Veronica Knox's Blog, page 14
April 16, 2016
THE MORNING AFTER
TOTAL NUMBER OF PASSENGERS – 2,223
SURVIVORS – 706
VICTIMS – 1,517
Of the 53 children who perished… 52 were from steerage (3rd. class)
Odd words for a reporter; PROBABLY? MAYBE? Yet a noted member of the elite New York society was singled out for mention in the headline along with the owner of the White Star Line. PRIORITIES. The New York Times motto: ‘all the news that’s fit to print’.
April 15, 2016
BOOK LAUNCH
NOW LAUNCHED! – on the 104th anniversary of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic –‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ by V. KNOX –
– a TITANIC-inspired novel of Literary Fiction / Magical Realism / and Paranormal Romance
EXCERPT: CHAPTER ONE – ‘THE END’
FINN CLEARY APRIL 10, 2012
Yes, those are definitely my shoes, there in the museum case. Who would have thought I’d be famous for my shoes. And such a sad pair as that. I wore them the day I stepped onto the Titanic and the day I floated free of it, April 15, 1912.
I’m not sure if I was five or almost six when it happened, but after I drowned I discovered that time is an inexact measurement. Time raced ahead of me, pulling me backwards and spun me around so I met myself arriving. Even now, as the centenary of Titanic’s maiden voyage approaches, it continues to fling me forward, years speeding past me until I come to a full stop without my growing an inch or aging a single day.
Visitors come to marvel at the miracle of my shoes, awed that a pair of innocent shoes survived the terrifying chaos when hundreds of people perished. The little shrine of the shoes celebrates a moment in time. But not what they imagine. I know their secret. You’d think a dead child’s shoes would make them grief-stricken, entirely. But then I’ve known miracle shoes before and I know how they can capture a soul with magic. I’ve seen them cast a spell. I’ve seen them break a mother’s heart. I can’t go back to Mam shoeless. Sure she’d skin me alive. Losing my shoes is a sin and I lost TWO pairs in the one day.
But now I’ve outgrown my shoes and my age of innocence is over. Hindsight, second sight, and insight are the keys to navigating random events that were meant to happen. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that time is a paradox of frozen promises and fluid reckonings. That’s why we ghosts must stay on to tell our stories. I’m almost free. I have five days to break a promise. But only an invisible headmaster can release me from school.
Remaining in spirit form close to the living isn’t being kept after school as a punishment. It’s graduating with honors on a level playing field where I’m both a naïve five-year-old pre-schooler and a scholarly professor of three score-and-ten, although I can’t always control which one will speak. I sometimes use words like paradox and conundrum and vicarious to show off but I prefer the words nearest to my former life.
I’ve never felt more like a child but I’ve never been wiser. I’ve never been more me.
I drowned three times. First, in the relentless rain of Ireland, second, in the deep gloom of mourning that settled over my mother, and third, in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. My shoes have their own life now, and Mam is with her sainted Michael in heaven.
I’ve only had one grownup understand me. Two if you count Lacey. We did everything together. But I always think of her as a child because we met when we were young and I watched her grow old.
Essentially we humans are homing pigeons. We head for the nearest thing to home we can remember. For me it was a person rather than a place. It was Mamie Broughton. We’d only just met but sometimes a chance meeting with a stranger changes everything. Life is a surprise that turns on a breeze. The pendulum swings, and then… ‘worse things happen at sea’.
I used to be plain Finn Cleary before I found fame as the unidentified lost child from the Titanic and my shoes were enshrined as an object of wonder. As if no-one else ever had shoes!
April 14, 2016
SAVE OUR SOULS
A 104 YEAR-OLD MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Countdown, 24 hours – April 13th, 1912 ten minutes to midnight – a mountain of ice lurking in the waters of the North Atlantic, awaits the Titanic, steaming towards it on its way to the bright lights of New York with 2,224 passengers and crew on board.
Countdown, two hours ten minutes – April 14, 1912 ten minutes to midnight – TITANIC’s side scrapes the iceberg. Small chunks of ice land on the decks. At first they’re a novelty and used as ice cubes in drinks… When the damage is assessed as fatal, RMS Titanic sends up flares and the first S.O.S. ‘marconigram’. A series of frantic messages continue. S.O.S. – SAVE OUR SOULS!
April 15, 1912 2:20 a.m. – Titanic is gone. What remains is a wasteland of dead and dying passengers held aloft by lifejackets or clinging to floating debris and twenty lifeboats on the periphery of the dead zone, maintaining a wide berth from desperate survivors who could overturn the boats in their eagerness to live. Even the half-filled boats with plenty of room keep their distance. The 700 passengers in the lifeboats are taken aboard ‘RMS Carpathia’ two hours later.
Countdown 24 hours – April 15th 2016 the 104th anniversary of the unsinkable Titanic ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ will go live.
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ –– a TITANIC-inspired novel by V. KNOX
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD BOY MUST KEEP A PROMISE MADE IN HASTE IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS SOUL AND REUNITE WITH THE GIRL HE WAS DESTINED TO MARRY.
