Tag: Author

“The Devil You Don’t”, be careful what you wish for

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John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums.  Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.

Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.

If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.

At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.

That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follows.

Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.

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Light at the end of the tunnel

It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, l think I’ve seen the ‘light’.

It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask?

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents, to me, a time when l finally got over a period of self-doubt, a period where a series of events started to make me question why l wanted to be a writer.

I mean, why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, and then have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questioning your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting them.

Are we only successful or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?

Or sold a million copies?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job and then find themselves plying the ‘other’ trade into the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticized for other but no less disparaging reasons?

It seems like a no-win situation, but these are the times when your mettle is tested severely.  But, in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and published, even if it is only on Amazon.

You can sit back and say with pride; l did that.

That metaphorical light, you may ask.

When you make that first sale.

Conversations with my cat – 70

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This is Chester.  He’s checking the outside temperature.

And the heat goes on with no relief in sight.

Chester has taken to spreading out on the cool tiles floor, trying to get some sleep.

He tells me its too hot for the mice to come out.

I believe him.

I was going to chat about the so-called climate emergency, but here’s the thing. It’s been this hot before, endless days of relentless heat, days where the temperature hits 40 degrees centigrade in the shade.

It happened when we came to Queensland for a holiday 30 odd years ago, and long before Chester was thought of.

The first day it rained. After that it was nearly two weeks of very hot days.

We live in the tropics. You could expect more rain, but rain is a fickle thing.

We have bushfires everywhere, and Chester can’t sit at the doorways because of the pervading smoke permeating in the atmosphere.

I should be writing he says, but instead I’m on a settee in the living room, under a slowly rotating fan.

He jumps up and joins me, the sitting on my lap, not exactly the coolest spot to be. He’s getting the effects of the fan, I’m not and I’m guessing that’s the point.

I tell him he can go for a run outside, something I’ve never let him do.

He sees it for the gesture it is and climbs down, back to the cool floor. I get a long cold stare, and then he leaves me in peace.

No work today, for either of us. I can do without the verbal sparring.

Perhaps there will be a cool change tomorrow.

In a word: Brevity

Now, brevity is something that I have not been able to fully wrap my head around.

The dictionary explains Brevity as

‘concise and exact use of words in writing and speech’

So…

I remember working with a writer a long time ago who explained certain authors styles, and for James A Michener of Hawaii fame, he said Michener wrote sentences instead of words, paragraphs instead of sentences, pages instead of paragraphs and chapters instead of pages.

It was a little harsh considering I’d just read the book and had liked it, despite its length and the time it took.

But some time later I realized he was not criticizing Michener, but trying to tell me, in his, what I came to discover, interesting way, that I should strive to write more compactly.

I then came across a book by Brian Callison which was exactly that, the concise version, a story that fitted into about 200 pages.

That too was a good book and it took me a day to read it, and by his use of that economy of words, it read quickly.

Of course, I have tried over the years to emulate both styles, and to a certain degree, failing, because I think I have created my own style which is somewhere in between.

Still, when editing, it is always in the back of my mind that I should be

Using words instead of sentences

Using sentences instead of paragraphs

Using paragraphs instead of pages, and

Using pages instead of chapters.

The chapters, he said, with an air of amusement, will always take care of themselves.

 

“One Last Look”, nothing is what it seems

A single event can have enormous consequences.

A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.

A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Who was this man?  Why was she having dinner with him?

A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required.  Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.

A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.

After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.

From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.

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Writing about writing a book – Day 4

Of course, by this time, a lot has changed and what I had discussed before now needs a few changes, so I have made the necessary amendments where required to the narrative, but that doesn’t mean I won’t revisit it sometime in the future.

 

It was a late night last night, reading and rereading, considering plot lines, new characters, and demolishing a six-pack.

It’s debatable if it is helping the creative process.  It has left me with a slight headache.

