she noted, and not one that she remembered. How he knew her name she had no idea. She tried to think, tried to remember where he might have seen her before, and from there why he was being so helpful. But her thoughts were scattered by the wine, by the blows to her head, and by the fever that she’d been feeling for days now. And then she looked down from his face, to the medallion at his throat.
A low keening sound spilled from her mouth as she turned, and tried with all her strength to scramble away from him. The sight of the simple wooden medallion was like a dagger through her heart. Painted gold, though never made of the material, for gold was too precious to waste on a simple holy symbol. Other priests might squander their wealth on ostentatious displays of their piety, but a wearer of that symbol always put the needs of the poor and unfortunate before their own. The helping hand on the shield, the symbol of The Protector, the God of Small Things… Shavista.
She managed only to drag herself a few inches before her strength ran out, and she collapsed, weeping almost silently back onto the ice cold cobbles. “No… please… no” she managed to whisper, but he obviously didn’t hear her, or chose not to listen. He reached down and scooped her into his arms, cradling her like a child. She tried to fight, tried to leap down and run away, but her body wouldn’t respond to her demands. She tried to scream, tried to call for help, but he lay a calloused hand on her forehead, and murmured a prayer she remembered all too well. Before she could say another word, she slipped once more back into darkness.
* * *
When she awoke, her head was clear. She was warm and dry, laying in a thin but soft and clean pallet, staring at a ceiling that was all too familiar to her. How many times had she slept under this roof, exhausted from healing the wounds and sicknesses of the poor? How many times had she laid down cradling a child as they cried themselves to sleep for a mother or father that was never coming home again?
She sat up slowly, carefully making as little noise as possible, and trying not to wake the others sleeping around her. Treading carefully, and watchful that none of the priests see her and thus try to stop her from leaving, she crept across the room, and down the hall toward the front, and only, exit from the temple. She sighed inwardly as she put one hand on the door to pull it open, relieved to have escaped without drawing any attention.
“They told me you wouldn’t stay.”
She started, and whirled around, one hand going to her belt for a blade that wasn’t there, that hadn’t been there since she sold it for wine. But her quick movements didn’t startle the young priest standing behind her. He must have been light on his feet to have followed her down the hallway without her hearing him. Many things had dulled over the last year, but her sense of hearing wasn’t one of them.
“What do you mean by that?”
He sighed, and leaned against the wall. “When I brought you in. They told me I was the fourth person to bring you in here like that. Poisoned by cheap wine, diseased from selling yourself to the sailors, fevered from being in the streets in the cold. They told me you just want to die. Some of them told me that it broke their hearts, but maybe you had earned the right to die. They told me I was just wasting my time, and that there were others who wanted the help, who needed the help, and who deserved the help more than you. That healing you of the damage you’d done to yourself with wine, and the damage that your sailor ‘friends’ had done to you with their diseases, well, that it was all a waste of time and of Shavista’s blessings.” He reached down to his belt and undid the strings that tied his pouch to it. Tossing the pouch to her, he smiled slightly as she caught it.
“There’s not much in there, but its enough to let you crawl back into a bottle, if that’s really what you want. But if you want to die, there are far faster and more assured ways to do it.” He reached down to his belt again, this time drawing his dagger and tossing it at her feet. She bent down to pick it up, staring at the razor edge he’d honed it to.
“Yeah, I keep it pretty sharp. Sometimes magical healing just isn’t enough, or I am too exhausted to use it. So a sharp knife comes in handy, to excise the infected flesh.” He shrugged. “Either way, it should be sharp enough to open a vein on a skinny arm like yours.”
She stood there staring at him for minutes, her mind struggling to grasp what he’d just done. No priest of Shavista would ever counsel another person to kill themselves, let alone give them the means to do it. He obviously was some sort of charlatan, some sort of madman. But she’d heard him call upon The Protector, had felt the power of his magics…
“What kind of priest are you?” she gaped at last, finding her voice after a few false tries.
