Writing a book in 365 days

Day 17

Today’s topic is Words of Wisdom.

Can you find the words to describe what you think fiction means to you? Or even what it is for a particular novel?

One opinion, Russian, is that it’s aesthetic bliss. To me, most works by Russian writers tend to go on and on and on. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a case in point. I grant you that if you can sit through the novel, which is very good, your opinion might be a little different. Not so much Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and some of his works.

In my younger days of reading when a large book never fazed me, a thousand plus pages (And Quietly Flows The Don – War and Peace) to a few hundred (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) to mid-range five hundred pages (Doctor Zhivago) they all could tend to be tedious, though I have to say Doctor Zhivago as a book was fascinating, the film by David Lean, captivating, and the stage play, boring beyond words.

That is to say once you for past the Russians, there were British authors like Charles Dickens who could get up to that magic number of pages, and whose works could reach that lofty thousand. They were however perhaps more interesting, and most having been made into mini series for television, far more interesting as a spectacle than in reading the book.

And, of course, there is Jane Austen. Need I say more.

But there are times when you pick up a book and start reading the first page, and then stop. It tells a budding author that on the one hand it’s not going to be your genre, and on the other, that the opinion of the book is in the eye of the beholder.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 18

As we all know, writing by the seat of your pants is almost the same as flying by the seat of your pants, a hazardous occupation.

As it happens, I like writing this way because like the reader, I don’t know what to expect next.

And equally, at times, you can write your self into a corner, much like painting, and then have to go back, make a few changes and//or repairs and then move forward.

It’s part of the writing process, only in this case, the changes occur before you’ve finished the novel, if you finish.  Quite often a lot of writers get only so far, then the manuscript hits the bottom drawer, to be brought out on a distant rainy day.

Or your cat has mocked your writing ability one too many times.

Therefore, we’re winding back to Episode 16, and moving forward once again, from there.  This is episode 18 revised…

Ever had the heart-stopping feeling when you’re in the wrong place, and someone has interrupted you?  Especially if you shouldn’t be there, or that you have no right to be there.

I stood quietly on the inside of the door and hoped whoever the visitor was would go away.  No answer meant no one was home, didn’t it?

Unless…

I heard a key in the door, and it turn in the lock.

I moved quickly to the other side of the door so I would be shielded when the person came into the room.  Too late to get out, I was of two minds what to do.  Hit the visitor over the head and flee, or ask them what they were doing, before they asked me that same question.

Then nothing.

Until a few seconds later I heard a voice, a man, say, “Jan, you’re back.  How was the visit to Philadelphia?”

I heard the slight rattle of Jan taking her hand off the handle and moving away from the door.  “Sad, as all funerals are.  Now, we are left with the house, and my father’s stuff; a huge collection of mostly junk over a long period of time.  Seems he never threw anything out.”

Jan?  Did she live here, with O’Connell?

“Yes, “I’m a bit like that.”

Another tenant, or the building super?

“I made sure Herman was looked after while you were away.  I don’t think he missed you at all?”

She laughed.  “He’s a cat, Fred.  We belong to them, not the other way around.”

“True.  Your friend has not been in for a week or so.”

“I know.  The last message I got from him, he was in Prague, lucky bastard.  He was going to take me with him, but at the last moment, they changed his itinerary.  Perhaps next time.  I was just going to make sure everything was OK, before going home myself.”

“I could look in if you want?”

“No.  Thanks anyway, but last time I was here I left a jacket behind.  Thanks, Fred.”

A moment later I could hear his footsteps heading away, and Jan moved back to the door, and opened it.

I heard the light switch, and then, suddenly, the room was filled with bright light.

The girl was unassuming, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind her.  Before she could take a step, I put a hand over her mouth and an arm around her neck and started squeezing.

Instinctively she started to struggle and call out for help.

I whispered in her ear, “I mean you no harm, but if you struggle, or yell out, it could turn out very bad for you.”

We had been taught how to subdue people without killing them, but that always didn’t go to plan.  There was that instinct to fight back in everyone, and it was sometimes hard not to apply excessive pressure which could, depending on the severity of resistance, see the target asphyxiated, or end up with a broken neck.

She was still struggling, which mean I had to exert more force.

“Stop fighting me or you will harm yourself,” I said, this time in a more forceful whisper.

It had an immediate effect, but I don’t think it was her obedience that caused it.  I gently lowered her to the floor and felt for a pulse.  Unconscious, not dead.  I sighed in relief.  I took a good long look at her so that I would remember what she looked like.  At some point, I was going to have to talk to her.

