Tag: Fiction

Fury of the Wind

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Excerpt

The Nimkus Fall Fair proved a huge success. Even some of the
town matrons relented at the last minute, or at least before it was
too late to enter their exhibits. Most of them grew flowers and vegetable
gardens, and they could not pass up the chance to compete
against the farm women.
But this year, not only the town matrons participated. Miss Carrington
entered her crocheted doilies and embroidered pillow case
as well as a couple of jars of Saskatoon preserves. She also agreed to
be a judge for some of the exhibits, a prestigious job that had always
been reserved for two or more of the business men’s wives, or town
women from Bradshaw.
Millie Osborne was not to be outdone, either. She had worked all
through the previous winter and most of the spring, knitting socks
and sweaters. Her grown sons had laughed at her, asking if she was
trying to get in with the high mucky-mucks around town. But Millie
would not be discouraged.
“After all,” she told her boys, “Mr. Carson says I have to support
the Association now that I’m an Ag member.”
“Aw, Maw,” they chided, “you can’t compete with the biddies who
live in this town. They’ve been doing this stuff for years.”
“You mind your own business, you louts,” Millie said. “My things
will look just as nice and tidy as any others on display.” And they
did, as her boys were forced to admit when they saw them next to
other exhibits on the day of the fair.
Pong, the laundryman, did not have anything to exhibit but
he worked tirelessly all day, as well as the evening before the fair,
helping to set up booths, carrying and fetching, happy just to be of
service to Will and Missy Ben.
Holding the clipboard that had once been Will’s responsibility,
Sarah looked around her at the people gathered on the fair grounds.
Many greeted her with a nod or a cheery, “Good day, Mrs. Fielding,”
or, from the less reserved ones, “Hi there, Sarah, how’s it going?”
Was it her imagination or were there actually more people than
there had been last year? She saw Mrs. Thompson leading little David
McNeill by the hand, and walked over to them.
“I see you have your hands full for the day,” Sarah said, bending
to give David a hug.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

The Circle

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Excerpt

…back for a while; his thoughts travel to his good, old friend in Baghdad. Ibrahim has
done well with this young man; he has brought him up the right way. It’s no wonder
the old man is so proud of Hakim. It’s no wonder that he sees him as a real son; he
even calls him his son. He gets the check and goes out to find a taxi to take him to the
Sheraton. The rest of this weekend is going to be smooth and pleasant for Bevan
Longhorn.He may even sleep in peace tonight since he knows everything is coming
together nicely for his exit strategy. His plan is unfolding like clear spring water
running slowly down to freshen up the roots of the delicate vegetables and flowers.

Monday has gone by slowly but steadily, as if time learned to go by unnoticed,
like a well-tuned machine with gears grasping everyone in between them,
stretching and pulling to the point of being ready to snap. Hakim and Jennifer
spent their Monday getting ready for their move. She took the day off and did the
packing of things one does last; Hakim also stayed home and together they organized
the details of the actual move. Today, Talal has come to help them. He’s the
one who’ll get the rental truck. Emily is there as well, doing what is necessary to
help Jennifer with the kitchen items, since men do not always do things the best
way in a woman’s eyes when it comes to the kitchen.
Ahmed has gone with Talal to get the truck.
“I’ll get the stuff tomorrow,” Ahmed says.
“You got it, already?” asks Hakim.
“No but it’s ready; it’s just a matter of going for it.”
“Alright, now be careful. Who are these guys?”
“Leave that to me. Don’t worry about who they are or why they are doing
this; leave that to me.”
They get the truck and Talal drives it back to Hakim’s apartment. They start
putting things in one by one and Jennifer and Emily tell them where to position
them in the truck. It takes about an hour and they are ready to go to Emily’s for
the rest of the things. Once they finish there, they drive to the new place and
move everything upstairs. One elevator has been reserved for them and that
makes work a lot easier. By two in the afternoon, they are done; the only thing
left to do is to put together the bed and put away the kitchen things, while Talal
and Ahmed return the truck to the rental company.
When all that is done and Talal comes back with Ahmed, Hakim orders a
couple of pizzas and they sit around and enjoy the food. The weather had given
them a break with sunny periods throughout the day, and while it’s late in the
afternoon, there is still plenty of brightness, and one can see the beauty of the
view to the west toward the Pacific Ocean.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