“The impatient kind. Now pick one. Either you take the gold and silver in there, give me back my knife and go drink yourself back in to a stupor and, or you give me back the pouch and go slit your wrists somewhere quietly. Though I would like the knife back when you’re done with it, if you don’t mind telling me where you’re going to do it. That’s a damned good knife, and I’d hate to lose it.” When she didn’t answer him immediately, but rather stood there, looking at him like a poleaxed steer, he grinned slightly. “There is a third option you know. You could talk to me.”
“Talk? Talk about what?”
“Well, the other priests here tell me that you used to be a big deal around here. Used to throw yourself into battle all the time, used to be some kind of a hero to all sorts of people. One of them told me that you were once the greatest archer in the realms, and another told me you used to be the second in command of those poor bastages in the Order of Light.” He sneered slightly, his voice dripping with scorn “but the kind of drunken whore that I see before me can’t possibly be the same person,” he shrugged, and his voice resumed its normal, compassionate tone “unless maybe, just maybe, something happened, something went wrong somewhere, and maybe, just maybe, you need to talk about that.”
He straightened from his lean, put one hand on his hip and held out the other to her, palm up. “So, my knife, my gold, or your story. Which one is it going to be?”
Without thinking she tossed the knife and the pouch at his feet, and whirled in place, threw open the door and dashed back out into the street. She rain so fast into the freezing rain that she didn’t hear the words that he called out to her, didn’t see him follow her out for a few yards, didn’t see him standing in the rain, and didn’t care.
* * *
When she finally had to stop running because her legs, unaccustomed to such exercise, would no longer carry her, she collapsed in a heap near a fountain. The steady crashing of the water spilling over the top of the fountain and the seemingly never-ending torrent of the rain falling to the ground upon which she lay, panting, almost drowned out the sounds of her sobs.
How dare he. How dare he presume to judge her. To mock her like that. He had no idea. None at all.
She didn’t realize that she’d spoken out loud until a quiet voice at her shoulder startled her out of her misery. “Miss, it’s my experience, and that’s a lot of experience, that they never know, they never understand, until you tell them.” The speaker was an ancient Halfling, his skin wrinkled like leather, his few remaining hairs white and whispy thin. He was standing up on the tips of his toes to try and get his bucket into the basin of the fountain, and was obviously having difficulty with even its empty weight. Without thinking, she quickly stood up and gently took the bucket from his shriveled hands. Dipping it into the water and drawing it out and setting it at the Halfling’s furred feet. She hadn’t thought about helping anyone in a very long time. In fact, she had spent the last two years trying not to think at all.
He sat down beside it, leaning back against the wall of the fountain with a sigh, letting the rain pour down over him heedlessly. “Ahhh… thank you miss. That blasted thing gets heavier every time I try to lift it up. And the walk gets longer each time to. These legs of mine have always been long enough for me, but these arms seem to be getting weaker and weaker. And such a long walk it is too.” He grinned up at her, his obvious ploy making her grin slightly back.
“Lead on old man. I’ll carry your bucket for you.” Again, her offer surprised her.
“Well then, follow me miss!” With a spry step that belied his claim to weakness, the old man hopped up and quickly hurried off into the rain. She had taken no more than a dozen steps following him when he stopped at a small wooden door, barely twenty yards from the fountain. “Ahhh then. Here we are! Home sweet home.” He winked at her and ducked inside the door, stomping his furred feet and tossing his cloak over a short cloak rack beside the door.
Leitha followed him in, stamping her own feet to dislodge the water and muck from them, then set the bucket down at her side. Before she could say anything else though, the old Halfling was busying himself at the stove top, wrapping a towel around one hand to lift a kettle, and pouring boiling water into a small teapot. He busied himself for a few moments at fixing the tea, then turned back to face her again. “Sit, sit!”
His manner was so officious, and reminded her so much of another short man who had been known to bark orders, that she sat in immediate reflex. The chair was too small, and her knees rode up to her chin, but she felt too calm, too inexplicably content, to stand up, or even to venture an objection. Moments later, she sat, teacup in one hand, and a chocolate biscuit in the other.
“So, he doesn’t understand hmmm? They almost never do.” He nodded sagely and sipped a bit of his tea, grimacing and then quickly adding a dollop of honey from a pot on the table.
“They?”
