Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 50

Blog Tour 2014

Many thanks to Samantha Dunaway Bryant for inviting me to join this blogging tour. You can see her post which preceeded mine at the following link:

http://samanthadunawaybryant.blogspot.com/


What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or historical?

Kyle is the main character in Borrowed Time, which is the title story of my collection soon to be published of the same name. The story is modern, although considering the isolation of the locale our characters are in, to them this might at times feel like a historical piece.

When and where is the story set?

The story is set in the current day in a fictionalized rural setting. I tried to avoid using any real places as the chances of any area actually matching the descriptions I use in the story are pretty unlikely. Several years ago, on a trip into upstate New York, I was struck by the heavy wooded areas we drove through as we drove around the mountains, forests making their way all the way up to the edge of the road. I imagined people living up there, off the grid and I suppose this, more than anything, influenced my vision of the setting for this story.

Three friends are spending a week in a rented cabin. The cabin is located on the banks of a large lake, surrounded on all sides by forest. They are somewhere along the base of a small mountain range that looms over everything. It is miles to the nearest town and even further to any kind of modernized city. There are no phone lines going anywhere near the cabin and they have no cell phone reception. They're on their own.

What should we know about her/him?

Kyle is still reeling in the wake of the recent suicide of an ex-girlfriend. When he finds out from her parents that her psychotic break came shortly after returning from a trip upstate to this very cabin, he decides to take a trip and investigate for himself. Because he is afraid to go by alone, he enlists the company of two friends. The three of them aren't particularly close, but Kyle chooses to take what he can get. He makes the decision to not reveal to his friends about his real motives for the trip and as far as they are concerned, this is just an excuse to get out of town for a few days.

What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Kyle's main challenge is to try and get to the root of what happened to Cheryl while at the same time not tipping off his friends to the purpose of his trip. His conundrum is that despite his intense desire to find answers, he really doesn't have any idea what he is looking for, or how to go about any of this.

What is the personal goal of the character?

Kyle is looking for answers. He wants to find out what could have caused an otherwise strong, normal individual to take such radical action as suicide. He has no idea what is waiting for him at the cabin and rushes in, determined to walk in her shoes for a little while and find out what could have happened. In the end, he learns that some things are best simply left alone


Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

The name of the book is Borrowed Time. You can find out more info about it, and me at www.cclarkfiction.net



When can we expect the book to be published?





The time has come for me to pass the baton on to another writer who will be posting a similarly themed essay next week, on the 22nd:

A. Carina Barry has an eclectic writing style that swings like a pendulum between the polar opposites of love and death. Between these two points lies the vast totality of human existence. Currently she is exploring the romance side of things, but the horror author side is never far away.

https://www.facebook.com/ACarinaBarry?ref_

Issue #71 : In Vain

The storms had already begun. Twin beams of energy, extending up from the ground and intertwining with each other like a cyclone of twin rainbows. The sky darkened all around them and cracked with the electricity put off by this complete destruction. Anything in its path would be reduced to base matter, they had to get clear of here before it was too late.

Janus grabbed the laptop and radio equipment and threw everything into the jeep. Jennifer and Rodriguez were already scrambling into their seats, twisting around and throwing glances at him to find out what was taking so long.

The ground was already starting to tremble and fracture as he threw the jeep into gear and accelerated away from their camp site. There was still research material back there but it was no longer worth it to linger. It was impossible to know if the storm had been sparked by the near collision of XR47 which had passed by the day before or if this was an attack from one of the crafts now in a low Earth orbit.

He had grown up chasing storms with his brother, but this felt different, inherently more dangerous. Regardless of the size of the tornadoes they tracked as teenagers, there was always the underlying belief that everything would ultimately be all right, could be avoided. Looking back at the twin spirals of churning nuclear energy, he knew that he would not have the luxury of making even the smallest mistake.

“Take a left, we have to get out of the kill zone.” Rodriguez yelled up to the front seat, over the sound of the hail that had started to pelt the body of the jeep.

“The kill zone is everywhere,” Jennifer yelled back at him, “We have to create distance, get as far away as we can and try to regroup.”