Then footsteps outside the door.  What else could go wrong?

Then knocking on the door.  Short and sharp.  Followed by, “Jan, are you in there?”

Fred, whoever he was.  What did he want?”

Another knock on the door, this time more urgent.  Damn.  O’Connell’s flat was like a busy store.

I looked around for an escape now there would be no going out the front door.  Not unless I had to disable another person, and assuming if he was the building super, he would not be a small man, so it would take a greater, and noisier, effort to subdue him.

A fire escape, all buildings usually had one down the side of the building, in case of fire.  I went over and checked the windows and found it.  The window needed a little force to open it, but the sound of a key in the door motivated me.

Out the window, close the window again, I made it down the stairs far enough that when I looked up, no one was following me.

That was close.  Too close.

© Charles Heath 2019-2022

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 13

I came across this photo:

This is like so many roads off in what is known as the Gold Coast hinterland, that tract of land between the ocean and the mountain range that runs along the eastern side of the country, known as the Great Dividing Range.

This is the road that runs behind where friends of ours live, and runs on down into a valley where a river runs, and when the rains come down, floods.

It’s hard to imagine that a few hundred years ago all of this would have been tropical jungle, and intrepid explorers would be making their way north or west, just to see what was there.

I imagine in another 100 years, all of this will be gone, given over to housing, shopping malls, and factories, and anything that resembles country living will have been moved out to far beyond the mountain range and towards the what is called the ‘red’ centre.

Or over that time there is a reckoning with mother nature, and if there is, I know who I’d put my money on.

But, as for a story…

…

It was quite literally the road to nowhere.

You just had to follow it until it disintegrated into a dirt track, and then for another 20 miles before you finished up at a rusty gate attached to a dilapidated fence that surrounds the a house that was cleverly hidden behind a grove of trees, the only place I knew as home. We had no phones, no television or radio, no real contact with the outside world.

Until, one day, my fairy godmother came and rescued me.

Yes, it felt like that.

Little had I realized that there were any other people in our family, and it took until the death of my parents to find out I had grandparents, and a much larger extended family.

There had been, according to my father, no reason to leave. Or for anyone else to come, and the few that ventured to end of the road, found there was nothing to see, and no reason to stay.

For all intents and purposes we didn’t exist, and, oddly, I was content with that.

Until I decided to venture further afield, run into two people, a man and a woman, both of whom said they were related to my father, and ask me to take them back with them to meet my father,

A bad choice, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Not until my father ran them off at the point of the gun he always had with him.

He knew who they were, and it surprised me to see the change in him, from the strong silent type, to a man greatly afraid, though he would not tell me of what.

He just told me to lock myself in my room, and not to come out for anything.

I heard him leave, but not come back.

It took three days before I left that room, to find I was completely alone in the house. Outside, it was a different story. There, half way between the back door and the barn were the two people I’d brought home, both dead. A little further away were my parents, also dead.

And another man, who was leaning over my father.

I stopped when he looked up in my direction.

“You must be Jake.”

How did he know my name? I nodded, warily watching him in case I had to run.

He went from body to body, checking to see if they were still alive, then stood and turned around to look at me.

“Do you know what happened?”

“No.”

“Do you know who the other two are?”

I assumed he was referring to the visitors.

“No. The man said he was a relative, asked me to bring them here.”

“How did you…”

Escape? “My father told me to hide and not come out.” If this man was associated with the other two…

Perhaps he saw my trepidation.

“I’m a friend of your father’s, a policeman. You were supposed to be safe here.”

We were, until I brought the harbingers of death. “Not any more,” I said.

…

© Charles Heath 2021

Writing a novel in 365 days

Day 2

We get to write today, 200 words, though the subject is pretty straightforward, it could take me in any direction.

Doesn’t everyone have an aggravating friend?

For a woman, it could be that friend with a heart of gold but an acid tongue, who sometimes doesn’t have any filter.

For a man, the first girl he ever fell madly in love with but it was unrequited, who parked him in the friend zone, well, the outer rim, and not averse to throwing him under the bus.

Been there, and you don’t learn but keep returning for more, hoping one day…

So, let’s run with it.

…

“When will you ever learn?”  Larry slid into the seat next to me with another odd assortment of dishes he would call ‘sampling the wares’.

The cafeteria was abuzz with lunchgoers.  I was sitting in a corner, as far away as anyone I knew, licking my wounds after the latest humiliation.