I drag myself out of bed and look out the window.  Bright sunshine, blue sky, slight breeze.

11:00 am.  Half the day is gone.

My stomach rumbles, I need something to eat.  I stagger out to the kitchen and look in the fridge.  OK, too busy to go shopping, time to make time.  A writer has to eat!

 

Three hours have passed and it’s mid-afternoon.  A new plan is required.  I need to make sure I don’t waste the day and write a certain number of words, otherwise, this book will never get written.

Bed: midnight

Rise: 7:00 am, go for a run to clear the head

Breakfast: 8:00 am

Writing: 9:00 am to ??

Let’s just see if that works tomorrow.

 

I sit down and stare at the pad.

Plotting:  Our main character is an IT department manager, whose main responsibility from the start, and at that time, he was alone and not the manager of anything, was setting up and keeping the network running.  These were the early days of Ethernet, token ring, and 3-Com, in moving from mainframes to desktops and servers.

I remember it well, and my first client/server network was 3-Com and Ethernet.

In the story scenario, Bill literally is indispensable because the job he performs is single point sensitive, even though Benton refuses to act on employing another network engineer.  This is art imitating life because so many places have similar situations.

So the reason why Benton is calling Bill; there is a crisis.

Some accountant is found shot dead at his desk, novel but not unheard of.  I know a few accountants who deserve just that.

That’s not the problem though, it’s the fact the network is down, and Benton is almost hysterical (after he makes a promise to his superiors that he can’t keep!).  Nothing unusual there with the sort of person he is, and like many in similar situations.

 

Scribble, scribble …

 

Another five minutes, then the phone began its shrill insistence again.  Before it rang again, I’d moved it from the floor to the bed.  I counted the rings, to ten, and then picked up the receiver.

“Bill?  Don’t hang up.”  Almost pleading.

“Why?  You said I should go, away from work, away from the phones, away to recharge my batteries, I believe you said.”

“That was Friday.  This is Monday. You’re needed.  Richardson has been found shot dead by his desk.  All hell has broken loose!”  Benton rarely used adjectives, so I assumed when he said all hell had broken loose, it meant something had happened he couldn’t fix.  His flowery language and telegram style had momentarily distracted my attention from Richardson’s fate.

Harold Richardson was an accountant, rather stuffy, but good at his job.  I’d spoken to him probably twice in as many years, and he didn’t strike me as the sort who would kill himself.  So why did I think that?  Benton had only said he was shot.

Benton’s voice went up an octave, a sure sign he was going into meltdown.  “It’s a circus down here.  Jennifer is missing, Giles is not in yet, the network is down, and that bunch of nincompoops you call support staff are running around the office like headless chooks.”

It all came out in a nonstop sentence, followed by a gasp for air.  It gave me time to sift the facts.  Jennifer, the Assistant Manager, and responsible for data entry and accounts maintenance, was not there, which in itself was unusual, because she kept longer hours than me, Peter Giles, my youthful assistant, just out of university and still being beaten into shape was also not in, and that was usual, so it could only mean one thing.

The network was down.

It was my responsibility since I’d recommended it and then won the support of management over his objections, and following that it had become a point of continual contention, a petty war neither of us was going to win.

I tried to keep the joy out of my voice. 

He’d also vetoed my recommendation for an extra full-time network engineer as my alternative, and in doing so Benton had made my job become single point sensitive.  There was no one to replace me if anything went wrong.

 

Richardson has nothing to do with the plot, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but someone else further up the chain of command will be.  That’s something to look forward to, though I’ve yet to decide what happens.

As for Benton, he will linger around for a while, but has no real part to play, except perhaps as the comic light relief.  He will get a rude awakening at the end.

Try not to make it too technical, no one really wants to know about computer systems, just the machinations of the people who are creating the problems and why.

 

© Charles Heath 2016 – 2019

Writing about writing a book – Day 3

Yep, in changing characters and timelines and thinking about the plotline between Bill and Ellen, a lot has changed, well, perhaps not a lot, but some fundamentals in the relationship.