Janus kept to the road, ignoring the debate between his two companions and accelerated into the haze of dust and debris that was being pulled up into the air by the wind. He flinched at the screaming sound of something that flew past the jeep, an animal of some kind. Jennifer screamed louder than he had ever heard and pointed up as a passenger jet flew overhead, no more than a few hundred feet above them. It floundered and dropped out of the sky, crashing into the rocks in a blossom of flame and metal. He gripped the wheel as the jeep was knocked to the side by the shock wave and clutched at his cheek as he felt burning pain from a piece of passing debris slicing open the skin, and embedding itself into the dashboard.

Jennifer flipped on the radio. Following a loud burst of static, they heard the announcement, playing on a loop, that all commercial and private air flights were being grounded and that people were instructed to start moving south, no stops at home to get personal belongings, if your family was in the car, you were to leave now.

“No shit.” They barely heard Rodriguez’s retort over the sound of the storm.

The jeep jostled to the side as the road underneath it started to shift and for a moment, it felt like they were slowing, as if some invisible force was pulling on them from behind. Janus pressed the accelerator to the floor and the engine revved, slowly bringing them back up to full speed. The wheels started to shimmy from side to side and he renewed his grip.

In the rear view mirror, he caught the look of terror that had appeared on Rodriguez’s face and looked ahead to see that in about a hundred yards, the road itself was starting to pull apart, straight down the center as if it was being unzipped.

“Time to get off this road!” Jennifer yelled at him

Janus swerved off and turned into the field which was running alongside them. They were all tossed in the air from the impact and in the process, the radio flipped back on, playing nothing but shrill static. After a minute or two, the static was replaced by a news alert in a language he didn’t recognize. Then static exploded again, followed by the sound of someone sermonizing.

“The end is already upon us, Brothers and Children. The saviors you may wrongly see as the enemy comes down from up on high, transmitting the solutions to our problems through the rainbow lifelines that connect us to them. Rest easy. If you are one of the chosen, you were picked before you were born and the rest can sort things out for them—”

Jennifer had been fiddling with the various buttons, trying to turn it off when she gave up, drew back one leg and kicked the radio, smashing the face and causing static to sputter out of the speakers, which slowly spiraled down into silence Ears of corn whipped past the windshield. He could still see the funnel clouds, actually felt the heat being released by them as they lazily drifted across the countryside, leaving destruction in their wake. He looked in the mirror.

Rodriguez was gone.

He swerved the jeep as he turned to look and hit an exposed root in the process, causing the two of them to crash into each other.

“What is the problem?” Jennifer asked, but she soon saw the source of his panic as she glanced back and saw that they were now down to two people. The back lift gate was hanging open, bouncing up and down off the frame, either from the latch being knocked loose or from Rodriguez jumping out, or worse. He had no time to contemplate it as he felt the wheels beginning to spin as they drove further into the field.

“I don’t even know where we’re going!” he yelled.

“I think there’s another two lane just on the other side, if we can get that far.”

Almost as if she had seen it in advance, the jeep burst through the last row of corn and bounced down onto blacktop. Janus slammed on the brakes enough to allow him to make the turn onto the road and gunned the engine, driving in the direction he could only guess was towards safety. He glanced back and saw that the corn they had just emerged from was already engulfed in flames.

“There!” Jennifer pointed to their left and he saw the face of the mountain looming up over them. He swerved, taking the jeep off the road again as he aimed for the base.

Despite being the middle of the day, the sky had gone pitch black, as discharge from the energy field leeched into the atmosphere, partially blocking the light from the sun. Janus flipped on the headlights and braced his arms as they started to draw closer to the mountain. He vaguely heard Jennifer screaming and saw that behind them, the ground itself was crumbling and collapsing down into itself, giant sinkholes forming and reaching out to each other with spidery veins of fractured earth. The smell of smoke singed his nostrils and he looked up to see the canvas topper on the jeep was starting to smolder.

They drove into a large, open mouthed cave and immediately began driving at a dramatically downward slope. The stone corridor shook around them and the jeep started to pitch from side to side. In the mirror, he could see the entrance collapsing behind them. The deafening sound of something impacting the jeep was followed by the vague sense of his head being driven into the steering wheel, followed by darkness.

He woke up to the clicking of the turn signal, muffled sounds of explosions and red light, flashing on rock.

Jennifer’s severed arm was resting on his lap. He looked at the ring on the lifeless finger, and in his mind’s eye, saw her twisting around in her seat, ignoring her seat belt.

The tunnel had collapsed around them, cocooning the jeep in broken rock. Even if anyone knew he was down here, it would take days to tunnel this far down. By then, the jeep would be a coffin. It wasn’t as if there was anyone left topside to help him anyway. He wondered how much longer his air would last.

