Matt Thompson's Blog: and the falling cease - Posts Tagged "excerpt"

This is a short excerpt from something I'm working on. It is VERY new. No novel excerpt today. Can't be giving all of it away just yet. Hope you like this instead.

No one likes to hear that there is nothing waiting for them. It is especially bad when you’re expecting something. There is nothing like believing in something so wholeheartedly that you’re ashamed to look at the people who stand in line, clutching their individual hopes, so little different from yours. So you walk out the door and let it slam behind you. You leave them staring, wondering what it was that you were unable to claim, whatever it was that you thought was rightfully yours. That is, until their name is called and they refocus their attention on what’s important to them, you are forgotten, so the feeling of shame is useless really. They don’t actually care. That’s worse somehow.
At least that’s how I felt, leaving the bank, still clutching the safety deposit box key and a crumpled piece of paper. I had been so sure. I handed the attendant my father’s key and watched as she had smiled at me and put the other key in. The disappointment didn’t set in until she set the box on the table.
“There’s nothing here for you, sir.”

This is another passage from the new piece of writing that I shared yesterday. I think I'll post another excerpt from my upcoming book at the end of the week. In the meantime, I hope you like this.


My mother hates driving with the windows down. She is one of those women who cares deeply about her hair, through no fault of her own, but my father was always a windows down kind of person. Maybe that should be a lesson to those young lovers out there. If you have different preferences when it comes to driving with the windows down, don’t get married. You’ll only end up divorced. There is no way I could count the number of times I heard the exact same argument. Being an only child, I was very attuned to my parents’ arguments, as I had nothing else to listen to during the car rides to whatever hellish amusement park/plaster statue haven we were driving to. This is before the days of portable CD players and the like. I tried to bury my head in my books, but the lack of volume a book has did not serve me well. On a particular trip, (I believe it was to the grand canyon), my mother insisted that the Arizona air that was whipping through the windows (her words, not mine) was dying her hair red.
“I can see it now,” she said, running her hands through her still very blonde hair and looking at what I could only assume she thought was the culprit. “Look at this, Gene, look! I’m finding red particles in my hair from this terrible dry air. It’s grand canyon dust, and it’s turning my hair red. I hope you like being married to a red head, because that’s what you’re signing yourself up for now. Look at this! I’ve never seen such a thing. Who needs to buy hair dye at the grocery store when you can just drive through Arizona?”
“Jesus Christ,” is all my father could muster as he rolled up his window with his left hand and drove with his right, the signal that my mother could do the same if she so desired. My mother believed the grand canyon was dying her hair red.

As promised, here is another excerpt from my upcoming novel. It's short, but I hope you like it.

“Go home, kid.” Oleander turned his back and began to walk away. Troy lunged forward and struck him a blow in the lower back, which he had estimated would level the old man. The old man turned around, shoved the teenager to the ground with the force of both palms on his chest this time. He looked down at him, and the teenager stared back.
When the teenager made no move to get up, the old man turned once again and walked away. Troy watched as the old man pulled his supplies and headed back to his cabin along the harbor.

Okay, I'm posting another short excerpt from my upcoming novel, Oleanders in Alaska. Hope you enjoy it.

The old man stopped to wipe his brow. He pulled his cap up a little and let the bitter Alaskan breeze chill the sweat beads on his forehead. There was a boy walking aimlessly along the harbor. The old man watched as the boy tripped and fell over a hidden stick in the sand. The boy caught himself with one hand, picked himself up with the same hand and wiped it off on his jeans in one motion, never taking his eyes off of whatever was in his hand. The boy continued walking and the old man pulled his hat back down. He picked up another block of wood and put it on the stump. He raised the ax over his head and brought it down with a practiced force. The piece of wood split neatly into two pieces; the old man picked them up and threw them on his growing pile.

Here is another excerpt from my upcoming novel, Oleanders in Alaska. I hope you like it.

What she heard first was the scratching of his key in the lock. He missed frequently and as a result, the golden orb that jutted out from above the door handle on their stained oak front door was badly scratched. He never seemed to be able to fit it in on the first try. On the night of their wedding a similar thing had happened with their honeymoon suite; he had been carrying her in his arms, and set her down gently to open the door. This was not how she imagined it, but it was the modern world, and he couldn't kick the door open when it required an electronic key card. So she stood as romantically as she imagined possible and watched his pitiful efforts to open the door. First he slid the card the wrong way down the slot, and then he did it from bottom to top, and both times the light on the room door flashed orange, until eventually it flashed red.