“Oh you know. People other than yourself. Never understand what you’re thinking. Hmmph, never even know what you’re thinking. Except maybe those mage types… nasty thing that, magic letting you peer into another person’s mind. Still, even if they can see what you are thinking, doesn’t mean that they can understand how it makes you feel. Hmm?”
She paused to take a sip of tea before answering. As her stomach filled with the honey sweetened tea, it gave a loud growl as if to remind her that it had been ignored for far too long. She bit into the biscuit, letting the chocolate melt on her tongue and savoring the taste like she hadn’t done in a long while. Finally, she spoke “Yes, but sometimes you don’t want to think about it yourself. Sometimes if you think about it, you’ll go mad. And you can’t talk about it without thinking about it, so you have to chose between going mad, or not thinking about anything at all, which is really just another form of going mad.” Her tone, and even her words, surprised her. She couldn’t understand how she was remaining this calm, this steady. She hadn’t said this many words in the last three years combined. And yet there was something about this old Halfling, something that just made her feel calm. And safe. She hadn’t felt safe in years.
“Hmmm yes. That’s true. But what if you have to go mad, in order to be sane?” He grinned up at her and pushed the plate of biscuits across the table toward her, waving away her protests. She quickly devoured the remaining three biscuits while she thought over what he had said.
“Go mad to become sane? There’s something I’ve never heard before. Though it sounds like the sort of thing that your Folk might believe.” She raised a quick hand in supplication “no offence intended, but I have met more than a few of the Folk who fit into the ‘mad’ description.” Her hand reached out toward the biscuit plate, only to discover it was empty.
The old Halfling tut tutted as he hopped down from his stool to walk over to a well stocked shelf and lifted a heavy ceramic jar from one of the shelves, walking carefully back to the table with it. “True, some of you tall people seem to think that the logic of the Folk is odd, but its logic nonetheless. And points to you for getting our name right.” He chuckled then opened the jar and peered within.
“Blasted. No more biscuits. You’ve gone and eaten all my chocolate biscuits. And here I was hoping to have some for my bedtime snack.” He sighed, untied his his belt pouch and tossed it to her. “Well, nothing to be done for it now. Only one place sells these, the baker around the corner. You’ll have to go and get me more. Go right when you leave the door, then right again. Four doors down on your left side. Big building, stands all alone. You can’t miss it.”
Before she could mount any sort of objection, he was bustling her out the door, admonishing her once more “Remember, the place you want is right, then right again, then the fourth door on your right. Trust me, it’s the place you want.”
Chuckling slightly under her breath and turning her cloak hood up against the rain, she held the pouch he had given her tight in her hand as she turned right, then right again. One, two, three…
The Temple of Protection loomed ahead. The fourth door was the entrance to the temple. But she’d ran from this place for what felt like hours, not mere yards. She looked around desperately, trying to figure out how she had come all this way so quickly. Whirling about, she dashed quickly back the way she had come, left, then left again. There was the fountain, and there was…
A solid wall. No door, no entrance into a quiet little home. No old Halfling with sweet tea. Looking down at the pouch of gold in her hand, she saw a symbol marked into the soft leather. A hand, open as if to help, on a shield of gold.
She sat on the edge of the fountain for hours, not even noticing that the sun had set, or that the clouds had finally moved on, leaving the sky clear and bright with a full moon. She stared at the pouch in her hands the entire time. Finally, she levered herself back to her feet, and slowly walked, one halting step at a time, back to the temple. She stood outside it for long minutes, listening to the noises from within, the soothing chanting of the priests, the crying of a baby, the wailing of loss and the laughter of hope. She smelled the carrot and barley stew, and her stomach rumbled. She remembered. She cried.
Maybe the old man was right. Maybe she needed to go mad to get sane. But all that had happened to her, all that she had lost, could she go through that again? Could she live those memories again? The feeling of Balok’s blade, burning insider her. The loss of the Guardians. The death of the soldiers she’d trained. The loss of her family, of her friends. Nalmalas, gone for all time. The loss of every man she thought she’d ever loved. Watching people die and knowing that she couldn’t save them. Knowing that every man and woman she’d cared for, that every soldier who owed her their oath, was dead or a slave.