“She just isn’t worth the effort.  Just look at the fool she has as a boyfriend.”

He was right.  He had always been right, but it was that old adage ‘hope springs eternal’ that kept me going back to the well.

We could both see her and three of her friends flirting with members of the football team. 

He patted me on the back.  “Time to go in a new direction.  Eloise’s cousin is over from San Francisco and Wendy and I are taking her on a tour.  You’re welcome to come with us, and to be honest, I would make a lousy tour guide.”

Perhaps it was time to give up those foolish notions and move on.

“OK.  When?”

“Tomorrow.  We will pick you up at eight.”

If I could have predicted the consequences of that single offhand decision, I would have stayed in bed and wallowed in that sea of self-pity.

…

This story can go in so many different directions.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Searching for locations: The Silk Factory, Suzhou, China

China is renowned for its exquisite silk, so naturally, a visit to the Silk Spinning Factory is part of today’s tour.

After that, we will be heading downtown to an unspecified location where we’re getting a boat ride, walk through a typical Chinese shopping experience, and coffee at a coffee shop that is doubling as the meeting place, after we soak up the local atmosphere.

The problem with that is that if the entire collective trip a deal tourists take this route then the savvy shopkeepers will jack up their prices tenfold because we’re tourists with money.  It’ll be interesting to see how expensive everything is.

So…

Before we reach the silk factory, we are told that Suzhou is the main silk area of China, and we will be visiting a nearly 100 years old, Suzhou No 1 Silk Mill, established in 1926.  Suzhou has a 4,700-year history of making silk products.  It is located at No. 94, Nanmen Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.

Then we arrive at the Silk Factory, another government-owned establishment with a castiron guarantee of quality and satisfaction.

The look and feel of the doona cover certainly backs up that claim

And the colors and variety is amazing (as is the cost of those exquisite sets)

We get to see the silk cocoon stretched beyond imagination, and see how the silk thread is extracted, then off to the showroom for the sales pitch.

It isn’t a hard sell, and the sheets, doonas, pillows, and pillowcases, are reasonably priced, and come with their own suitcase (for free) so you can take them with you, or free shipping, by slow boat, if you prefer not to take the goods with you.

We opt for the second choice, as there’s no room left in our baggage after packing the Chinese Medicine.

Is it a problem to get lost in your make-believe world for a while?

It seems that we can be completely focused on a single task to the detriment of all else, and, when that task is complete, suddenly we feel totally drained.

That’s how I feel right now.

The current year is almost half over…  Where did the time go?

All I have to do is get past the publication of my next two books, take some time away from writing, and then I should be invigorated.  Perhaps COVID will have something to do with it because it will be more of the same, rather than a brave new world, we will be counteracting new surges and variations with resultant isolations, so it will be more of a case of head down, tail up, with nowhere to go, no travel to plan, and not able to go anywhere other than the shops, the doctor or the chemist.

This is despite our fearless leaders telling us that COVID is no longer a problem.  Sadly, for people with compromised immune systems, it is, and we are being thrown under the bus for the sake of getting the economy going again.  What are a few lives for the greater good, eh?

And for computer programmers who never leave their semi-darkened lair, ordering pizza and Coke, it must have been a Godsend.

Given that I prefer to be at home, working on any number of stories, it usually is for me too.

But, have I been working too hard, and it’s finally got to me.  I mean, you can only write so much before the brain starts to fry?

But, at the very least. I have been working on the two novels that needed to be completed, and they are finally there, and other than NaNoWriMo which saw another go through the mill I’m still writing a few pages a night, and another two that I have been working on here and there are now ready for the first edit.

This has all happened to the detriment of my episodic stories, which have lain idle since almost a year ago, but in recent weeks I picked up one or two and wrote two or three more episodes, just to keep it ticking over.  Another has five episodes I hope to publish soon.  The last I’ve finally finished and I am feeling pleased with myself.  My editor has it now.

Something else that pleases me, and is entirely unexpected, is that I have sold a number of copies of my books in the last few months or so.  I know I’m not about to be vying for the top of the bestseller list, but it’s still satisfying.

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

Searching for locations: From Zhengzhou to Suzhou by train, and the Snowy Sea Hotel, Suzhou, China

For the first time on this trip, we encounter problems with Chinese officialdom at the railway station, though we were warned that this might occur.

We had a major problem with the security staff when they pulled everyone over with aerosols and confiscated them. We lost styling mousse, others lost hair spray, and the men, their shaving cream.  But, to her credit, the tour guide did warn us they were stricter here, but her suggestion to be angry they were taking our stuff was probably not the right thing to do.