– a novel of Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and Paranormal Romance
April 13, 2016
TITANIC – THE ‘LAST SUPPER’
plate from ‘the last supper’ in first class
EXCERPT from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’
[ In the morning I’m feverish. A lovely egg breakfast means nothing. My shoes wait for me, daring me to accept their torture. I will put them on later because I deserve the knives in my heels. Every step will remind me of what I did. Every step will bring me closer to heaven for the suffering I’m supposed to have to deserve a place there.]
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ ––by V. KNOX
A woman helps her invisible childhood companion, the ghost of a boy from the Titanic disaster, to find his lost shoes so he can reach heaven.
– a novel of Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and Paranormal Romance to be released on or before April 15th 2016, the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
April 12, 2016
CASTLES IN THE SAND
Reincarnation with a twist of fate. Two children on the Titanic, destined to marry, are torn apart when five-year-old Finn Cleary perishes on April 15, 1912. Now Finn must remain earthbound as a girl’s invisible childhood companion in order to reach heaven.
EXCERPT 1 from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’
[I’m unceremoniously pushed out of the infant with the same force as the water that sucked me from the ship and propelled me to the surface, and I swirl away, caught in a stream of moonlight. Do I have somewhere to go? But where? In search of my mother? But which one? And who is this new force that takes my hand, pulling me into the cold? Is it the moon?
Mamie’s daughter may not thrive and I intend to keep my promise and take her place or watch over her, although I don’t see why Mamie can’t be her guardian angel. Sure that must be a mother’s first duty. Still, a promise is a promise, and I mourn the loss of my second mother. Mam used to say third time lucky.
In effect I am a bodiless spirit who has been rejected, ejected from the body of an infant girl. It did nothing to lessen my sense of low self-esteem. I’m determined to leave the child in order to give her time to die in peace. Mamie had sensed her imminent death and who was I to argue with her. Mamie was perfect. The thought that I would be her special child and please her kept me as happy as I had any right to be, all things considered. In the meantime, the voice belonging to the hand that dragged me, shushed me. “Finn, it’s not too late. Mamie was wrong,” and then the hand let me go.]
EXCERPT 2 from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’
[I’m towed back to earth as sure as lifeboat behind a ferry, and wake in a kitchen where a young girl is playing with a hideous doll. Her mother pours a glass of milk and suddenly I’m thirsty. The girl takes my sudden appearance as normal. “It took you long enough,” she says in her head. “Where’ve you been this time?”]
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ –– a TITANIC-inspired novel by V. KNOX
A girl grows up with the ghost of a boy who must find his lost shoes to reach heaven.
– a novel of Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and Paranormal Romance to be released on or before
April 15th 2016 – the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic
April 11, 2016
SPIRITED AWAY
Five-year-old Finn Cleary, an irrepressible passenger on Titanic, has tough shoes to fill, trying to compete with his older brother, but his death delivers a tougher quest.Finding Finn’s lost shoes may be young love’s only chance to stay together.
EXCERPT from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’
[Visitors come to marvel at the miracle of my shoes, awed that a pair of innocent shoes survived the terrifying chaos when hundreds of people perished. The little shrine of the shoes celebrates a moment in time. But not what they imagine. I know their secret. You’d think a dead child’s shoes would make them grief-stricken, entirely. But then I’ve known miracle shoes before and I know how they can capture a soul with magic. I’ve seen them cast a spell. I’ve seen them break a mother’s heart. I can’t go back to Mam shoeless. Sure she’d skin me alive. Losing my shoes is a sin and I lost TWO pairs in the one day.]
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ by V. KNOX
A feisty ghost-child from the Titanic searches for his lost love and his lost shoes – an extraordinary love story.
– a Titanic inspired novel of Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and Paranormal Romance to be released on or before April 15th 2016 – the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic
April 10, 2016
TITANIC’S FLOTSAM
fragment of a deckchair from Titanic
“The ocean is strewn with a litter of woodwork, chairs, and bodies.”
– from the diary of a crewman aboard the Mackay-Bennett, a body recovery vessel – April 21, 1912.
One hundred and four years today, the Titanic left the port of Queenstown, Ireland, and headed for New York. Passengers waved ecstatically from the boat deck, jubilant as the ship’s whistle blasted farewell. All was new. All was adventure.
EXCERPT from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ – a TITANIC-inspired novel by V. KNOX
[ Almost immediately upon Mooney’s arrival, he moves our deckchair into a gigantic glass aquarium and orders several replicas made to satisfy the sightseers. They’re placed at several locations throughout the second-floor gallery and it’s amusing to see the passenger ghosts using them, considering they’d never touched the authentic chair when it was available. Too many memories, I guess.
If shoes can talk, then surely a chair can have memories. New deckchairs absorb nothing of the holy saltwater terrors of those using them as a raft. I’ve reclined in every one of our replicated chairs and the true article delivers shock waves of impressions to overwhelm even the least sensitive. I swooned myself from a feeling of overwhelming panic.