Before he could contemplate the question, the jeep was rocked by an explosion, so loud that he felt blood spurt out of one of his ears. The air itself felt like it had become fire as the jeep began to shake. He screamed through the pain, the sound of metal crushing like a tin can, and had just enough time to register a flash of blinding light before the last—

All text content is the exclusive property of the author, Chad A. Clark and is intended solely for the purposes of viewing online. Any copying, downloading or re-distribution is strictly prohibited.


©2014 Chad A. Clark      All Rights Reserved

Baked Scribe Flashback! Issue #29

I don’t know how to tell who’s real anymore, the normal ones and the others; reflections of what they think humans expect to see in each other. The problem is that even though on the inside, they are nothing but rot, from the outside they look just like you and me. I don’t even know if you’re real.

Ever since the ships came down, life has been an endless exercise of wishing I could have some kind of insight that just isn’t there. I can get close enough to look straight into a person’s eyes and I still have no idea if the soul I’m searching for is even there anymore. This was the gift that the ships brought down with them.

Not everyone saw them. I still haven’t met anyone who believes me. I blink and I’ve woken up someplace new, no idea how I got there. Sometimes I catch myself falling asleep and sometimes I wake up screaming. Sometimes I can’t tell one from the other. I hear things and I don’t know if I’m hearing them or if I really am going crazy.

But I saw those ships.

I know that they were there. All of them, hatching and spreading like a virus. And plotting. I see our end in their beginning here. I see death in the sky, fire on the horizon. I’m going to figure out the answer. I will unlock the key and I will figure out how to tell them from us. When that day comes, woe unto them and vengeance I will be.

I will be our savior.

All text content is the exclusive property of the author, Chad A. Clark and is intended solely for the purposes of viewing online. Any copying, downloading or re-distribution is strictly prohibited.


©2014 Chad A. Clark      All Rights Reserved

Issue #70 : Origins In Darkness

The glint from the coin caught his attention. Even underwater, the light managed to reflect off the pristine metal. From the distorted view under the surface, it looked to be twice as large as normal. It wasn’t until he picked it up out of the cool stream that he could tell that it was just a silver dollar. Sarah had shot down his assessment. “I think this is really old, it feels like real silver to me.”

Bryan didn’t know if silver dollars ever were really made out of silver but the coin did feel heavy. He ran a thumb around the outside, feeling the thick ridges as he did so.

“You should keep it,” Sarah said, “Might as well get something out of getting roped into this creek cleanup bullshit.”

He palmed the coin and went to place it in his pocket. The instant his palm made contact with the metal, everything went black, as if he had gone blind.

Bryan yelled out and began waving his arms around, swinging his hand back and forth in front of his face to try and detect the movement. Besides seeing nothing, the weight of his arms was starting to lessen as well and in that moment, he had a nightmarish image of himself in a wheelchair, unable even to move enough to get to the bathroom. The wind picked up, the volume nearly drowning out his cries and he could just hear Sarah’s voice alongside him, likely asking him what was wrong. He screamed again as the cool breeze started to burn his skin, feeling like blisters were forming, up and down his arms.

The air flowing around him shifted, and he lurched forward when he realized that the ground was no longer underneath him. He kicked his legs back and forth through open space as the wind howled louder. Far ahead in the distance, he could make out the tiniest spot of light that was slowly growing larger as he drew closer.

He felt an intense wave of inertia as he picked up speed. The pinprick of light became a portal, and he rushed through, waving his arms in front of him in an absurd attempt to slow himself or stave off whatever was coming. The wind grew to a shrieking pitch and he felt like his nose had just started to bleed. It was that moment when the sound cut away.

Silence.

The change was so abrupt that his ears popped, leaving behind a pressure that felt like something inside his head had just ruptured. He tried to blink, but nothing happened, his eyes simply refused to respond to his commands. He went to swipe a hand across his face, but his hands weren’t working either.

He had lost all control of his body.

The world turned and twisted around him as he watched from the inside of the body which he now only occupied. He was crouched down next to the stream, looking at the same silver dollar in his hand. The coin looked different, newer and somehow more vital as if it had just been minted. The hand holding it went into motion and he watched it move into one of the pockets. The body stood up and turned around to gaze across the horizon. It took several moments before he realized what was wrong.

The city was gone.