In Turbulent Times

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Excerpt

Harry leaned forward, simultaneously closing the open drawer in which his Tarzan book was hidden. ‘I will, Mr Anderson,’ he said. ‘Oh, Jefferson’s just called to say the copper piping’s on its way.’
‘Good. Lock up before you leave, Harry. And don’t forget the keys tomorrow.’
Ian left the office, rushed down the stairs, brushed past a boy with a grey Belfast Telegraph bag of newspapers in the hall and walked quickly round the corner to where his car was parked.
Crazy fool, he chastised himself. What a stupid, cock-eyed, half-baked, wild idea.
He cursed his cock-eyed, half-baked, wild idea all the way to Lisburn. But he did not stop nor turn around. He swung his car with violence round the endless bends of the narrow road heading south from Lisburn. Stone walls, hedgerows, fields and gloomy woods, small, reedy lakes and low, elongated hills blurred past. Occasionally he turned his head to view a farmhouse that he fancied, then jerked his eyes back to the drunken road, and swung the white-clenched steering wheel in fury, like a ship’s skipper in a storm.
Take care, Ian Anderson. You have to get to Carraghlin in one piece.
He stopped the car at a crossroads garage to take in a couple of gallons of his precious petrol ration, still in force two years after the end of the war, courtesy of the Minister of Fuel and Power. Then off again with a bound like a horse from an unbolted stable: up the long hill and down again, up and down, up and down, leaping over the rolling, rollicking, rock-littered countryside. Cresting the last hill, the sudden view of the distant Drumard hills struck him like a pie hurled in his face. At Tranaliskeen he saw the sea and the long, white line of a lapping wave. A few minutes later he pulled up outside the Seaview Restaurant in Carraghlin. He stared at the gloomy overhang of high hills, at the hunched shoulders and brooding presence of Slieve Corragh that overshadowed the town like the giant that threatened the village in fairy tales.
Ian entered the restaurant, ordered a mixed grill, and unfolded the morning’s Newsletter. Restaurants were exempt from rationing, which inflated resentment against the rich, who could augment their food allowance by eating out frequently and extravagantly. To restrict this resentment, certain rules had been instituted, such as no meal could cost more than five shillings or consist of more than three courses.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Jazz with Ella

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Finally the plane broke through the cloud banks, the turbulence vanished and the sight below pushed all thoughts of adolescent students out of Jennifer’s head. She was flying over the birch forests and ragged patchwork fields of the mighty Soviet Union. She gazed eagerly. An image formed easily in her imagination: two young women—her mother and her aunt—thin and desperate, still grieving the loss of their parents, tramping across this very landscape in 1945 following the path of the victorious troop convoys. How far had they walked to the Polish border? It must have been a wearying journey for the two refugees…
Suddenly a wedge of apartment blocks appeared on the horizon signalling the suburbs of modern Moscow. The plane circled once, the wing dipping to reveal wide straight highways, clusters of huts amid evergreen trees, and finally, the runways of Moscow’s Sheremetyev Airport.
“Hallelujah, we’re really here!” Paul exclaimed. Eve and Dawn giggled. David opened his eyes. A wave of relief flooded the passengers as the plane bumped to a halt. Applause broke out. One stewardess allowed herself a thin-lipped smile while the other busied herself in the galley.
The thunderstorm’s humidity hit them the moment the cabin door opened. The summer air was moist and the black clouds still rolled overhead, but for the group from Canada, now shuffling down the steps to the tarmac, no amount of bad weather could destroy this imperial moment. For some, such as Maria, it was a return to the land her parents spoke of, though not always fondly. For others, Jennifer included, it was their first glimpse of a powerful myth. She had never understood Winston Churchill’s quote about Russia—”a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”—and suspected it was hyperbole, but as she stepped from the plane onto Soviet soil, she shivered. Churchill had met Stalin. He should know.
What was this country all about? She had first come to know it through the literature of long dead authors, Pushkin and Dostoevsky, considered dissidents in their time. Lately she had come to understand its dark underside through the secret writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, banned in the USSR, published in the west. Yet she had also studied its most glorious moments in the ecstatic language of its revolutionaries. Despite the ordeal of the landing, she felt eager, charged, ready to go everywhere, to see it all.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