As with previous train bookings, the Chinese method of placing people in seats didn’t quite manage to keep couples traveling together, together on the train.  It was an odd peculiarity which few of the passengers understood, nor did they conform, swapping seat allocations.

This train ride did not seem the same as the last two and I don’t think we had the same type of high-speed train type that we had for the last two.  The carriages were different, there was only one toilet per carriage, and I don’t think we were going as fast.

But aside from that, we had 753 kilometers to travel with six stops before ours, two of which were very large cities, and then our stop, about four and a half hours later.  With two minutes this time, to get the baggage off the team managed it in 40 seconds, a new record.

After slight disorientation getting off the train, we locate our guide, easily found by looking for the Trip-A-Deal flag.  From there it’s a matter of getting into our respective groups and finding the bus.

As usual, the trip to the hotel was a long one, but we were traveling through a much brighter, and well lit, city.

As for our guide, we have him from now until the end of the tour.  There are no more train rides, we will be taking the bus from city to city until we reach Shanghai.  Good thing then that the bus is brand new, with that new car smell.  Only issue, no USB charging point.

The Snowy Sea hotel.  

It is finally a joy to get a room that is nothing short of great.  It has a bathroom and thus privacy.

Everyone had to go find a supermarket to purchase replacements for the confiscated items.  Luckily there was a huge supermarket just up from the hotel that had everything but the kitchen sink.

But, unlike where we live, the carpark is more of a scooter park!

It is also a small microcosm of Chinese life for the new more capitalistic oriented Chinese.

The next morning we get some idea of the scope of high-density living, though here, the buildings are not 30 stories tall, but still just as impressive.

These look like the medium density houses, but to the right of these are much larger buildings

The remarkable thing about this is those buildings stretch as far as the eye can see.

An excerpt from “Amnesia”, a work in progress

I remembered a bang.

I remembered the car slewing sideways.

I remember another bang, and then it was lights out.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the sky.

Or I could be underwater.

Everything was blurred.

I tried to focus but I couldn’t. My eyes were full of water.

What happened?

Why was I lying down?

Where was I?

I cast my mind back, trying to remember.

It was a blank.

What, when, who, why and where, are questions I should easily be able to answer. These are questions any normal person could answer.

I tried to move. Bad, bad mistake.

I did not realise the scream I heard was my own. Just before my body shut down.

“My God! What happened?”

I could hear, not see. I was moving, lying down, looking up.

I was blind. Everything was black.

“Car accident; hit a tree, sent the passenger flying through the windscreen. Pity to poor bastard didn’t get the message that seat belts save lives.”

Was I that poor bastard?

“Report?” A new voice, male, authoritative.

“Multiple lacerations, broken collar bone, broken arm in three places, both legs broken below the knees, one badly. We are not sure of internal injuries, but ruptured spleen, cracked ribs and pierced right lung are fairly evident, x-rays will confirm that and anything else.”

“What isn’t broken?”

“His neck.”

“Then I would have to say we are looking at the luckiest man on the planet.”

I heard the shuffling of pages.

“OR1 ready?”

“Yes. On standby since we were first advised.”

“Good. Let’s see if we can weave some magic.”

Magic.

It was the first word that popped into my head when I surfaced from the bottom of the lake. That first breath, after holding it for so long, was sublime, and, in reality, agonising.

Magic, because it seemed like I’d spent a long time underwater.

Or somewhere.

I tried to speak but couldn’t. The words were just in my head.

Was it night or was it day?

Was it hot, or was it cold?

Where was I?

Around me, it felt cool.

It was incredibly quiet. No noise except for the hissing of air through an air-conditioning vent. Or that was the sound of pure silence.  And with it the revelation that silence was not silent. It was noisy.

I didn’t try to move.

Instinctively, somehow, I knew not to.

A previous unpleasant experience?

I heard what sounded like a door opening, and noticeably quiet footsteps slowly came into the room. They stopped. I could hear breathing, slightly laboured, a sound I’d heard before.

My grandfather.

He had smoked all his life until he was diagnosed with lung cancer. But for years before that he had emphysema. The person in the room was on their way, down the same path. I could smell the smoke.

I wanted to tell whoever it was the hazards of smoking.

I couldn’t.

I heard a metallic clanging sound from the end of the bed. A moment later the clicking of a pen, then writing.