The wood is imbued with its own impressions from floating amongst the dead and dying. I never know if I’m to revisit one of Mamie’s tea rituals, or experience the desperation of hands reaching for it – hands clawing and clinging and finally dropping away to sink into the sea. ]
A ghost child from the Titanic searches for his lost love and his lost shoes – an extraordinary love story.
– a novel of Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and Paranormal Romance to be released on or before April 15th 2016 – the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic
April 9, 2016
A STACKED DECK
Definition of a ‘stacked deck’ : to arrange things against someone or something.Not enough lifeboats meant the lives of 1,500 men, teenage boys, and women and children traveling steerage, were downgraded to the bottom of a list – a pecking order stacked against their chances for survival, consigned to the bottom of the sea.
But there were 600 deckchairs on Titanic to do double-duty as rafts.
“Years ago, I sat in the replica Titanic deckchair in the Maritime Museum in Halifax. Later, when I wrote ‘The Unthinkable Shoes’ it was easy to slip into a fantasy where one of my characters drinks tea, sheltered from a brisk crosswind on one of the promenade decks – a woman also sheltered from the event that will soon devastate her life. Tea in a deckchair would never be the same, for her or for me.” – author V Knox
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ –– a TITANIC-inspired novel by V. KNOX
EVERY GHOST was once a child; EVERY GHOST has a love story
– a novel of Literary Fiction /Magical Realism to be released on or before April 15th 2016, the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
April 8, 2016
TITANIC’S ‘BELOW-STAIRS-WARE’
Things in a museum are more than artifacts. Behind each human relic is the ghost of a life.Plain, solid, cafeteria china for passengers in THIRD CLASS, otherwise known as ‘TRAVELING STEERAGE – AS ABOVE; NOT SO BELOW
EXCERPT (five-year-old Finn Cleary) from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ –– a TITANIC-inspired novel by V. KNOX:
[ Our dining room bowls are made of china, finer than any I’ve seen, pure white with a White Star flag on the bottom and a red stripe running around the rim that reminds me of the gold line on the ship. I look for the eggs in cups but there’s only porridge filling the bowls with the red stripe, and mugs of sweetened tea. Mam takes her tea back to her bed and I sit eating my porridge with an ordinary spoon. The room seems foggy with light. It feels cozy. I’m safe here. The anger is over, but eggs are too good for the likes of a boy who wishes his brother harm.
I’m thinking how much porridge a dragon would eat when a beautiful princess sits down at the table and asks if I mind. “Is this seat taken?” she says and her smile lights up the room already filling with tobacco smoke.
I’m that gobsmacked I can only shake my head, no. “There might be eggs,” I say, to be helpful.
“Well, I like eggs,” she says, will I get you one?”
My eyes open, round as egg yolks. “In a cup?”
“I’ll see what I can do. My name’s Mamie, what’s yours?”
“Finn Cleary, missus.”
“Mamie Broughton-Smith.” She corrects herself and shakes my hand. “My friends call me Mamie,” she says. “We’re going to get on like a house on fire.” And she flashes me another princess of a smile, and when she gets up I see that she’s going to have a baby. ]
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ by V. KNOX will be launched on April 15, 2016 –the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic
A WOMAN ON TITANIC BEFRIENDS A ‘LOST BOY’
literary fiction / magical realism / paranormal romance
April 7, 2016
TITANIC’S ‘UNKNOWN CHILD’
Behind every museum artifact is the ghost of a love story. Behind every love story there’s a hint of magic. Behind every lost soul there’s heartbreak and jealousy.EXCERPT from ‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ by V. KNOX – a Titanic-inspired love story:
The expedition is a family tradition for Ma and me – a trip to the Titanic plot in the Fairview Cemetery. We wander down the outer paths but Finn hangs back. He doesn’t want to go near the marker for the unknown child. The one with all the toys. They’re soaked in rain and dust so they don’t interest me but visitors have left them for Finn. I go on without him and he calls from a long way off to come back or he’ll give me a smack so he will. I pick up a teddy bear for the unidentified child and tuck it under my arm to give to Finn.
“You’ve had enough for your birthday, my girl,” Ma says. “Besides, it’s bad luck. Childy childy… that’s grave robbing, that is.”
She takes the bear from me and sets it down but it won’t sit up straight and I bend down and pick it up again, all the while telling her it’s for the boy in the ground who’s standing right over there, so it’s not stealing. “He won’t come and get it himself,” I say, but she’s not listening. She’s far away, standing with her bare feet in the Atlantic tide, and it’s the fifteenth-day of April, 1912, all over again.
‘THE UNTHINKABLE SHOES’ by V. KNOX – a Titanic-inspired love story:
A BOY WITH AN UNSINKABLE SPIRIT
To be launched on or before April 15, 2016, the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. – GENRE: literary fiction / magical realism / paranormal romance