It should have been there, just off in the horizon, the skyline clearly visible, even from here. Above him, he could see that the sky was surprisingly absent of any contrails or smog, brilliantly blue and as clear as he had ever seen it.

The world jerked, and moved again as whatever was in control of his body started to walk away from the stream and back towards the road. He discovered that the rural highway that had been up here was now a narrow, dirt road. His head was turned to the right just in time to see the back side of a buggy, pulled by horses as it made its way out of sight, around the bend. His body turned and began walking up the road in the other direction.

He jumped on the inside as three men burst out from behind the bushes just as he was passing. With someone else controlling his body, he had the luxury of devoting all his attention to simply watching and, as a result saw the blow from one of their walking sticks that flashed up in an arc and connected with the side of his head. He made a return trip to darkness.

The sound of the stream filled his head again as he stumbled back to consciousness. The water was bubbling away as it flowed past and the sky above was starting to grow dark as most of the day had now passed.

The three men from before were standing over him.

They grinned down at him, violence evident in their eyes and it was then that, even though he had no control over this body, he realized that he was still feeling every ounce of pain and discomfort, of which there was undoubtedly more to come.

One of the men was holding a knife.

That was one of the last things he noticed before a kick was delivered to his ribcage, followed by a kick to the head and stars exploded in front of him. The sound of their laughter made his anger flare up, not that he could do anything with it if he wanted to.

However much time passed before he woke up again was impossible to know for sure. He could see the banks alongside the stream, running up towards the sky above. They were still here. He couldn’t see them, but they were still here.

They offered no explanation. They just started to cut, slashing through flesh and tendons and he felt every single one. He wanted to talk to them, to beg, but the voice he required was still not his own. All he could hear was the vague, sputtered pleas from the voice that controlled this body, but distorted.

One of the men crouched down and leaned in so close, that he could feel the roughness of his stubble brush up against his cheek. The words meant nothing to him, but the serrated edge of the knife was pressed up against his neck and ripped to the side. He felt his own blood, warm as it flowed down the front of him and in his fading perceptions, watched the men as they walked off, still laughing hysterically.

Bryan’s eyes narrowed, nearly closed and then opened up, once again inside of his own body.

The visions of what he had just seen flowed into, and through him. The pain, his blood, struggling to find air as the hands that weren’t his grabbed at the wound that would never be fixed. He felt his own death.

Sarah was staring at him and he realized that he had dropped to one knee. He tried to speak, to reassure her but no words came. Consumed by the emotions of what he had seen, the anger took on an awareness of its own, like an engine long dormant, rising up from the depths of unconscious night.

“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

Bryan started to speak but his lungs froze, or rather, stopped doing what he had been telling them to do. His body was still breathing, but he wasn’t the one doing it. His fingers and feet felt numb, as if they were falling asleep. His head was ripped with the most intense pain he had ever thought possible and suddenly, the world was shrinking away from him, like an old television that had just been turned off. The world shrunk until there was just a tiny speck of light somewhere off in front of him. He felt vertigo, the sensation of falling, darkness rushing up towards him until he fell into it, and knew no more.

The new host, the original owner of the coin, complete within this new body, flexed his hands, feeling in the pocket for the coin that had belonged to him so long ago. He would have his revenge for the crimes that had been committed on him, for the violence he had suffered at the hands of those men, so long ago. The debt had to be paid and the world would bathe in its own blood.

This girl would be the first.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoyed the story. If you did, please take a moment and share on one of the social venues listed below. Thanks for the support!
All text content is the exclusive property of the author, Chad A. Clark and is intended solely for the purposes of viewing online. Any copying, downloading or re-distribution is strictly prohibited.


©2014 Chad A. Clark      All Rights Reserved

Issue #69 : Dropped Call

The answering machine was blinking red when he walked in through the front door, the number one flashing at him, indicating the sole message waiting for his review. He pressed a finger to the button, and listened as he tapped his keys against his leg. There was no voice on the message, but he could hear sound, feedback like wind, but muffled. Somebody had likely dialed him from their pocket, no way to know how long the message would go on like this. He was reaching out again, this time for the delete button, when there was a burst of static from the speaker followed by the sound, again muffled in the background, of a child laughing. The message returned to silence and Roland frowned. Had to be stray cellular transmissions getting mixed up. He wanted to just delete the message but for some reason, was also intrigued.