As she tried to work up the courage to open the door, to plumb those dark depths, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “You are stronger than you think.” She turned slowly to see the young priest, leaning against the wall, watching her. “You are stronger than you will ever know. I know. Trust me.”
“How can you know? How can you know what I can or can not do? Why do you care?”
The priest smiled. “I know because I wouldn’t be alive if not for you. I know because I watched you stand up to numbers far in excess of your own. I know because I saw you take wounds for those they were intended for. I know because I heard you sing to a little girl, to quiet her terrors in the night. I know because I remember when you carried me into that temple years ago. But most of all, I know because He knows.” He gestured to the wooden symbol at his throat.
He stepped away from the wall, and walked past her, stopping at the threshold of the church. “So if you are ready, ready to let His will be worked, ready to take up your task once more, and ready to be who you are supposed to be, then come in. I’ll be waiting. He’ll be waiting. And so will all those who need you. The choice is yours.” With that, he strode through the door and it swung quietly shut behind him.
She stood there for a moment, and then heard the cry of the child inside once more. There were still people who needed her protection, who needed her strength. She had to choose between her own safety, maybe her sanity, and the safety of those who couldn’t be strong on their own. And that, that was no choice at all. Without a glance backwards, she pushed open the door and walked through.
“Phaw! What a stench!” She knew that she recognized that voice, but just didn’t care enough to organize her thoughts long enough to pin it down.
“Damn it, this room is going to need to be fumigated and bleached before I can rent it out again. Where’s my farging gold?” Again, the voice cut through the fog of her alcohol induced haze, making her head pound and her stomach churn.
Gold? She’d gotten some this morning. She’d been given 10 gold by that merchant off the ship… he’d said he liked his women skinny. She shivered just thinking about his touch, and the way he had smelled. But his gold was good, and she had rent to pay. Weakly she waved her hand towards her pouch on the rickety table. “Sheesh… yer… rent’s right there.”
She heard the clinking of bottles rattling together as the landlord searched the table, and that’s when she remembered that she had stopped at The Matchstick to get a drink before coming back here to give the landlord the coin. Just one drink, was all she needed, just one to steady her nerves after that merchant, after what she’d done – again.
“Shit bitch, there’s nothing here but a bunch of empty wine bottles. I told you to have my rent today, or you were out. Now, you have ten seconds to give me my 8 gold pieces, or my son’s’ll be tossing your skinny elven arse into the street.”
Her brow furrowed in frustration. She hadn’t spent all the gold on wine… had she?
“Rikell, Ish gots your gold. Its… its… its…” her voice trailed off, as she tried hard to rise to a sitting position.
“That’s what I thought. Darin, Mikel, get in here.” The door opened again, and Rikell’s two hulking sons walked in through the door. One alone would have blocked all the light coming in, between the two of them it may as well have been night in her room. She squinted up at them, trying to formulate a thought, trying to stammer out a plea, but nothing came out but a sickening belch. Before she knew what had happened, each had grabbed one of her arms, and she was being carried out the door, down the stairs and through the front door. She screamed and tried in vain to wrap her arms around her head as they tossed her, like a sack of trash, into the street. Her head cracked against the freezing, rain-slick cobblestones, and her vision filled with stars. She spit, tasting blood, and knew she had bitten her tongue.
One of the huge young men turned back into the inn immediately, but the other stood staring down at her for a while. He muttered something under his breath, she only caught the word “hero” and then he too turned back into the inn, with a look of disgust on his face, and slammed the door behind him.
She tried to stand up, to holler after him, to tell him that there are no heroes, but she slipped on a piece of offal, slamming back to the ground, her skull crashing against the stone, and blacked out.
* * *
“Miss?” A voice. She tried to not listen. She didn’t want to wake up. Waking up meant pain. Waking up meant suffering. Sleep was so much better.
“Miss? Are you all right?” A hand touched her hair, dropped down to her shoulder and shook her gently. She whimpered, and tried to wave him away, tried to explain that she didn’t want help, that she just wanted to lay here and sleep, but nothing came out.
“Miss, I am a healer, please, let me help you.” She felt strong hands grab her gently at the shoulders and turn her over, face up to the light. Though she kept her eyes screwed tightly shut, the little bit that leaked through her lids sent stabs of pain into her skull.