“You are in a hospital.” A female voice suddenly said. “You’ve been in a bad accident. You cannot talk, or move, all you can do, for the moment, is listen to me. I am a nurse. You have been here for 45 days and just came out of a medically induced coma. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

She had a very soothing voice.

Her fingers stroked the back of my hand.

“Everything is fine.”

Define fine, I thought. I wanted to ask her what ‘fine’ meant.

“Just count backwards from 10.”

Why?

I didn’t reach seven.

Over the next ten days, that voice became my lifeline to sanity. Every morning, I longed to hear it, if only for the few moments she was in the room, those few waking moments when I believed she, and someone else who never spoke, were doing tests. I knew it had to be someone else because I could smell the essence of lavender. My grandmother had worn a similar scent.

It rose above the disinfectant.

She was another doctor, not the one who had been there the day I arrived. Not the one who had used some ‘magic’ and kept me alive.

It was then, in those moments before she put me under again, that I thought, what if I was paralysed? It would explain a lot. A chill went through me.

The next morning, she was back.

“My name is Winifred. We don’t know what your name is, not yet. In a few days, you will be better, and you will be able to ask us questions. You were in an accident, and you were very severely injured, but I can assure you there will be no lasting damage.”

More tests, and then when I expected the lights to go out, they didn’t. Not for a few minutes more. This was how I would be integrated back into the world. A little bit at a time.

The next morning, she came later than usual, and I’d been awake for a few minutes. “You have bandages over your eyes and face. You had bad lacerations to your face, and glass in your eyes. We will know more when the bandages come off in a few days. Your face will take longer to heal. It was necessary to do some plastic surgery.”

Lacerations, glass in my eyes, car accidents, plastic surgery. By logical deduction, I knew I was the poor bastard thrown through the windscreen. It was a fleeting memory from the day I was admitted.

How could that happen?

That was the first of many startling revelations. The second was the fact I could not remember the crash. Equally shocking, in that same moment was the fact I could not remember before the crash either, or only vague memories after.

But the most shattering of all these revelations was the one where I realised, I could not remember my name.

I tried to calm down, sensing a rising panic.

I was just disoriented, I told myself. After 45 days in an induced coma, it had messed with my mind, and it was only a temporary lapse. Yes, that’s what it was, a temporary lapse. I will remember tomorrow. Or the next day.

Sleep was a blessed relief.

The next day I didn’t wake up feeling nauseous. I think they’d lowered the pain medication. I’d heard that morphine could have that effect. Then, how could I know that but not who I am?

Now I knew Winifred the nurse was preparing me for something unbelievably bad. She was upbeat, and soothing, giving me a new piece of information each morning. This morning, “You do not need to be afraid. Everything is going to be fine. The doctor tells me you are going to recover with little scarring. You will need some physiotherapy to recover from your physical injuries, but that’s in the future. We need to let you mend a little bit more before then.”

So, I was not going to be able to leap out of bed and walk out of the hospital any time soon. I don’t suppose I’d ever leapt out of bed, except as a young boy. I suspect I’d sustained a few broken bones. I guess learning to walk again was the least of my problems.

But there was something else. I picked it up in the timbre of her voice, a hesitation, or reluctance. It sent another chill through me.

This time I was left awake for an hour before she returned.

This time sleep was restless.

Scenes were playing in my mind, nothing I recognised, and nothing lasting longer than a glimpse. Me. Others, people I didn’t know. Or I knew them and couldn’t remember them.

Until they disappeared, slowly like the glowing dot in the centre of the computer screen, before finally fading to black.

The morning the bandages were to come off she came in early and woke me. I had another restless night, the images becoming clearer, but nothing recognisable.

“This morning the doctor will be removing the bandages over your eyes. Don’t expect an immediate effect. Your sight may come back quickly, or it may come back slowly, but we believe it will come back.”

I wanted to believe I was not expecting anything, but I was. It was human nature. I did not want to be blind as well as paralysed. I had to have at least one reason to live.

I dozed again until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I could smell the lavender; the other doctor was back. And I knew the hand on my shoulder was Winifred’s. She told me not to be frightened.

I was amazed to realise at that moment, I wasn’t.

I heard the scissors cutting the bandages.

I felt the bandage being removed, and the pressure coming off my eyes. I could feel the pads covering both eyes.

Then a moment when nothing happened.

Then the pads are gently lifted and removed.

Nothing.

I blinked my eyes, once, twice. Nothing.

“Just hold on a moment,” Winifred said. A few seconds later I could feel a cool towel wiping my face, and then gently wiping my eyes. There was ointment or something else in them.