He let it run for another ten seconds or so before the sound of the child came through again, hysterical giggling at some joke unheard, something private which he had been left out of. He took a step back away from the machine as the sound cut off and was replaced by a high pitched ringing. It went on for several seconds and he clamped his hands over his ears, dropping his keys in the process when the ringing shut off and after what felt like several minutes, a mono-toned voice came through the speakers, crystal clear and spoke only one word.

“Goodbye.”

There was a clatter of plastic on the other end, like a drunk trying to manage hanging up the phone when there was finally a click, followed by the beep of the machine, indicating that the message was done. Roland stepped forward and pressed play again, but despite the fact that the machine still indicated that there was a message to be played, nothing happened when he pushed the button. The machine merely beeped, indicating a cleared memory.

Roland shrugged it off and started for the kitchen, noting the complete stillness of the house around him. The only times he recalled it being this quiet was during power outages. Still, the clock on the oven was correct and the fridge was on as he took the frigid cold bottle of beer from the shelf. He reached for the remote and just as his fingers brushed against the plastic, the television clicked on, displaying static. Roland frowned first at the screen and then the remote, muting the volume and changing the channels, finding nothing but static. He pointed the remote and pressed the power button but it remained on. Batteries had to be dead. He reached for the set itself to press the power button, but still nothing happened. He smacked an open palm against the side of the TV several times and pressed the button again. It stayed on.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he felt back behind the coffee maker for the extension cord, shaking it until the loosely fit plug from the television dropped out and the screen went dark. He shook his head as he headed for the basement, hoping that the older model television was the source of the problem instead of the cable being out altogether. As he got to the bottom of the stairs and started turning towards the couch, he heard a sound coming from behind the door that led out to the garage. He could hear and identify it, even through the heavy-duty security door.

It was the sound of static.

Roland threw open the door to the garage and was again greeted by silence. He picked up a shovel that was leaning up against the door frame and walked around the three-car garage, looking for anything out of order, anything that he could use to take out the frustrations of the day. After several laps, he was satisfied that nothing was waiting out here to jump out at him so he returned to the house, double checking the deadbolt before heading for the couch. If there was no signal from the satellite and he couldn’t access the DVR, at least there were the movies down here he could settle for. He twisted the top off the bottle and dropped into the sofa. Picking up the remote, he wasn’t surprised to see static on this screen as well. He pressed the button to access the Blu-ray player and call up one of the hundred or so discs that were inside.

The screen went blank for a micro-second before the Blu-ray menu came up and as he started to scroll through his options, a memory tugged at the back of his mind, something he had seen, but not immediately acknowledged. It had been a reflection in the screen just before the menu came up. Something behind him. Roland pointed the remote and turned off the television.

There was a woman standing on the stairs behind him.

Roland leapt off of the sofa and spun around, the bottle flying from his now limp fingers where it hit hit the floor, fountaining beer out and all over the carpet. Be barely even noticed it as he looked around the room, breath starting to come in fragmented gasps.

The room was empty.

But he had seen her. There was no doubting his memory of what had just happened. He had distinctly seen her standing there, looking over his shoulder and staring at him in the reflection. Still, no one else was in the room. Other than the cat, which was now cowering in the corner under the office table, he was alone.

The air in the room had taken on a heavy, burnt smell, as if something electrical was on the verge of overheating. He thought about running over to the fuse box when he staggered slightly as a sudden wave of dizziness hit him. The room started to spin around as he tried to stay on his feet and just as the spinning was starting to make him feel like he was going to throw up, he heard the sound of footsteps running down the stairs along with the shrieking laughter of children playing. He felt the physical sensation of people rushing past him, as if he was stuck in the middle of a huge crowd. The house itself felt like it was shaking when he was suddenly knocked off his feet. He landed on his back, and after a second felt himself being lifted up off the floor for several feet before being dropped. He felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and then darkness.

When he came to, he was being dragged by the heels by some unseen force, pulled up his own stairs. He started to struggle and screamed as tiny incisions began to cut their way across his arms, hands, neck and face, as if from a hundred miniature scalpels. The invisible hands gripping his feet relaxed suddenly, and he slid backwards, down the stairs, the repeated blows giving a staccato like sound to his screaming. He hit the bottom, and stars exploded in front of him as his head struck the tile and he had the vague sense of his own feet tumbling over himself and again, darkness.

He woke up to the sound of screaming.