“Leitha?!” The voice was unfamiliar, but incredulous. “Leitha? Is it you?”
Hoping to find something to say, anything that would make him just leave her here, leave her to just die, she dared to open one eye and stare up at him. A human, she noted, and not one that she remembered. How he knew her name she had no idea. She tried to think, tried to remember where he might have seen her before, and from there why he was being so helpful. But her thoughts were scattered by the wine, by the blows to her head, and by the fever that she’d been feeling for days now. And then she looked down from his face, to the medallion at his throat.
A low keening sound spilled from her mouth as she turned, and tried with all her strength to scramble away from him. The sight of the simple wooden medallion was like a dagger through her heart. Painted gold, though never made of the material, for gold was too precious to waste on a simple holy symbol. Other priests might squander their wealth on ostentatious displays of their piety, but a wearer of that symbol always put the needs of the poor and unfortunate before their own. The helping hand on the shield, the symbol of The Protector, the God of Small Things… Shavista.
She managed only to drag herself a few inches before her strength ran out, and she collapsed, weeping almost silently back onto the ice cold cobbles. “No… please… no” she managed to whisper, but he obviously didn’t hear her, or chose not to listen. He reached down and scooped her into his arms, cradling her like a child. She tried to fight, tried to leap down and run away, but her body wouldn’t respond to her demands. She tried to scream, tried to call for help, but he lay a calloused hand on her forehead, and murmured a prayer she remembered all too well. Before she could say another word, she slipped once more back into darkness.
* * *
When she awoke, her head was clear. She was warm and dry, laying in a thin but soft and clean pallet, staring at a ceiling that was all too familiar to her. How many times had she slept under this roof, exhausted from healing the wounds and sicknesses of the poor? How many times had she laid down cradling a child as they cried themselves to sleep for a mother or father that was never coming home again?
She sat up slowly, carefully making as little noise as possible, and trying not to wake the others sleeping around her. Treading carefully, and watchful that none of the priests see her and thus try to stop her from leaving, she crept across the room, and down the hall toward the front, and only, exit from the temple. She sighed inwardly as she put one hand on the door to pull it open, relieved to have escaped without drawing any attention.
“They told me you wouldn’t stay.”
She started, and whirled around, one hand going to her belt for a blade that wasn’t there, that hadn’t been there since she sold it for wine. But her quick movements didn’t startle the young priest standing behind her. He must have been light on his feet to have followed her down the hallway without her hearing him. Many things had dulled over the last year, but her sense of hearing wasn’t one of them.
“What do you mean by that?”
He sighed, and leaned against the wall. “When I brought you in. They told me I was the fourth person to bring you in here like that. Poisoned by cheap wine, diseased from selling yourself to the sailors, fevered from being in the streets in the cold. They told me you just want to die. Some of them told me that it broke their hearts, but maybe you had earned the right to die. They told me I was just wasting my time, and that there were others who wanted the help, who needed the help, and who deserved the help more than you. That healing you of the damage you’d done to yourself with wine, and the damage that your sailor ‘friends’ had done to you with their diseases, well, that it was all a waste of time and of Shavista’s blessings.” He reached down to his belt and undid the strings that tied his pouch to it. Tossing the pouch to her, he smiled slightly as she caught it.
“There’s not much in there, but its enough to let you crawl back into a bottle, if that’s really what you want. But if you want to die, there are far faster and more assured ways to do it.” He reached down to his belt again, this time drawing his dagger and tossing it at her feet. She bent down to pick it up, staring at the razor edge he’d honed it to.
“Yeah, I keep it pretty sharp. Sometimes magical healing just isn’t enough, or I am too exhausted to use it. So a sharp knife comes in handy, to excise the infected flesh.” He shrugged. “Either way, it should be sharp enough to open a vein on a skinny arm like yours.”
She stood there staring at him for minutes, her mind struggling to grasp what he’d just done. No priest of Shavista would ever counsel another person to kill themselves, let alone give them the means to do it. He obviously was some sort of charlatan, some sort of madman. But she’d heard him call upon The Protector, had felt the power of his magics…
“What kind of priest are you?” she gaped at last, finding her voice after a few false tries.
