Tag: Fiction

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Tell him I promise his village won’t be damaged, nor his
fields touched. Tell him.”
Losada dismounted and the others followed suit, but he stopped
them with a gesture of his hand. “Infante, Ávila, Galeas,
Maldonado, Pedro and Rodrigo Ponce, Gregorio de la Parra, with
me. Ten harquebusiers and ten pikemen, come forward as well.
Carlos.”
He snapped his fingers, then turned to me. “Friar Salvador, if you
please, come with me. The rest of you, stay where you are, don’t let
your guard down. It wouldn’t be the first time they welcome and
then betray and kill. Keep an eye on your surroundings. At the first
sign of trouble, Juan Suárez, sound the charge. All of you! Diego de
Paradas will command in my absence. Camacho! You are second.
Good luck and may God be with us.”
“Harquebusiers, check your priming!” yelled Diego de Paradas.
Losada put a hand on the hilt of his sword at his hip, as if to
reassure himself. Behind him, the harquebusiers grabbed their
powder flasks and rammed the charges down the muzzles. A flock
of parrots cawed overhead.
“Take good account of everything, Friar Salvador,” said Losada.
“I have a mind to have you write a record of this expedition.”
Recording the expedition would be considered a great honour and a
great responsibility. I nodded. But I knew immediately it would be
impossible to record the truth.
I admired the orderly arrangement of the village. The streets were
smooth under my feet, the houses skilfully made. Earthen pots
steamed over the embers of fires; hammocks were neatly
distributed; baskets and heads of plantain hung from the wooden
structures. Strings of yarn were stretched over primitive looms. On
the sloping thatched roofs, dozens of round cassava cakes dried in
the sun. Human and animal skulls and bones hanging among the
baskets and plantains reminded me of macabre tales of cannibalism.
The Indians stepped aside as we entered the village. They stared
at my feet and then at the rest of me, for I was the only barefooted
Spaniard, let alone one wearing a frock.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Water in the Wilderness

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

for a long, long time but she had heard her mom say that if he got upset about something, he was sure to wet during the night. She hoped and hoped he wouldn’t do that tonight. What was it Uncle Morley and Auntie Tyne said if something was bothering them? Oh yes, they always said, “Let’s pray about it.”
Rachael had forgotten most of the praying words she had heard them say, but it still sounded like a good idea to talk to God about Bobby. Quietly, she moved her hands so that the palms were together. “God, don’t let my brother wet the bed tonight,” she whispered. “He’s so small and afraid. And please, God, don’t let them send us to an orphanage. Make Daddy come for us soon.” She started to move her hands apart but then realized she had forgotten something. “And, oh yes – Amen.”
The house had gone quiet, so she eased herself from the bed and, in the faint glow from the street lamp on the corner, she made her way carefully across the room to the closed door. In the hallway, she tiptoed towards the bathroom, but stopped abruptly when she heard the baby whimper. Rachael waited, but Maybelle must have only been fussing in her sleep because, once more, the house was silent. She just hoped she wouldn’t rouse anyone when she flushed the toilet.
On her way back to bed, Rachael was a little less cautious. Apart from her uncle’s snoring, she heard nothing until she had almost reached her bedroom door. Then she stopped short as a sound from the boys’ bedroom across the hall caught her ears.
Crying. Someone in the boys’ bedroom was crying. Bobby!
Without even a second thought, Rachael pushed the door open and started towards the child’s cot near the far wall. She stared when she saw him, still fully dressed, lying quietly with gentle little snores coming from his slightly open mouth. She stood still and listened.
“What are you doing in here, Rachael?”
She swung around, every nerve tense, her heart pounding. Ronnie lay on his side, his head propped on his bent elbow. Even in the dim light she could see his swollen eyes and traces of tears on his lean cheeks.
“I … I thought Bobby was crying,” she whispered.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Circle

