END OF A DRY SPELL

 

I have been struggling with the last novel in my DARK HOLLYWOOD series for nearly a year now.

I decided to try Mark Twain's remedy and start writing an entirely new novel.

It worked.

Set in early WWII New Orleans, my story can tap into already researched material.

Think of it as FRINGE meets BAND OF BROTHERS.

In two days, I have written over 3000 words.

Sister Ameal slapped me aside the head and tugged me into the library with a jerk of ironfingers around my left arm. The slap had been a hard one, too. Sister Ameal wasnot a soft anything. Of course, Miss Mayfair saw the whole thing. I sighed. Idid not have bad luck, mind you, just strange luck. It still suckedlemons.

It didmake Miss Mayfair smile though, so it was not a complete loss. Her smiles weresomething to see. I never saw eyes so green or hair such a color … strawberryblonde I believe they called it.

Yes, Iwas smitten. She was not that much older than I was. Dreams, fragile thingsthough they are, were all you had to get you through a place like St. Marok’s. Thereare so many fragile things when you think about it. People break so easily, andso do dreams … and hearts.

We wrapour dreams carefully deep inside us so that when they are crushed no one seesthe bleeding but ourselves. And our hearts? They are the lonely graveyards forall the dreams that could have been … but weren’t. Perhaps that is why SisterAmeal seldom smiles. The weight of memory keeps the corners of her lips down.

What ofme?

Once Ioverheard Headmaster Stearns speak of me to the last librarian:

“If youwere to try and pick him out of a group of boys, you’d be wrong. He’d be theother one. Over at the side. The one your eye slipped over.”

That wasall right. To be noticed at St. Marok’s was to die … not young … you agedquickly at this place ,,, but to die before you could get the hell out of here.

I don’t knowwhy I bother telling you any of this. No one gets the emotional jolt fromhearing your life story as you did living it. They hear the details, not all of course, for nothingbores a person so much as hearing the dregs of another’s hurts.

Peopledon’t get how the death of one dream, the stinging betrayal of one hope, cancolor, not just one day, but a whole life. Unless it is their dream, theirhope, their life.

But letme get back to Miss Mayfair’s smile. It is worth getting back to, and itsmemory warmed many a bleak day for me.

Shesmiled wider. “So, this is the young man to whom I owe my rescue?”

I shookmy head. “I just pointed out that Mr. Stearns lied about you not being here,ma’am. It was your father and a few of his men that did all the heavy lifting.”

Her faceflinched as if this might have been one of the first times she’d been called “ma’am.”I felt much the same way some time later when I had been called “sir.”Of course, I had been posing as someone much older. But I am getting ahead ofmyself. That happens a lot when you travel through time.

Someclaim that I was a madman, and some think that I was just a man with veryspecial powers. But they all miss the point. Whatever I was … and am, I changedthe world … or Sentient did through me.

All mendream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dark caverns of their minds,wake in the day to find that it was but fluff. But the dreamers of the day aredangerous men, for they act on their dreams with open eyes, to make thempossible.

I am adangerous man … and Sentient even more so for not being a man.

MissMayfair obviously saw none of that as her smile warmed. “How old are you, Mr.Blaine?”

Shequickly held up a long-fingered hand. “No, don’t tell me. It does not matter,for I hear Stearns held you back in school two years running for some imaginedslight or other.”

I myselffelt the slights were not so imagined. I could have a sharp tongue. I neverlost sleep over that fact.

Herfingers became a contemplative nest for her chin. “Stearns, even Sister Ameal,say they can never recall your face once you leave them.”

She shookher head. “I do not see how that is possible. Your hair seems all colors, agrove of trees in autumn, deep brown, and wine-red.”

MissMayfair chucked softly, ”An untrimmed tangle across the top of your head. Yourcheeks pale without being anemic. Full lips eternally in an amused smile atsome jest only you hear. You look like a friend; like someone you have knownall your life.”

SisterAmeal looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I was reconsidering applying for thisjob. Then, I reminded myself that often we don’t see things as they are, but aswe are … or what our needs are.

Life isall illusion.

We simplydo not have enough facts to understand life. Not really. The word “illusion”comes from the Latin “illude,” which means to mock or to deceive.

There isan optical illusion about every person we meet. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’It’s an illusion. We are all human beings.

Well,except for Sentient.

I hadmade it this far at St. Marok’s through luck and pluck. I was running about aquart low on pluck. And Luck was merely another illusion, trusted by theignorant and chased by the foolish. I tried to be neither one.

It was asgood a fool’s errand as any other.

***

What do you think of it so far?

And Yay! I sold another audio book.