“The impatient kind. Now pick one. Either you take the gold and silver in there, give me back my knife and go drink yourself back in to a stupor and, or you give me back the pouch and go slit your wrists somewhere quietly. Though I would like the knife back when you’re done with it, if you don’t mind telling me where you’re going to do it. That’s a damned good knife, and I’d hate to lose it.” When she didn’t answer him immediately, but rather stood there, looking at him like a poleaxed steer, he grinned slightly. “There is a third option you know. You could talk to me.”
“Talk? Talk about what?”
“Well, the other priests here tell me that you used to be a big deal around here. Used to throw yourself into battle all the time, used to be some kind of a hero to all sorts of people. One of them told me that you were once the greatest archer in the realms, and another told me you used to be the second in command of those poor bastages in the Order of Light.” He sneered slightly, his voice dripping with scorn “but the kind of drunken whore that I see before me can’t possibly be the same person,” he shrugged, and his voice resumed its normal, compassionate tone “unless maybe, just maybe, something happened, something went wrong somewhere, and maybe, just maybe, you need to talk about that.”
He straightened from his lean, put one hand on his hip and held out the other to her, palm up. “So, my knife, my gold, or your story. Which one is it going to be?”
Without thinking she tossed the knife and the pouch at his feet, and whirled in place, threw open the door and dashed back out into the street. She rain so fast into the freezing rain that she didn’t hear the words that he called out to her, didn’t see him follow her out for a few yards, didn’t see him standing in the rain, and didn’t care.
* * *
When she finally had to stop running because her legs, unaccustomed to such exercise, would no longer carry her, she collapsed in a heap near a fountain. The steady crashing of the water spilling over the top of the fountain and the seemingly never-ending torrent of the rain falling to the ground upon which she lay, panting, almost drowned out the sounds of her sobs.
How dare he. How dare he presume to judge her. To mock her like that. He had no idea. None at all.
She didn’t realize that she’d spoken out loud until a quiet voice at her shoulder startled her out of her misery. “Miss, it’s my experience, and that’s a lot of experience, that they never know, they never understand, until you tell them.” The speaker was an ancient Halfling, his skin wrinkled like leather, his few remaining hairs white and whispy thin. He was standing up on the tips of his toes to try and get his bucket into the basin of the fountain, and was obviously having difficulty with even its empty weight. Without thinking, she quickly stood up and gently took the bucket from his shriveled hands. Dipping it into the water and drawing it out and setting it at the Halfling’s furred feet. She hadn’t thought about helping anyone in a very long time. In fact, she had spent the last two years trying not to think at all.
He sat down beside it, leaning back against the wall of the fountain with a sigh, letting the rain pour down over him heedlessly. “Ahhh… thank you miss. That blasted thing gets heavier every time I try to lift it up. And the walk gets longer each time to. These legs of mine have always been long enough for me, but these arms seem to be getting weaker and weaker. And such a long walk it is too.” He grinned up at her, his obvious ploy making her grin slightly back.
“Lead on old man. I’ll carry your bucket for you.” Again, her offer surprised her.
“Well then, follow me miss!” With a spry step that belied his claim to weakness, the old man hopped up and quickly hurried off into the rain. She had taken no more than a dozen steps following him when he stopped at a small wooden door, barely twenty yards from the fountain. “Ahhh then. Here we are! Home sweet home.” He winked at her and ducked inside the door, stomping his furred feet and tossing his cloak over a short cloak rack beside the door.
Leitha followed him in, stamping her own feet to dislodge the water and muck from them, then set the bucket down at her side. Before she could say anything else though, the old Halfling was busying himself at the stove top, wrapping a towel around one hand to lift a kettle, and pouring boiling water into a small teapot. He busied himself for a few moments at fixing the tea, then turned back to face her again. “Sit, sit!”
His manner was so officious, and reminded her so much of another short man who had been known to bark orders, that she sat in immediate reflex. The chair was too small, and her knees rode up to her chin, but she felt too calm, too inexplicably content, to stand up, or even to venture an objection. Moments later, she sat, teacup in one hand, and a chocolate biscuit in the other.