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

and then when they retire, most often they collapse from the stress of the
years they spent at work and away from home, like Matthew. What have you
been doing all your life, sweet Emily? What have you been doing for Emily? You
said the other day that you would like to get into underwater photography. How
are you going to do that being married to a man who has no time for his wife, let
alone for what his wife likes to do?”
Emily looks at him, but is at a loss for words. She knows he’s right, although
she’s afraid to admit that even to herself. The world is a scary place without
money, she knows. She also knows Matthew and Emily hardly make it on his
salary.
“It’s scary to think of being out there without the means to survive, sweet
Talal,” she utters, as if to convince herself that that is the most important thing at
this time.
“Yes, I agree. But what will you do to survive is the question, my sweet Emily.
Do you sell out what counts for the security of having money? This is a call we all
have to make.”
“That’s right, my love, do you sell out what counts?” she asks, instead of
answering his question.
He smiles brightly at her as if trying to see into her very soul and says, “No, sweet
Emily, you never sell out, no matter what. Because if you do, how can you face
yourself in themirror and say you have been true to yourself; I have been true to my
integrity, I haven’t sold out. That is what counts in life and that’s the reason I would
never sell out.”
“Perhaps you are right. But it’s different for a man than for a woman.” She
points out.
“No, my love, there is no difference. It’s only a matter of personal belief, a
matter of effort, a matter of achievement, a matter of commitment, that’s all!”
She lays her head on his shoulder and says nothing more, as if listening to the
gap between two words or two breaths, or two of her heartbeats that sound like
the song of a woman in love with this Iraqi man with the sweet voice and the sad
eyes. He’s very pleased that he has made her aware of Matthew’s work, because
he knows that, later, all this will sink in and the result is going to be exactly what
he wants. Talal sits listening to the song of the wind through the small park
where they sit, a song that unfolds slowly and methodically like a majestic eagle
spreading its wings to the heights of the sky.
They begin walking once more, holding hands and observing nature all
around them. They see the bright colors of the trees and flowers, and the shining,
splashing water of the pond where the sun’s rays reflect like crystals. They come
to a smaller pond filled with ducks making all kinds of sounds

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

Swamped

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Eteo’s thoughts took him back and forth between this pleasant
Vancouver afternoon with its sea whispers and almost imperceptible
sounds of the people around him and the lonely days of his childhood
when his father was far away and he and his brother struggled
to understand why. He was on the way back to his car when Logan
called to ask whether he should dispose of all the shares of the underperforming
real estate company that another client, Tom Batsas,
had in his account and switch Tom to Platinum Properties or keep
some of the real estate shares and buy Tom just a few of the new company.
Eteo advised him to tell Tom to sell all the underperforming
shares and put all the funds into the new company, which would give
Tom a good chance of making something out of this one.
When he had almost reached his car, Eteo spotted Frankie again.
This time the promoter was with two other people, Sandra Wilson, a
well-known Hollywood actress, and a young man he did not recognize.
Frankie gestured for Eteo to join them and introduced him to
the actress, whom Eteo had already recognized, and the young man,
who was introduced as Ricardo. As they shook hands, Frankie told
his companions that Eteo was an investor and a good supporter of
Lionsgate Entertainment.The others responded politely, but what impressed
Eteo most were the simple manners of the famous actress.
She spoke to Eteo as if she had known him all her life, as did Ricardo,
even though the encounter was brief and they only exchanged the
usual pleasantries.
All the same the encounter made Eteo want to find out more
about Frankie’s new venture into the realm of Hollywood and of actors
and actresses who were paid at the level of Sandra Wilson. He
knew she was one of the most highly paid actresses in the world. Perhaps
it would be a good idea to invest some of his clients’ money in
this new company, but he hesitated. He was unfamiliar with the industry.
Recommending Lionsgate Entertainment would be taking a
chance unless he delved into the details, especially the earnings potential
and success rates of such ventures. Of course, he knew very
well that every time someone put money in a company it wasn’t …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Poodie James