Whilst I am determined, for some unknown reason, to write the first draft by hand, it leads to using a lot of paper and wearing out several self-leading pencils.  I have a bin with screwed up paper, and yes, if I get it in, it’s three points.  A lot don’t make it and lie forlornly beside and in front of the bin.

If only I had a cleaner to clean up.  When I’ve become a best selling author.

I look at the pages I kept.  God, I didn’t know I was that messy.

Coffee first.

 

I start typing the first draft on the computer using my trusty old version of Microsoft Word, only because I know how to use it.

I have Scrivener but haven’t yet worked out all the bells and whistles.  That will come, no doubt, with book number two.

But, as you might think, I am getting ahead of myself.  I have yet to finish the first.

 

A cool breeze blew briskly across meadows of tall grass, giving the impression of the ocean in a storm.  High above, clouds scudded across the sky, occasionally allowing the sun to shine through to bathe the ground in sunshine, intensifying the richness the greens and browns.

It was spring.  Trees were displaying new growth, and flowers were starting to show the promise of summery delight.  An occasional light shower of rain added to the delightful aromas, particularly where the grass had recently been mown.

I was there, too, with my grandmother, the woman who had, for the most part, brought me up at her country residence.  But, as I got older, the dream changed and sometimes there were storm clouds on the horizon, or I was caught in the rain, alone and frightened, or lost in the woods in the dark.

There were other visions like these from my childhood, now a million years away somewhere in a distant past that was hard to remember or say where and when they belonged.  It was a pity some were now based on images stolen from the start of a movie seen on TV late at night as I was trying to get to sleep.  Or that the psychiatrist had said there was some trauma from my early childhood, trying to work its way out.

Like every other morning, these images came to me as I was hovering somewhere between conscious and unconscious, just before the alarm went off.  Then it did, filling the room with a shrill noise that would have woken the dead.

I cursed, and then dragged myself over to the other side of the bed where I’d put the alarm clock, and hit it, killing the shrill sound.  I’d put it there so I would have to wake up to turn it off.  And, worse, I’d forgotten to turn it off the night before because it was, technically, the first day of my holiday.

Not that I really wanted one because since Ellen left, my life consisted of work, work, and more work.  It kept my mind off being alone, and in an empty apartment except for the books, a bed, a table and two chairs, a desk, and well-worn lounge chair.  I’d been there for a while and still hadn’t bought any new furniture or anything else for that matter.

And the last holiday I’d gone on had been organized by Ellen only a few years ago in Italy after our two daughters had finished school and graduated almost top of their class.  We’d both thought it might help mend the damage, and for a while we were happy, but happiness was too fleeting for me, and soon after the rot had set in, and it was the beginning of the end.

I remembered it only too clearly, coming home, opening a letter addressed to her, and finding proof of what I think I’d known all along.  She was having an affair, had been for quite some time.

It should not have been a surprise given what I had put her through over the years, since my discharge from the Army and later the nightmares active service had fuelled, but it was what it was and sent me spiralling to a new low.

But that was two years ago.  I came out of the fog a year after that.  Ellen was away most of the time with a new partner she never told me about, and the girls, who shared a unit not far from mine came to see me from time to time

But for all of that, all I now had left were memories.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  I was on holidays.  No work, no pressure, nothing. 

I thought about going back to my grandmother’s house and visit, but my grandmother was no longer there, and my mother, who was, was too judgemental, and I didn’t need to be told, yet again, how I had let the only woman for me slip through my fingers.

I could do almost anything.

I’d almost managed to doze off again when the phone rang.

I jumped to its equally shrill sound cutting through the silence.  It had to be a wrong number because no one at work would call me and I didn’t have many friends, at least none who would call me at this hour.

I let it ring out.

Blissful silence.  For five minutes.


Then it rang again.