He Rode Tall

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Excerpt

Sun-bleached and weather-worn grave markers of varying
dimensions dotted the plot. What the graves all shared, with the
exception of one, was that the prairie had overtaken them. The
old man’s grave, the only fresh grave, was already starting to be
blanketed by grass. The first thing Joel noticed was that there
wasn’t a marker for the old man’s plot so he made a mental note
that he would eventually get around to doing something about
that. But there was no rush. It was too late for any acts of kindness.
Much too late.
Even though Joel felt the way he did about the old man, essentially
being emotionally abandoned at such an early age, he still
found himself dropping to a knee at the side of the tiny grave on the
knoll in the middle of nowhere and saying a quiet prayer. It was at
this point, still full of bitterness and hatred for everything that the
old man had put his mother and himself through, that Joel recognized
that your dad is always your dad. No matter what.
Walking over to the horse, picking up the long thick leather
reins from the ground, and mounting the orange gelding, Joel
slowly turned the horse and headed back to the ranch yard. Drifting
along the ridges of the hills, the horse started to perk up as
they got closer to home and even broke into a bit of a trot which
Joel mastered by desperately hanging onto the saddle horn. Joel
thought that they probably would have broken into a canter if he
hadn’t reined the gelding back to a fast walk. Joel had always been
a good horseman as a boy, but that was a lot of years ago. He wasn’t
about to test his equestrian competency the first morning
back on the ranch. As they climbed the final hill and started to
drift down the coulee into the ranch yard, Joel was surprised to
smell the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the scent of bacon
from the forlorn-looking little ranch house below.
Looking down from the top of the knoll into the coulee below,
Joel could clearly see everything that was the homestead. The
buildings stood pretty much the way they did when he left that…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562862

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Ken Kirkby: A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

There is no such thing as old hat when it comes to this. It’s like it all happens
for the first time each time. It grew more and more intense. We lay
there on the ground and I don’t know how long we lay there. The shafts of
light rippled up in an arc all around us, and they came to a centre point
directly above us and that point was a black hole. All the rest was light, and
the colours were showering down – purple, gold, green, blue, red. The words
don’t work. It was as if we were laying on the floor of a cathedral the size of
the universe. The earth was no longer an issue – we weren’t even part of the
planet. I can see how religions began. It was stuff like this – it undoes one.
All the rational explanations we have for this are nonsense. They just don’t
work. You have to find a bigger answer. This is too big, too beautiful, and too
mysterious.
Something holy descended on their souls. Ken felt as though they had
had a direct experience of God and the magic of that night clung to them
during those ten days in the Thelon.
The Thelon was like no other place on earth. When the glaciers had
retreated they had left behind a vast amount of chirt, a very dense stone
that had formed into eskers or low humpbacked hills from forty to a
hundred and fifty feet high. The stone was so dense the permafrost could
not penetrate it and as a result the vegetation that grew there, born from
seeds carried by migrating birds, was that of a more southern landscape.
But because of the severe winters and punishing winds, it was a landscape
in miniature. Trees that might grow to a hundred feet in the south grew to
only a couple of feet here, but they were flawlessly formed. At the base of
each esker was a perfectly round small lake, so thick with Arctic grayling
you could almost reach your hand into the water and pull one out.
When they got back Ken promised himself that this time he wouldn’t
leave on another trip until he had finished the painting. He locked himself
in his studio and from October 1990 to May 1991. He emerged only
long enough to eat and sleep.
The epic project neared completion. Elaine suggested a decorous and
dignified gathering to commemorate the event. Ken and the word “decorous”
were obviously never meant to meet. He insisted on a “last brushstroke”
party that would be more extravagant than his “first brushstroke”
event ten years earlier. Decorum in his studio? A studio that had a sign at
the entrance identifying it as “The Zoo?” Karen had even presented him
with a road sign he had admired in Yellowknife: Ragged Ass Road and
Lois Lane.
Ken had actually tried to steal the sign more than once, but each time
he had attempted it, someone had gotten to it before him and taken off
with it. He guessed that the City of Yellowknife works department likely
had a full time employee doing nothing but erecting a new road sign at…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