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

His mother’s elderly cousin and his wife were
the last in the succession of foster parents. They resigned themselves
to raising the boy in their drafty little house at the water’s
edge. Then illness sent the old man to his bed. In a panic, his wife
arranged for Peter to enter the state school for the deaf, a collection
of brick buildings in the fog on a bluff at the edge of a forest of
dripping firs and sodden undergrowth. In seven years at the school,
Poodie learned to read lips and use sign language. He studied
Latin and French and spent hours each week in the library. He
learned shoe repair, leather working, carpentry and printing. He
swam on the school’s team, stroking endless laps up and down the
big pool in the natatorium. He was one of the happiest children
ever to have lived at the school, and one of the most independent,
so hard-headed that he countered all efforts to channel him into a
vocation. Other students went off to jobs in shoe shops, apprenticed
themselves to carpenters, found work with printers. After he
was graduated, Poodie used part of his stipend to buy a ticket east
to the dry side of the state, fleeing the drizzle and mist. The train
came out of the mountains into the valley lying in the spring sun
under apple blossoms as under a snowfall. The river ran broad and
gleaming past the town. He turned to the other passengers,
laughing and pointing out the window.
“He must be home,” he saw a woman say.
“Home,” he repeated, the only word they could understand in
his stream of sounds as he got off at the depot. He walked around
the town with his canvas suitcase, smiling at everyone he met.
Home, he thought, home.
Poodie slept on a bench in the depot. After three nights, the station
master gave him a note. He would have to stay somewhere
else, it wasn’t a hotel. Struggling through the scrawl of Poodie’s
reply, the station master saw that he had nowhere to go and only a
little money for food. “Home now,” the note said. “This is my place
now,” it said, and “Need work.”
“Ruthie,” the station master’s brother said to his wife that evening,
“that young fella out there is Poodie James.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Savages and Beasts

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

They walked back into the emergency waiting room.
Nothing was different in there. They walked into the hallway
and reached the area where Dylan was kept. The attending nurse
told them to stay only for a few minutes since the patient was
due for a few tests. They nodded their understanding. Dylan was
breathing a bit easier since they had hooked him on an oxygen
tube. Upon seeing them he smiled.
“They’ll do a few tests soon, and then I’ll go back home,”
he mentioned.
“We’ll wait to see the results of the tests,” Anton said.
A few minutes later the nurse came back and told them to
leave. They walked out to the grounds again. They found a bench
where they sat. A multitude of birds were flying from tree to tree
from branch to branch making their presence known with their
fluttering and with their chirping.
Time passed with the bird chirps and the flying from
branch to branch, Anton and Mary enjoyed their morning as
they sat for a while, chit-chatted for a while, walked around for
a while, until an hour later they went inside to check on the old
man. He wasn’t in his partition, obviously having a test. They
walked to the waiting room again. Mary used the public telephone
and informed Sister Gladys about the progress they had
made up to that time. She told her that soon as they’d know the
results from the test she will inform Sister Gladys and then they’ll
return to the School. Sister Gladys understood and said there was
no rush for them to return before they would be informed about
the issues pertaining to Dylan.
One hour later the doctor came to the reception area and
called them.
“Based on your description of his symptoms, his own narrative
we suspected a heart attack in fact his oxygen level