Ignore it, I thought.  It had to be someone from the office.  I’d told them all not to call me, not unless the building was burning down and they were all trapped in it.

And even then, I’d I said I would have to think about it.

Burying my head under the pillow didn’t shut out the insistent ringing. 

Almost reluctantly I rolled back, pulled the telephone out from under the bed, and lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Bill?”

It was Carl Benton, my immediate superior; an insipid, loathsome, irritating little man, the last person I would want to speak to.  He’d insisted I take this leave, that the office could survive without me, adding in his most condescending manner that I needed the break.

I slammed the receiver down in anger.  It was a forlorn gesture.  Seconds later, it rang again.

“I seem to remember you were the one to tell me to go on holiday, that I needed a holiday.  I’m off the roster.  It can’t be that important.  Call someone else.”  I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to speak.  Not this morning.  I was not in the mood to listen to that squeaky, falsetto voice of his, one that always turned into a whine when he didn’t get his way.

And hung up again.

Not that it would do any good.  I knew that even if I was in Tibet, he would still call.  Then I realized it was too early for him to be in the office, and if he was, he would have been dragged out of bed and put in a position where if he didn’t produce results, they might realize just how incompetent he was.

At last, my holiday had some meaning and smiled to myself.  I’d make the bastard sweat.

 

A good days work if I say so myself.

I only wished I was better at typing, but it was a self-correcting ribbon and would suffice.

Tonight it would be the sleep of the just.

Tomorrow, more plotting, more characters.  I need a friendly head of a department, one that suffers Benton, a name for the assistant, and what are the circumstances that drag him back into work?

Death, murder, police, or security?

And all I thought I had to do is write!

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2018

And what was the inspiration behind the story “[Any title you’ve written]”

As accomplished as we can be at putting words on paper, what is it that makes it so difficult to sit in a chair with a camera on you, and saying words rather than writing them?

Er and um seem to crop up a lot in verbal speech.

OK, it was a simple question; “What motivates you to write?”

Damn.

My brain just turned to mush, and the words come out sounding like a drunken sailor after a night out on the town.

The written answer to the question is simple; “The idea that someone will read what I have written, and quite possibly enjoy it; that is motivation enough.”

It highlights the difficulties of the novice author.

Not only are there the constant demands of creating a ‘brand’ and building a ‘following’, there is also the need to market oneself, and the interview is one of the more effective ways of doing this.

If only I can settle the nerves.

I mean, really, it is only my granddaughter who is conducting the interview, and the questions are relatively simple.

The trouble is, I’ve never had to do it before, well, perhaps in an interview for a job, but that is less daunting.  That usually sticks to a predefined format.

Here the narrative can go in any direction.  There are set questions, but the interviewer, in her inimitable manner, can sometimes slide a question in out of left field.

For instance, “Your character Zoe the assassin, is she based on someone you know, or an amalgam of other characters you’ve read about or seen in movies?”

That was an interesting question, and one that has several answers, but the one most relevant was; “It was the secret alter ego of one of the women I used to work with.  I asked her one day if she wasn’t doing what she was, what she would like to do.  It fascinated me that other people had a desire to be something more exotic in an alter ego.”

Of course, the next question was about what I wanted to be in an alter ego.

Maybe I’ll tell you next time.

And just when you begin to think it’s all not worth it…

Self-published authors are fully aware that perhaps the easiest part of the writing journey is the actual writing.  Well, compared to the marketing aspect I believe it is.

I have read a lot of articles, suggestions and tips and tricks to market the book to the reading public.  It is, to say the least, a lot harder to market eBooks than perhaps their hard or paper-covered relatives.  This is despite the millions of eReaders out there.

Then there is that other fickle part of the publishing cycle, the need for reviews.  Good reviews of course.  Amazon is very clear about how these reviews and reviewers will be allowed to post to their website, and that just adds to the difficulty of a first-time publisher.