“So, he doesn’t understand hmmm? They almost never do.” He nodded sagely and sipped a bit of his tea, grimacing and then quickly adding a dollop of honey from a pot on the table.
“They?”
“Oh you know. People other than yourself. Never understand what you’re thinking. Hmmph, never even know what you’re thinking. Except maybe those mage types… nasty thing that, magic letting you peer into another person’s mind. Still, even if they can see what you are thinking, doesn’t mean that they can understand how it makes you feel. Hmm?”
She paused to take a sip of tea before answering. As her stomach filled with the honey sweetened tea, it gave a loud growl as if to remind her that it had been ignored for far too long. She bit into the biscuit, letting the chocolate melt on her tongue and savoring the taste like she hadn’t done in a long while. Finally, she spoke “Yes, but sometimes you don’t want to think about it yourself. Sometimes if you think about it, you’ll go mad. And you can’t talk about it without thinking about it, so you have to chose between going mad, or not thinking about anything at all, which is really just another form of going mad.” Her tone, and even her words, surprised her. She couldn’t understand how she was remaining this calm, this steady. She hadn’t said this many words in the last three years combined. And yet there was something about this old Halfling, something that just made her feel calm. And safe. She hadn’t felt safe in years.
“Hmmm yes. That’s true. But what if you have to go mad, in order to be sane?” He grinned up at her and pushed the plate of biscuits across the table toward her, waving away her protests. She quickly devoured the remaining three biscuits while she thought over what he had said.
“Go mad to become sane? There’s something I’ve never heard before. Though it sounds like the sort of thing that your Folk might believe.” She raised a quick hand in supplication “no offence intended, but I have met more than a few of the Folk who fit into the ‘mad’ description.” Her hand reached out toward the biscuit plate, only to discover it was empty.
The old Halfling tut tutted as he hopped down from his stool to walk over to a well stocked shelf and lifted a heavy ceramic jar from one of the shelves, walking carefully back to the table with it. “True, some of you tall people seem to think that the logic of the Folk is odd, but its logic nonetheless. And points to you for getting our name right.” He chuckled then opened the jar and peered within.
“Blasted. No more biscuits. You’ve gone and eaten all my chocolate biscuits. And here I was hoping to have some for my bedtime snack.” He sighed, untied his his belt pouch and tossed it to her. “Well, nothing to be done for it now. Only one place sells these, the baker around the corner. You’ll have to go and get me more. Go right when you leave the door, then right again. Four doors down on your left side. Big building, stands all alone. You can’t miss it.”
Before she could mount any sort of objection, he was bustling her out the door, admonishing her once more “Remember, the place you want is right, then right again, then the fourth door on your right. Trust me, it’s the place you want.”
Chuckling slightly under her breath and turning her cloak hood up against the rain, she held the pouch he had given her tight in her hand as she turned right, then right again. One, two, three…
The Temple of Protection loomed ahead. The fourth door was the entrance to the temple. But she’d ran from this place for what felt like hours, not mere yards. She looked around desperately, trying to figure out how she had come all this way so quickly. Whirling about, she dashed quickly back the way she had come, left, then left again. There was the fountain, and there was…
A solid wall. No door, no entrance into a quiet little home. No old Halfling with sweet tea. Looking down at the pouch of gold in her hand, she saw a symbol marked into the soft leather. A hand, open as if to help, on a shield of gold.
She sat on the edge of the fountain for hours, not even noticing that the sun had set, or that the clouds had finally moved on, leaving the sky clear and bright with a full moon. She stared at the pouch in her hands the entire time. Finally, she levered herself back to her feet, and slowly walked, one halting step at a time, back to the temple. She stood outside it for long minutes, listening to the noises from within, the soothing chanting of the priests, the crying of a baby, the wailing of loss and the laughter of hope. She smelled the carrot and barley stew, and her stomach rumbled. She remembered. She cried.
Maybe the old man was right. Maybe she needed to go mad to get sane. But all that had happened to her, all that she had lost, could she go through that again? Could she live those memories again? The feeling of Balok’s blade, burning insider her. The loss of the Guardians. The death of the soldiers she’d trained. The loss of her family, of her friends. Nalmalas, gone for all time. The loss of every man she thought she’d ever loved. Watching people die and knowing that she couldn’t save them. Knowing that every man and woman she’d cared for, that every soldier who owed her their oath, was dead or a slave.