The sound was neither male or female, but rather a bizarre, modulated androgynous combination of both, as if souls themselves were screaming out to him for relief. He clamped his hands over his ears but it was pointless, as if the sound was coming from the inside of his own head. The volume rose, becoming more animalistic in its fury and rage. He smacked himself, as if the sudden pain would bring him back to his senses, but even the ringing in his ears wasn’t enough to overcome the cacophony of suffering, howling in his head.

The grip on him was still absent, so Roland staggered to his feet and ran for the garage. He bounced off the door before getting his fingers around the doorknob and twisted, pain flaring up again from the cuts on his hands and he stumbled out into the garage. Somehow, he managed to trip over the snowblower and the door rumbled to life and started opening all on its own. He managed to get to his feet and under the door as he made his way down towards the street.

There was little noise outside, even for early evening as he sprinted away from his house, clutching at his head and crying for the screams to stop. The neighborhood was quiet enough that he should have heard the moving truck. He was so occupied that he didn’t even register the sight of the truck’s grill as it caught him in the chest, spinning him, while taking a substantial amount of flesh and muscle with it.

He was lying on his side in the street, looking up at his house. His legs were either gone completely or merely beyond his ability to feel them. There was no pain, but he was struggling to get breath past the blood that was bubbling up into his throat. He could see the windows of his dining room looking down over him and in his last few moments, he saw the woman again, staring passively out at him. They made eye contact, and as his eyes started to droop and he felt the sensation of sleep overtaking him, he heard the quiet voice in his head, speaking to him out from the void. One word only.

“Goodbye.”

All text content is the exclusive property of the author, Chad A. Clark and is intended solely for the purposes of viewing online. Any copying, downloading or re-distribution is strictly prohibited.

©2014 Chad A. Clark      All Rights Reserved

Issue #68 : Summers On Grand

SUMMERS ON GRAND
Chad A. Clark
I remember.

I remember beaches of golden, silky smooth sand. Water so blue and expansive that I refused to believe that it was a lake. Lakes were something you saw on camping trips in the middle of the woods. Lakes were something that you could walk the entire way around, or at least see the other side. This was not a lake, this was an ocean. It was the only explanation, the only classification that made sense. Lake Michigan was an ocean which had earned the wrong name.

The beach was the apex of any vacation to Saugatuck. On the right days, when the winds were blowing the right direction, the water would be almost body temperature, and the waves could get close to surfing height. Not that we ever did surf, of course but it did make for some epic body surfing. Timing was key, walking with the wave, pushing off at just the right moment and letting the water take you, rushing you in to shore at break neck pace. It could have gone on all day but of course the time would come when we would have to go back to the cottage.

The snack bar was also a great part about the beach. Cold lemonade as sweet as you could stand it. Hot dogs, French fries, ice cream, all the fare that you would come to expect from the enclosed shop, up on the bluff overlooking the water of the lake. The parking lot was almost always full and the din of children shrieking at play was sometimes overwhelming. It never bothered us though, the sound personified fun. It was the place we wanted to be. Swimming, or sand castles or exploring the dunes or stuffing our faces with food that was very bad for us, we wanted it all.

I remember walking to the beach. While it was obviously possible to drive there, summers in Saugatuck were massively crowded and parking passes were pricey. The better option was to walk. We would walk from the cottage, down the long hill to the little canal that ran through the town. There was a ferry that took us to the other side and this was a big part of the trip. The ferry was connected to each side by a long chain and the operator would have to crank the boat by hand in order to get it to the other side. Sometimes, the operator would let us crank the wheel for a while. Once on the other side, we would walk a little more until we got to the base of Mount Baldy. This was the tough part, hundreds of steps straight up to the top where, once there, you could look down over the town and get a really spectacular view. There were a number of walking paths you could take from here that would wind around the dunes, or you could go directly down the other side and down to the beach.

By this, I mean you could run down the other side. A trip that took a lifetime to walk up so many stairs was over in a few heartbeats going down the other side. You would run down, the sand somehow miraculously free of glass or debris and it would take all your effort just to keep your feet up with the rest of your body. Eventually, inevitably you would get tripped up, and end up rolling and tumbling down the rest of the hill. Again, by some intervention of whatever higher power was there, we managed to avoid crashing into each other or suffering major injury.