All the advice I have seen and read tells me that reviews should not be paid for, that reviews will come with sales.  It might be a difficult cycle, more reviews means more sales, etc.  And getting those first sales …

Therein lies the conundrum.  It is a question of paying for advertising or working it out for ourselves.  I guess if I were to get more sales, I could afford the advertising … yes, back on the merry-go-round!

And yet, the harder the road, the more I enjoy what I do.  It is exhilarating while writing, it is a joy to finish the first draft, it is an accomplishment when it is published, but when you sell that first book, well, there is no other feeling like it.

I am inspired.

Especially now, when I check my KDP page.  Yes, another sale!

A chapter from “Echoes From The Past”

Currently available from Amazon :  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

 

Chapter One

I looked down on 5th Avenue and could just see, in the distance, Saks, and opposite, the Rockefeller Center.  Recently I’d gone ice skating there with a woman I had begun to care for more than I should, and who liked spending time with me.

It was a relationship that had evolved slowly, and was now moving into dangerous territory.  From the moment our eyes first met across the ice, I knew that outing had been a mistake.  Whatever I’d been thinking it couldn’t happen, but against better judgement I had let it happen.

It was not her fault, it was mine.  I was not the person she thought I was, the person I wanted to be, and if the circumstances of my past were not as they were, the person she was most likely looking for.

It had happened before, and it would happen again, and the result would be the same.  I would move on, find a new city, a new job, a new life, and continue to hide in plain sight.

Waiting for an eventuality that may never happen, but if it did, it would happen to me alone, not the woman I loved.

I sighed inwardly, thinking how unfair life could be.  And how much, this time, I wanted it to be different.

From my office window, high up in the sky, I could see several Fire Department vehicles going though yet another drill and could just hear the sound of the sirens floating up to the 32nd floor.  Darkness was closing in, and the fast moving red strobing lights stood out against the neon signs, the street lighting, and the Christmas decorations.

It was that time of the year again, a time that brought back very sad memories.  For most people it was when families came together to celebrate.  That was not possible for me.  I’d thought with the passing of time it would no longer hurt so much, but it did.  I felt a tear in my eye, and pulled a tissue out of the box on my desk to wipe it away.

Enough with the sentimentality.

Behind me I heard files being dropped on my desk.  It was Friday, when Maria from Accounting brought me the latest customers who were overdue in paying their investment contributions.  The stack was getting bigger every week.

I turned to face her.  She was only three years younger than me, but looked ten.  Italian parents, conservative dressed, reserved manner, but usually friendly and outgoing, she was well liked by all.  What surprised me, out of all the people she could choose as a friend, and since our ice skating expedition something more than that, she chose me.

I was not exactly the easiest of people to get along with, for obvious reasons.

I soon discovered this was the only time she and I could meet in the office without the prying eyes of our workmates making more of it than it was.  Office romances, not that either of us would acknowledge we were having one, were frowned upon.  Worse, rumors were very easily started, and much harder to quash.

“To be honest, I’m glad I don’t have your job, Will.”

She looked at the stack and then gave me a special look, one I wanted to believe was reserved just for me.  Her smile always tugged at a heart string or maybe two.  This night it did more than that.

I shrugged, and tried to be casual.  “I was told I had a gift.”

“Ah, the statement of faith, just before the sucker punch.”

Everyone knew calling customers in distress was a difficult job at best.  It required tact and diplomacy, a trait I’d acquired over time because of my situation.  It had been a strange match of opportunity and unrealized talent when a disgruntled customer had come into the office and verbally attacked Mr Bartleby, a senior partner.

I’d talked the customer down, and talked myself into the job.  I’d only agreed to do it because it came with the promise of a promotion.  Now I was considering an exit strategy, it probably didn’t matter.

“Doing anything for the weekend?”  She asked the same question every Friday.  The last time, I surprised her by asking if she skated on ice, not expecting she did.  She said yes.