As she tried to work up the courage to open the door, to plumb those dark depths, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “You are stronger than you think.” She turned slowly to see the young priest, leaning against the wall, watching her. “You are stronger than you will ever know. I know. Trust me.”
“How can you know? How can you know what I can or can not do? Why do you care?”
The priest smiled. “I know because I wouldn’t be alive if not for you. I know because I watched you stand up to numbers far in excess of your own. I know because I saw you take wounds for those they were intended for. I know because I heard you sing to a little girl, to quiet her terrors in the night. I know because I remember when you carried me into that temple years ago. But most of all, I know because He knows.” He gestured to the wooden symbol at his throat.
He stepped away from the wall, and walked past her, stopping at the threshold of the church. “So if you are ready, ready to let His will be worked, ready to take up your task once more, and ready to be who you are supposed to be, then come in. I’ll be waiting. He’ll be waiting. And so will all those who need you. The choice is yours.” With that, he strode through the door and it swung quietly shut behind him.
She stood there for a moment, and then heard the cry of the child inside once more. There were still people who needed her protection, who needed her strength. She had to choose between her own safety, maybe her sanity, and the safety of those who couldn’t be strong on their own. And that, that was no choice at all. Without a glance backwards, she pushed open the door and walked through.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Into each life...
Its raining again - seems that it is always raining these days. Better that than the heat. Heat pounds the concrete, reflects off all of the steel and glass that make up the walls of our urban jungle. The heat turns normally mild mannered old ladies into angry, cane waving lunatics. It sends waves of shimmering light up from the blacktop, cooking the brains of already angry young men, sending them out to fight and die each day. You really notice it on the freeway. If you don’t have a/c, your car fries, especially if you get caught in traffic. Especially if you are an old man with a bad heart, and a stubborn streak a mile wide, stuck in traffic on the wrong day, in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
But it seems like its always raining.
The coffin is sitting on the racks, ready to be lowered down into the earth. The raindrops have taken that ebony sheen to a mirror polish, and I can make out the faces of my mother and my brothers beside me, faces distorted by the runnels of water. Mom’s being strong, that’s just what she does. I’ve never seen her cry. Not in twenty seven years. I’ve seen her shudder when she consoled our aunts and uncles when grandma and grandpa died in that storm. I’ve seen her wince when she bumped her broken arm against the wall trying to dodge our old cat Scamps. I even saw her take a deep breath and stare off into space when the police asked us to come down to the morgue and identify the body. But I’ve never seen her cry.
David on the other hand is crying like an infant. He may as well not be under the umbrella at all, with the tears and snot running down his face, he’d be soaked even if we were having this ceremony in the Mojave. But that’s just him. He’s always worn his emotions on his sleeve. He’s always the first one to want to talk about feelings, or to share things. I suppose his patients like that. No doubt, when we leave here, we’ll have to share how today has impacted upon all of us, talk about how much we are going to miss him – all that crap.
But it seems like its always raining.
The coffin is sitting on the racks, ready to be lowered down into the earth. The raindrops have taken that ebony sheen to a mirror polish, and I can make out the faces of my mother and my brothers beside me, faces distorted by the runnels of water. Mom’s being strong, that’s just what she does. I’ve never seen her cry. Not in twenty seven years. I’ve seen her shudder when she consoled our aunts and uncles when grandma and grandpa died in that storm. I’ve seen her wince when she bumped her broken arm against the wall trying to dodge our old cat Scamps. I even saw her take a deep breath and stare off into space when the police asked us to come down to the morgue and identify the body. But I’ve never seen her cry.
David on the other hand is crying like an infant. He may as well not be under the umbrella at all, with the tears and snot running down his face, he’d be soaked even if we were having this ceremony in the Mojave. But that’s just him. He’s always worn his emotions on his sleeve. He’s always the first one to want to talk about feelings, or to share things. I suppose his patients like that. No doubt, when we leave here, we’ll have to share how today has impacted upon all of us, talk about how much we are going to miss him – all that crap.
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