The Circle

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Excerpt

Bevan Longhorn dresses in casual clothes and goes down to the lobby of the
Sheraton Hotel. It’s Sunday morning and the lobby is filled with people coming
and going. Bevan has stayed here before, and this time, although he has only
been here for one night, intends to make the best of it. He has arranged his
departure for the evening with American Airlines and is to arrive in Washington
sometime before midnight, giving him enough time to relax and get to his office
Monday morning. On the other hand, if he feels tired the next morning he can
always skip work for a day; the agency will survive without him.
What presses on his mind today is making sure he can put his hands on what he
needs to proceed with his plan of exit, as he calls it. These two young men better have
thought of everything; he doesn’t have the time to pussyfoot. However, he has faith
in the old man, whom he has always trusted to deliver what is necessary.
He walks into the hotel restaurant and orders his breakfast. He opens the
morning paper and reads the headlines; the same stuff again and again. His breakfast
comes and he tries to enjoy it, despite the headlines and his thoughts. What happens
if the two young men cannot get what he needs? A shiver travels down his spine like
a thunderbolt as this thought sinks deep in his mind, and he squirms out of fear that
all his mental preparation for this last mission might be in vain.
He overhears two couples next to him talking about the Oscars scheduled
for sometime in March. They seem to be very absorbed in what they are
discussing; he hears one of the men supporting one actor over the others, and
the other three people seem to agree, as Bevan doesn’t hear any objection to the
first person’s remarks.
His thoughts take him away again to his plan of action, and he glances at his
watch; it is only 10:30 a.m. He’s so anxious about his plan that he cannot wait to
meet Hakim at Earl’s and get answers. Ibrahim’s nephew had better have good
news for him, or else. What can he do if they cannot get it?
He finishes his breakfast, pays his check and goes for a walk around the hotel
grounds with the manicured lawns and the pretty shrubs and flowers
everywhere. He needs to clear his mind and the crisp morning air will help. He
also needs to stretch his legs.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

The Unquiet Land

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Excerpt

…his training at the seminary, his acceptance by the Church. Obviously His Holiness did not know the full story of this dark man from the mountains of Drumard or wherever it was he came from in the first place. Obviously His Holiness did not know from whom this same man received his education: from pagans and harlots. To have sent back to them this man from the shadow side of time and place, to have ordained him as their own new priest, the old ones regarded as an insult and an outrage. Padraig knew when he returned to the village that few of his flock had accepted him with any willingness and far less with trust. But he had proved himself in only a short time. Now all was lost. Their old suspicions had returned. They remembered. They talked. They retold stories. Some no doubt had seen him shudder or shake or stiffen or stumble and fall. They knew that Satan had come back for him. They knew that his celebration of the Mass was a sacrilege. They were affronted. Their gaze burned like hell-fire. Even the young spurned him; they spat at his passing in the street. When he stood at the altar, holding aloft the Host in celebration of the Eucharist, Padraig could feel their conspiratorial sneaking-forward down the hushed nave of the church, their long knives drawn, their white teeth gleaming like the fangs of wolves, their wild hearts pounding with the urgent wish to kill him.
Padraig no longer had his arm in a sling, but the cuts and bruises on his face had not yet completely healed, though the earlier discoloration was fading. He strode across the stone floor of the sacristy and stopped at the door, his hand outstretched but unwilling to lift the wrought-iron latch. His head ached. Satan thumped the insides of his temples, punched the backs of his eyes, drummed loudly in the whorled cavities of his ears. Padraig opened the heavy, dark door, and his arm jerked with pain. He looked out into the church. In less than two hours he must face the hostile crowd that would come to the wedding of Caitlin MacLir and Michael Carrick. The church was empty yet, except for two young altar boys who were talking earnestly in the front pew.
“Stephen,” Padraig called, steadying himself against the door post. “Stephen, come here a minute.” His voice boomed like explosions in his head.
One of the altar boys, one of Joe Carney’s sons, came forward, unsurely as the young Samuel. “Yes, Father?”
“Stephen, do you have your bicycle outside?”
“I do, Father.” The surprise that showed in Stephen’s eyes was a response either to the unexpected question or to the look of black-eyed distraction in the drawn face of the priest.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Wellspring of Love