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

While he studied, he periodically found himself distracted by the
thought of the one art gallery in Vancouver he had not approached with
his paintings – the Alex Fraser Gallery. Stories of Alex Fraser, and his
treatment of artists in his London and Vancouver galleries, had circulated
through the art community for years. Ken was angry with himself. He
was rarely afraid of anyone and had met no one in Canada yet who had
intimidated him. Alex Fraser’s reputation did.
He had heard that the man was irascible – so what? He had heard he
was powerful. Was it in his power to judge his work? What if he found it
wanting?
The only thing worse than his fear was the prospect of his disappointment
in himself if he refused to face it, so one day he screwed up his
courage, loaded his truck with paintings, and drove to 41st Avenue near
Boulevard in Kerrisdale.
He walked into the gallery, where an attractive middle-aged woman
asked if she could help him.
“Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Fraser if he’s about.”
“Mr. Fraser doesn’t see people without an appointment.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m here and I have some paintings. Please, can
you ask if he’ll see me?”
She smiled and walked into a back room. A few minutes later, a small
man with slicked-back hair and icy, blue-green eyes walked out. He was
dressed in a perfectly fitted gray pinstriped suit, with knife pleats in the
trousers and shoes that shone like mirrors.
Exhaling a great puff of smoke, he lowered himself into a big armchair,
and placed two packages of Players unfiltered cigarettes and an ashtray
on the little gate-legged table beside it. Taking a fresh cigarette from one
of the packages, he lit it from the one in his yellowed fingers, and crushed
the stub in the ashtray.
Turning to the woman who had followed him out of the back room he
called, “Doreen! Doreen, I want you to tell the young man about manners.
Ask him does he understand the meaning of manners?”
“Mr. Fraser would like to know if you understand the meaning of manners,”
she said, turning to Ken.
“Indeed I do,” Ken said. “And I apologize for coming in without an appointment
but I was nervous and I managed to screw up all my courage
to come in – and here I am.”
“Doreen! Doreen, tell him he is quite right to be nervous in approaching
me. Ask him what it is that he wants.”
“I have some paintings and would like to show them to Mr. Fraser.”
“Tell the young man that I can’t bloody see his paintings, anywhere.
Where are his paintings?”

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

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

He needed to dismantle the walls that kept others out. He
needed to use words to heal rather than hurt. If he was able to
accomplish these three objectives the new Joel Hooper would
appear, he thought; or, maybe the real Joel Hooper would surface
for the first time. Whatever it was, it would be quite a
transformation.
After a light lunch and some very thorough horse grooming,
Tanya and Joel saddled up their mounts and led them to the
warm-up arena. Over the last few months, Joel had been
reminded that saddling up was much more than simply throwing
a saddle on the back of the horse. First, Joel brushed the buckskin.
For the show, Tanya had told him to pay special attention
to brushing the gorgeous black mane and tail of the buckskin
gelding. Then, he placed a riding pad on the horse’s backs, and
over that, a show blanket. It was only then that the saddle was
placed on the horse’s back. Next came the boots, not Joel’s but
the horse’s. First, Joel placed the bell boots on the front feet of the
horse to protect the coronary band, just above the hoof. Then he
added the splint boots above each of the bell boots. Splints boots
were intended to protect the area between the knee and the
ankle. Moving to the rear of the gelding, Joel fastened the skid
boots to protect the horse’s fetlocks from burning as they come in
contact with the ground during the sliding stops. It was only once
that the pads, blankets, boots, and saddles were in place that Joel
loosened the halter and gently positioned the bit in the buckskin’s
mouth and quietly moved the bridle into position.
Joel had been wearing his spurs for most of the morning. He
had come to love the sound of the rowels jingling as he walked.
Despite his early years on the ranch, Joel had adopted an urban
attitude toward spurs, seeing them as something that was harsh
and unnecessary. It was once he had returned to the ranch and
worked the horses with Harry that he quickly came around to the
reality that spurs weren’t the weapons as others had seen them.
Rather than weapons, the spurs were tools, and the last thing he
would want to do was aggressively spur a horse.

