I think sometimes that I spread myself too thin. It was a glorious sun shiny day, and I spent most of in the studio painting. I have three paintings due to the gallery by Tuesday; a poem submission to shine for Wednesday; poetry contest due mid March and I haven’t even begun; haven’t posted the Blog regularly at all and that was on my to-do list; and I really need to finish the final edit of my novel; etc.
The art and poems are quick money; the novel is long range. The paintings are coming along. Here are some rough shots in vitro.
Getting a novel published is a lengthy process. I just want it off my desk and onto someone else’s, so I can move on to other things. I’ve posted excerpts here, if anyone is interested. Appreciate any constructive critique, as I don’t have a writer’s group at the moment.
I’m posting this then hitting the sack, as it’s after 1 a.m., and I need to get up and walk by 5 or 6 a.m. to walk my miles, then get back to the studio. Living in a city as polluted as Birmingham, I have to get my walk in before the ozone lifts.
Where do I begin except here, pen in hand at the window of my aerie. I look down the long and winding road that is the past and I wonder that so many of us came through to this best of possibilities.
There were times I didn’t think our world would survive, much less any of us. All the plans, the hard work, and the hope against overwhelming odds - I cannot now even contemplate - worked. It worked, not exactly, not precisely as imagined, but it worked. We are here, and we have another chance, a better chance, with so much saved this time. I look at our small cadre of warriors, for that is what we are, warriors as of old.
I come up to the very top room of this old stone home, to my sanctuary away from all the wistful eyes and hopeful hearts that daily leach my strength from me.
Only here, in this high place, at my window with the small flashlight my brother gave me hung just so to illuminate the page in front of me – how many years ago. And where is he today? Dead or alive? I only know he is not here - not here. I could not convince him to come. I think since his Phyllis died – his wife of 29 years – he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. Life has become a chore without his helpmeet.
I imagine him on his farmhouse porch, whiskey in hand, toasting me even as the earth rent asunder and saying “Here’s to the end, I had a good run.” And He did. He loved and was loved, he worked with integrity, brought a beautiful healthy child into the world. He lived his life his way and now with Phyllis gone, he’d just as soon pass on and will not run from death.
Doubt among the masses still exists, but many are grateful. The old enemies are still among us as well: envy, greed, fear of the unknown. But they are old enemies – known enemies; we’ll survive them as we ever have. It is enough, at least for me, that we were not literally sent back to the cave. We saved so much of who we are and what we know, that civilization will not take an eon to rebuild this time.
It’s still touch and go, we can’t save everyone. To try would doom us all. Now the work begins. Little by little, we have to go out into what remains of our world; make contact and piece by piece reassemble society. The old refrain is true, united we stand, divided we fall. Will I live to see it done? Perhaps, some. My calling was scribe, and now we’ve come through the most perilous part of this journey, I can resume that mantle.
Where do I begin, for begin I must, to put our story in some order for the future, for our children, for posterity. I want them to know what it took to bring us through the Fall to here. The ‘Fall’, so simple a word for that day – so trite. That crisp crystal afternoon just ten days ago stands out in high relief.
The small building on the far corner of Law Enforcement HQ campus held only a few offices and a receptionist.
James flashed his badge at the glaze eyed young receptionist, she pushed a button and a panel slid open before them. "Thumb or forefinger, either one." James and then Jadeah touched the panel next to a numbered visitor's badge and pulled it away and clipped it on. To the right of the reception desk was a silver door. James touched the panel and the door slid open. Once inside, all the buttons were sub level. James pressed S-10 and said, "Hang on".
Jadeah's stomach stayed on the ground floor. She didn't think hanging on would have helped.
The doors slid open onto a gleaming white corridor that stretched straight ahead and left and right. They stepped out onto an equally gleaming floor. The air was chill, but that could not fully account for the icy fingers that slowly worked their way up Jade's back. She hesitated and swayed a moment as James caught her arm asking, “Are you okay; what's wrong?”
She shook her head to steady herself and evaluate what it was she was sensing. "I don't usually feel the cold. This is something else." she said to no one in particular, more perhaps to hear her own very live voice in these halls of death.
She shook her head again. "There's so much trauma here, so much input, and....James, they're not all dead."
"Quite right!" a voice behind them boomed and they nearly left their shoes behind as they turned still startled stares to face the voice behind them.
An unlikely source for such a booming voice. A small portly man, with cherubic smile, blowing on too hot coffee in a mug that read, 'Freeze - Hold that thought!'. He took a large bite from the sweet smelling confection in his other hand, and around chews, he looked over the old-style spectacles on his nose and said, "You're expected Detective Jeffries. And my dear psi friend, you are right. They are not all dead. Follow me, Ill give you the grand tour and explain."
Jade could hardly suppress a smile, as she and James fell in beside the small rotund figure, who set them a surprisingly quick pace, as he alternately blew on his coffee and took bites from his sweet.
"The corridor to the left contains our luxury accommodations. People with money who could not face death and so postponed it."
"Postponed?" Jadeah queried.
"Of course, dear esper-girl. There's no guarantee they'll survive the thaw, or that we'll ever have a cure for what ailed them, and we're running out of room. Do we save them indefinitely and turn people away? Do we terminate those who have been here 20 years? Do we wake them and see if they live and ask them if they want to continue to wait? If so, do we negotiate a new price? You see the dilemma, don't you. What to do, what to do? And who will make the decision? Not me, not me. That's just not in the job description. It just isn't."
Getting a novel published is a lengthy process. I just want it off my desk and onto someone else’s, so I can move on to other things. I’ve posted excerpts here, if anyone is interested. Appreciate any constructive critique, as I don’t have a writer’s group at the moment.
