I have been tagged by Joan Hazel to post the first lines of the first three chapters of a WIP. (This also plays well into my marketing urges!) A DRY PATCH OF SKIN (literary sorta paranormal but really more magical realism) 1 The priest stood before me in his black suit and white collar. His eyes studied me as I approached, strolling quietly up the aisle of this small chapel set high on the hills above the resort town of Makarska, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Far below the open doors of the chapel stretched the picturesque town of red tiled roofs and gray-walled buildings, its sandy beach bookended by massive granite cliffs where dozens of vacationers took in the sun and swam in the turquoise sea. With a curt nod to acknowledge our meeting, he started to speak, could not find the words, then recovered. “Mister Székely,” he spoke, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” 2 The next event we participated in was when Penny invited me to church. That was unexpected. We had not yet had the traditional dinner and a movie date. We had only been sending messages back and forth by text message, social media, or a rare email, but not much in the way of actual phone calls. She was more the texting type. Easier to send a quick thought and not wait for a response than to dial a number and have to speak to another person. But I wanted to hear her voice. I met her at the designated church and immediately I had the willies, the heebee-jeevies, a dark premonition that my soul was about to be found wanting. My veins ran cold as I parked, again early, and stared at the building: the Korean Christian church. The sign was in English and Korean. As the name suggested, the service was entirely in Korean. “But you were born in America,” I pointed out later. 3 Its raining. The most profound metaphor of literary existence. Its worse if its happening to you in real time. November rain is the best. And by best I mean worst. My sarcasm increases in autumn. I was not sitting and waiting, not observing faux people at the mall, as before. What else is there to do late on a rainy Saturday afternoon? I was free to go, after all. The papers were signed and the nurses thanked. Someone found me passed out in the lab, down on the floor, and called an ambulance. No, it was not suicide. Not then. I did not remember much. I felt light-headed. I was holding a vial of blood in my hand, raising it to the light to read the label, and the room began to spin. I grabbed the counter but not tight enough, so I fell and the vial broke, spilling blood across the tiled floor. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 15:06:59 +0000
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