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excerpt

She’s not a bad person. The kids from church call her fast, whatever
that means, but she’s not what they make it sound like.”
“If you say so. Anyway, you were at her graduation ceremony yesterday.
Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s not the same thing, Ronnie, and you know it. The party
tonight is at her place and it’s just for special friends.”
“Well, you’d just better forget it.” Ronnie picked up his mug and
got to his feet. “I’ve got to get to work. Morley’ll be ready to start the
cutting. And listen, Rachael, give your mom a break and don’t make
things harder for her. She has enough to worry about with Aunt
Millie being sick.”
Rachael’s look changed from one of self-pity to a worried frown.
She stood up. “Ronnie, do you think … that is … is Aunt Millie going
to make it?”
A cloud passed over his face. “I hope so, I really hope so. But only
God knows that, and all we can do is pray for her.” He put his mug in
the sink, retrieved his cap and went out.
Rachael stood for a minute longer staring at the closed door, then
she went to the phone to call Lyssa.
ͣMorley and Ronald were sitting at the kitchen table when Tyne walked
in a little before nine o’clock that evening. Both men turned quickly
to look at her. The aroma of coffee drew her eyes to the stove where a
pot hissed and bubbled an invitation. Responding to their greeting, she
bent to kiss Morley’s cheek. Sensing his intention as he started to rise,
she murmured, “Don’t get up, honey. I’ll help myself to the coffee.”
“But you look worn out, Sweetheart.”
“And you have been working all day in the fields.” She filled a mug
with coffee and sat down at the table.
Both men spoke at once. “How’s Aunt Millie?”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562917#ebook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763327

Straits and Turns

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Phaedra

…what beautiful mound hidden under that skimpy bathing suit she
wore, the Muse of my day with her flowing brunette hair, her balanced
curves, her excellent sized breasts, her exquisite buttocks which she
moved in an erotic way unparalleled to any I had ever seen and trust me
I’ve seen many, far too many to know the beauty from the average and
even more so from the unworthy of my glance and this ethereal beauty
walked as if floating over the smooth sand just as my dream of touching
those exquisite curves brought me to heavens. Indeed, the ancient
Muses were there interacting and playing with her, and I couldn’t see
any difference between today’s earthly Muse and the Ancient ones,
and here she was turned towards me when, suddenly, our glances met.
She sensed that, behind my sunglasses, my eyes were fixated on her
ethereal saunter, and she remained focused on me for more than ten
seconds: the first acknowledgement.
Yes, I was looking at her, and she knew it, and that was enough
for the game of love to be played when she went back to her chair and,
turning it to the sunshine, she lay her calligraphic body onto the multicoloured
towel and gazed at the open water of the quiet and serene
cove. I let myself travel along with her glance. I marvelled at the natural
beauty of the cove with lapping waves and its whooshing breeze,
while I didn’t hesitate to imagine this day’s wonder in the body of the
tourist. In her early thirties she represented the female queen of the
beach, yes, there were others too, some very pretty as well, yet this
one was the special one of who one with exquisite taste, like myself,
could easily get himself loose in the imaginary game two people play
when the chance arises and this were my thoughts when suddenly the
Ammoudara Aphrodite turned her body to her stomach letting the
bright sunshine play with her back, from the top of her head to the
very lustful buttocks and legs of hers, indeed it was that moment that
she stared towards where I was sitting and realizing I was still with her
she fixated her glance towards me. I raised my hand and lowered my
sunglasses a bit, and seeing her from the top of my glasses, I smiled
a full smile at her, to which, to my utter surprise, she also lowered
her sunglasses and stared at me from the top of hers.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866