I remember long car drives. I remember times before the interstates were as developed as they are today and car trips would require passage through smaller towns, lengthening the trips but making them that much more interesting. I remember hours in the car, trying as best I could to entertain myself with my toys, my comic books, trying to convince my parents to let me play my books on tape on the car’s stereo, even though I’m sure they had heard their fair share of Rip Van Winkle, Tom Sawyer and Davy Crockett. On trips to Saugatuck with Grandma, we would have usually one or more dogs with us and you could always tell when we were getting closer to the lake because they would get more and more agitated, sensing the water, the excitement.

I remember the cottage, sitting on the huge lot on the corner at the top of the hill. There were four bedrooms along the side of the house as you walked through it. All of the first three rooms had two beds while the rear bedroom had one king sized bed, the room for the adults to sleep in. Everywhere else was fair game. On trips with the other cousins, all of the bedrooms would be full and there would usually be someone sleeping on the couches, both in the living room and outside on the front porch. As you walked back towards the kitchen, there was a large tree painted onto the wall with the names of so many people who had stayed at the cottage. The tree was so full of names, there was hardly any white space left to add yours. Through the kitchen, to the other side and the rear room of the house would also be used as a bedroom, with sometimes two or three or four of us camping out in sleeping bags, staying up late telling each other stories. You had to walk through this room to get to the back door, or go down into the basement, which I did as rarely as possible.

In the backyard was the grill, simple and small but it got more than its fair share of use. I remember my dad cooking massive quantities of barbecue chicken, with just the right amount of char and sweet sauce. The sweet corn was so good, you could almost get by eating it alone as a meal. Produce in Michigan is phenomenal in the summer and fresh fruit was always on hand, especially peaches and blueberries. Behind the house were several huge raspberry bushes and we took more than our fair share whenever we could.

In downtown Saugatuck, right by the river, there was a general store. The man who owned it also owned the miniature golf course across the street. We would go there to return empty soda cans, Michigan had a ten cent deposit instead of five cents so it was a huge windfall when we got to return the cans. The influx of capital would fund a trip over to the drugstore to play at the arcade or we would go across and play mini golf. The owner was always good to us and would let us play as many rounds as we wanted after we paid for the first one.

I remember the bakery in Saugatuck, right by the tennis court. The bread always smelled so good and we would usually go through a bag of rolls in one meal, depending on how much of the family was visiting. We would tear through the rolls and the butter at a fairly alarming rate, considering today’s sensibilities regarding dietary habits. Still, it was the taste of summer.

The downtown itself was the perfect balance of local, townie shops along with your more yuppie oriented art galleries and tourist shops. In particular, there was the used book store up on the second floor of a building that I loved visiting. I would usually pick up a book or two when I could. The drugstore was a good stop, with the arcade as well as the ice cream counter in the back. Of course, there was no shortage of places to get ice cream in Saugatuck. The Kilwin’s fudge shop was right across from the drugstore and just down from that was a Baskin Robbins. Another local ice cream shop was on the next block.

The docks that ran along the river were always filled with the biggest, most luxurious boats I had ever seen. It was fun to walk along and see which yacht was the biggest and to see the locals entertaining out on the boats. It always felt safe there, even though many of the adults were probably drunk as a skunk. Still, nothing but good memories. It was the kind of place where you could walk and get pretty much everywhere and never run out of places that you would like to go.

Sometimes, we would spend a week up there. Sometimes we would be there for a month. I got to bring friends with me to the cottage a few times and some of my favorite times growing up were with my cousins and aunts and uncles in that tiny little house in the tiny little town on the lake. Saugatuck is very different now. The town has gone after the dollars from the tourism industry and has become one of the hot spots for well-to-do professionals from the Chicago-land area to spend their summers or weekends. The shops in downtown are much more centered around the pricey galleries and the tourist-y stuff, boutique pet clothing and kitchy merchandise. The locals seem less like locals now and more like rich lawyers and doctors who spend most of their week there when they aren’t preparing legal briefs or rushing into surgery. There are even some hotel chains that have opened up shop there as well as a few more fast food restaurants.

Still, whenever I drive through, I find myself taken by the ghost of childhood’s memories, the good feeling of times spent with family in the shade of those massive trees. The cottage is still there, although the once expansive yard is now mostly filled with the new house one of my uncles built there. He now lives there year round. I will always have my memories though, and if there were ever a box that I would use to pack away my most precious and happy memories of childhood, I would call that box, “Saugatuck”.


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