It didn’t take long to realize she would have said yes to climbing Mount Everest.  It was her first time on skates, and we learned a lot about each other over the half hour she managed to stay upright.

For her bravery I took her to dinner, and then took her home.  She asked me to stay for a while, to patch up her wounds, perhaps the modern day equivalent of ‘would you like come up and see my paintings’.

Whatever her intentions or my desires, we just talked over a bottle of wine and then coffee.  I didn’t have to leave, but it was better for both of us that I did.

I closed my eyes to break the connection.  I could feel it.  I was starting to fall in love with this girl, this woman, and I knew I had to be careful.  It would not be long before the questions started; questions I couldn’t answer.

“No.  I wasn’t intending to do much.”

“Then perhaps you might consider joining the rest of us monkeys for beer, wine and a lively discussion about anything but work.   Harry’s found a new bar, up on 6th Avenue.”

Harry was our social director, not a real one but self appointed, and he organised most of the unofficial staff gatherings.  He was a bit too self important for me, an ‘I am’ sort of guy, but he went to Harvard and had probably earned the right.  I wasn’t on his social radar so he rarely invited me to anything.  If he did, I generally declined.  Those gatherings were the hunting grounds of the go-getters, the rookies looking for an edge to climb the corporate ladder.  I was all about keeping a low profile.

“Is he asking, or you?”

A momentary frown settled on her face.  We’d had a similar discussion once before, and I’d realized then she tried only to see the good in people.  Perhaps that was why I was so lucky.

“Does it matter?”

I pretended to think about it for a minute, and then said, “No.”

Her smile returned.  “Do you want me to come fetch you?”

“As appealing as that sounds, I have a couple of matters to tidy up.  You go, and I’ll drop in later.”

The expression on her face told me she didn’t believe me.  It was not without merit, because I had told her the same before and not followed through.  Then, it didn’t matter because I hadn’t known her all that well.  Now, it seemed everything had changed.

“You are not just saying that to get rid of me, are you?”  The tone matched the doubtful expression.

Blunt, but fairly accurate.  I didn’t want to underestimate this girl.  In normal circumstances I might have considered something else, other than drinks.  Instead, I said, “I would have preferred a walk in Central Park, but I don’t think the weather is going to behave.”

Then I had a moment where I thought if I told her something closer to the truth, it might help me climb my way out of the deep hole I was digging for myself.  “To be honest, I’m not very good at these social gatherings.”

Another change in expression, she had many faces for many occasions.  This one was of surprise, or was it agreement?

“Then you and I could go somewhere else if you like.”

Not exactly the result I was looking for.

“We could, but then you would miss out on being with your friends and most likely miss the next scandal to envelop us.”

The last one was about Bartleby junior and a certain socialite.  Everyone knew what he was like except one person, his current fiancée Katrina.

“True.”  She shrugged.  I had just become a lost cause.  “I will look out for you.  But remember, I will be disappointed if you don’t come.”

She gave me a last look, somewhat whimsical I thought, as I watched her walk across the floor to the elevator lobby.  It was like watching the love of my life leaving, without turning back.

 

I’d promised myself a long time ago that I would not get involved with a woman, but I soon learned how difficult a promise like that was to keep, especially when the woman’s name was Katrina.

I’d not known real love before, and it was not difficult to fall under her spell.  She was as beautiful as she was beguiling.

A long time ago, in what felt like another lifetime, Katrina Winslow and I worked together.  She taught me my first job at Bentley, Bowman and Bartleby, Accountants.  And, as with anyone with whom you work so closely, we became friends, and then something more than that.

By the time I realised what had happened, it was too late.  She was the daughter of parents who cared about their daughter, and the people with whom she associated.  They had me investigated.

I remember that Monday morning as if it was yesterday, when she came into my office.  We had spent a perfect weekend together, and when I left her Sunday night, I was full of those starry eyed dreams people in love had.