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

Still Waters

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Tyne held her hand and coached her to breathe through the spasm.
Before the contraction was over, the student returned with a middle-
aged nurse Tyne recognized from her time on Obstetrics. Miss
McMurtry immediately took charge. She lifted Jeannette’s gown and
gently placed the fetascope on her protruding abdomen. No one
spoke or moved while she listened intently to the baby’s heartbeat.
When Miss McMurtry raised her head, Tyne detected a glimmer
of concern in her eyes. Jeannette must have sensed something, too.
“Is my baby all right, Nurse?” She gripped Tyne’s hand. “I want my
husband. Oh, Tyne, can’t you get him? Where’s Dr. Kendall, Nurse?
Is he here?” The words tumbled out of the distraught young woman,
her eyes darting back and forth between the three nurses in the room.
With her free hand, Tyne stroked Jeannette’s forehead. The skin
felt hot and feverish. She tried to keep her own voice calm, but her
heart was thudding in her throat. “It’s all right, Jeannette, it’s all right.
I’ll go see if Guy is on his way. You’re in good hands.” She glanced at
Miss McMurtry and could tell from the expression on her face that
something was wrong.
“Dr. Kendall is on his way, Mrs. Aubert. He’ll be here any minute.”
Miss McMurtry nodded to the student, who began moving the bedside
table and chair out of the way. “We’re just going to wheel you
into the delivery room. It won’t be long now, dear.”
Tyne gently freed her hand from Jeannette’s grasp, and watched as
the two nurses moved the bed towards the door that led into the case
room. She took the opportunity to slip out to the nurses’ station.
After ascertaining that Guy Aubert had been notified that his wife
was in labour and almost ready to deliver, Tyne spoke privately to
the head nurse to obtain her permission to be with Jeannette in the
delivery room.
“Yes, Miss Milligan, I’ll give you permission to stay with your
friend because I understand you are now a graduate. Congratulations.”
The young, attractive head nurse smiled at her.
“Thank you, Mrs. McLean.” As she turned to leave the desk, she
noticed someone walking towards her. A young woman, so much
like Jeannette Aubert that they could be taken for twins, approached
timidly.
“Excuse me; I overheard someone call you Miss Milligan. Are you
Tyne?”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

The Circle

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

same job that has bought his life out. When he sits in his office he feels like
another piece of furniture or even like the cheap print on the wall. All this for a
salary that keeps him and his family fed, but has kept him forever hungry for all
the other things in life which he has missed out on.
He has lived this life for thirty years of five days everyweek in the same office and
the same crummy hotel room. His life is like a wound up machine, well-oiled,
well-serviced to do as expected of him; a machine that uses little energy and that
produces a bit of something for the people above. Five days aweek away from home
and two days at home with Emily and his daughter Jennifer, who has grown up
without a dad and Emily, with a husband on call, with a life in pieces, in increments,
like an eyedropper giving a drop here and a drop there, enough to keep one seeing
something of life, but not enjoying a real life.
Many a time he has wished for a different job, a different life closer to his
family, but it’s too late now, too late for change. Retirement is coming soon and
he looks forward to that.
He gets ready monotonously, like a robot doing things as if wound up, like a
wound-up little man that kids play with, with his brand new batteries every day,
the same routine, every day the same sequence from getting up in the morning to
going to bed late at night. The TV, his opium, there to keep him company; the
TV close by, but his wife and daughter and everything else a human being likes to
have close, always far away.
In his office he doesn’t even say good morning to the receptionist, who has
been his smile-of-the-day kind of a person. She’s surprised when he doesn’t talk
to her on his way by. She knows something heavy sits on his heart; she has
noticed over the last few years that this man is just an automaton and the softness
of his heart—the heart she remembers from the first days she met him—is just
not there anymore. What a job can do to a person is amazing, but it isn’t her
place to ask him about it or to do anything about it. She knows that’s where his
wife comes in—when a man has something heavy in his heart. Dorothy also
knows she isn’t his wife, so she let his wife worry about it. But does his wife care
to know what sits heavily in her husband’s heart? Dorothy has never met Mrs.
Roberts.
It’s about nine o’clock, the usual time he dials the number to reach home.
“Hello there, honey,” he says, when Emily answers the phone.
“Hi Matthew. How are you, today?” A question asked for the millionth time,
and here comes the answer, repeated for the millionth time.
“I’m okay; how are things at home?”
“Everything is the same,” deep in Emily’s heart, she wishes things could be
different for a change.

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