Then a flash. Well, not a flash, but like when a light is turned on and off. A moment later, it was brighter, not the inky blackness of before, but a shade of grey.

She wiped my eyes again.

I blinked a few more times, and then the light returned, and it was like looking through water, at distorted and blurry objects in the distance.

I blinked again, and she wiped my eyes again.

Blurry objects took shape. A face looking down on me, an elderly lady with a kindly face, surely Winifred, who was smiling. And on the opposite side of the bed, the doctor, a Chinese woman of indescribable beauty.

I nodded.

“You can see?”

I nodded again.

“Clearly?”

I nodded.

“Very good. We will just draw the curtains now. We don’t want to overdo it. Tomorrow we will be taking off the bandages on your face. Then, it will be the next milestone. Talking.”

I couldn’t wait.

When morning came, I found myself afraid. Winifred had mentioned scarring, there were bandages on my face. I knew, but wasn’t quite sure how I knew, I wasn’t the most handsome of men before the accident, so this might be an improvement.

I was not sure why I didn’t think it would be the case.

They came at mid-morning, the nurse, Winifred, and the doctor, the exquisite Chinese. She was the distraction, taking my mind off the reality of what I was about to see.

Another doctor came into the room before the bandages were removed, and he was introduced as the plastic surgeon who had ‘repaired’ the ravages of the accident. It had been no easy job, but, with a degree of egotism, he did say he was one of the best in the world.

I found it hard to believe, if he were, that he would be at a small country hospital.

“Now just remember, what you might see now is not how you will look in a few months.”

Warning enough.

The Chinese doctor started removing the bandages. She did it slowly and made sure it did not hurt. My skin was very tender, and I suspect still bruised, either from the accident or the surgery, I didn’t know.

Then it was done.

The plastic surgeon gave his work a thorough examination and seemed pleased with his work. “Coming along nicely,” he said to the other doctor. He issued some instructions on how to manage the skin, nodded to me, and I thanked him before he left.

I noticed Winifred had a mirror in her hand and was reticent in using it. “As I said,” she said noticing me looking at the mirror, “what you see now will not be the result. The doctor said it was going to heal with little scarring. You have been extremely fortunate he was available. Are you ready?”

I nodded.

She showed me.

I tried not to be reviled at the red and purple mess that used to be my face. At a guess, I would have to say he had to put it all back together again, but not knowing what I looked like before, I had no benchmark. All I had was a snippet of memory that told me I was not the tall, dark, and handsome type.

And I still could not talk. There was a reason, he had worked in that area too. Just breathing hurt. I think I would save up anything I had to say for another day. I could not even smile. Or frown. Or grimace.

“We’ll leave you for a while. Everyone needs a little time to get used to the change. I suspect you are not sure if there has been an improvement in last year’s model. Well, time will tell.”

A new face?

I could not remember the old one.

My memory still hadn’t returned.

…

©  Charles Heath  2024

Writing a novel in 365 days – 2

Day 2

We get to write today, 200 words, though the subject is pretty straightforward, it could take me in any direction.

Doesn’t everyone have an aggravating friend?

For a woman, it could be that friend with a heart of gold but an acid tongue, who sometimes doesn’t have any filter.

For a man, the first girl he ever fell madly in love with but it was unrequited, who parked him in the friend zone, well, the outer rim, and not averse to throwing him under the bus.

Been there, and you don’t learn but keep returning for more, hoping one day…

So, let’s run with it.

…

“When will you ever learn?”  Larry slid into the seat next to me with another odd assortment of dishes he would call ‘sampling the wares’.

The cafeteria was abuzz with lunchgoers.  I was sitting in a corner, as far away as anyone I knew, licking my wounds after the latest humiliation.

“She just isn’t worth the effort.  Just look at the fool she has as a boyfriend.”

He was right.  He had always been right, but it was that old adage ‘hope springs eternal’ that kept me going back to the well.

We could both see her and three of her friends flirting with members of the football team. 

He patted me on the back.  “Time to go in a new direction.  Eloise’s cousin is over from San Francisco and Wendy and I are taking her on a tour.  You’re welcome to come with us, and to be honest, I would make a lousy tour guide.”

Perhaps it was time to give up those foolish notions and move on.

“OK.  When?”

“Tomorrow.  We will pick you up at eight.”

If I could have predicted the consequences of that single offhand decision, I would have stayed in bed and wallowed in that sea of self-pity.

…

This story can go in so many different directions.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025