An hour later, all of those dreams had been shattered, not only for me, but for her too.  I had no answers for her questions, answers the investigators could not find.  I knew from the first day I met her she was out of my league, but I honestly believed love could conquer all.

Her father didn’t.  It ended, and in time I realized it was for the best.  I had nothing to offer her, and I could never give answers to any of the questions she might ask.

Not long after, Maria told me about her engagement to Marcus Bartleby, son of the remaining live partner whose name graced the building, and signs throughout the city.  I told myself he would be the sort of man her father believed she deserved, but in my heart I knew what sort of person Marcus was, and equally there was nothing I could do about it.

I had a secret, one that I could never tell anyone.  And until I could find a way of reconciling my past I could never contemplate having a future, make any friends, or find any sort of peace or happiness.

With Katrina, with Maria, or anyone else.

 

The truth is my life was the equivalent of a metaphorical train wreck.  You wouldn’t know it, looking at me, but how I looked now, how I acted and reacted was a product of many years practice.  From the moment I had seen my parents murdered at the age of fourteen, I’d been on the run.  Being that young, it was tough on the road, and I had to get street smart, and defensive, very quickly.  I’d learned the hard way, through the school of hard knocks.  By comparison, the Bartleby’s of this world had got it easy.

But, don’t get me wrong.  It was not something I was bitter about.  It was what it was.  I did what I had to do, and what I have to.  I accepted they had and always would have everything handed to them on a platter.  It was the way of the world.

On the up side, I had only myself to please.  I did not have to rely on anyone else, nor was I responsible for anyone but myself.  I had no family to speak of, or that I would acknowledge.

My father had been an orphan, and had spent a relatively lonely life up to the point where he married my mother.

The family I had on my mother’s side were the reason I ran away, and kept running, and fortunately I had not seen any of them since the day I finally escaped.

On the down side, I’d never stayed in one place too long, and never had the time to get a good education, a pre requisite for a good job.  Instead, I had a lot of experience in jobs that didn’t have much of a career path.

I’d thought of night school, even tried it once, but it didn’t work out.  That was the catalyst for joining the army, the one place where people like me finished up.  It was a place to call home wherever they dumped you, and you made friends that didn’t care who or what you were, or cared too much about your past.

I was sent to Iraq, first time around, with a great bunch of guys, until most of the platoon was killed in a suicide bombing, and the few that survived, including me, were physically repaired and discharged.

In the years since, I’d stopped in ten cities.  New York was the most recent, and I’d been here the longest.  I’d carved a path across America from the Mid West, a place called Columbus, Nebraska, through to New York, with a lot of places in between.  It was an interesting way to see the country, when in normal circumstances I would have little reason to leave my home town.

Now, after all the running, all the looking over my shoulder, there was a desire to stop.  The problem was I couldn’t.  I couldn’t afford to feel safe, because the moment I did, the moment I let down my guard, it would be when I’d make a mistake, a mistake that could have horrific consequences.  Not only for me, but others around me.

I’d learned that lesson well, soon after I had run away from home, but before I left my home town.  Escape was a relief, and when they had not caught up with me after a week, I started to feel safe.

I let down my guard.  I allowed my trust of the one person in that family I thought was my friend to influence my actions.  She had unwittingly led the family to me after being used as a decoy.  I hadn’t thought of that possibility.

They handed me to the man who murdered my parents.  He told me he’d been willing to track me to the ends of the earth, as long as it took.  He held me captive for a few hours until I escaped, and I had no intention of being caught again.

From that day, I never trusted anyone again.

I remembered the demonic look in his eyes when he told me he would never stop looking.  He was out there, somewhere, and I had to remain vigilant.  The passing of time, for this murderer, was irrelevant.

And, standing there, looking out the window and down 5th Avenue, I could feel the itch, the one I couldn’t scratch.  The one that told me my pursuer, a man who went by the name of Edward Jamieson, wasn’t very far away.

 

© Charles Heath 2015