The End… Or Just the Beginning? Why “The End” of Your Novel Is Never Truly the End
You’ve done it. Stared down the endless white expanse of the page, wrestled with characters who refused to cooperate, and battled plot holes that threatened to swallow your narrative whole. After months, maybe even years, of dedication, you finally type those two glorious words: “The End.”
For a fleeting moment, there’s a sense of triumphant finality. The story is complete. The world you’ve meticulously crafted is now bound between covers, waiting to be discovered. You might even allow yourself a daydream or two – the bestseller lists, the glowing reviews, the Hollywood deal for that blockbuster movie you’ve always envisioned.
But if you’re an author, you know deep down that “The End”… is never quite the end, is it?
This isn’t about the gruelling process of revisions, the agonising search for an agent, or the nail-biting wait for a publisher’s acceptance. Those are the necessary hurdles after you’ve reached that initial conclusion. This is about something more profound, a shift in perspective that redefines what “finished” truly means.
“The End” is a Birth Certificate, Not a Tombstone.
When you type those final words, you’re not burying your story. You’re giving it life. You’ve breathed it into existence, and now it has the potential to live, to breathe, to impact lives beyond your own.
Think about it:
The Reader’s Journey Begins: Your “End” is the starting point for countless readers. They will embark on their own journey through your words, interpreting your characters, feeling your emotions, and drawing their own conclusions. The story truly comes alive in their minds, a unique experience for each individual.
The Sequel Whispers: Even if you had no intention of writing a sequel, the characters you’ve created, the world you’ve built, can linger. They might start whispering ideas for new adventures, new conflicts, new possibilities. The “End” of one chapter often feels like the fertile ground for another.
The Adaptations Unfold: As you so accurately predicted, that blockbuster movie deal might be on the horizon. This new phase of your story, translated into a visual medium, brings a whole new set of challenges and triumphs. The characters you envisioned will be embodied, your dialogue spoken aloud, your settings brought to life on screen. It’s the same story, yet utterly new.
The Author’s Evolution: “The End” also marks a significant point in your own evolution as a writer. You’ve learned, you’ve grown, you’ve conquered. The skills honed during this project will inevitably inform your next. The very act of finishing has changed you, making you a more capable storyteller.
The Legacy Takes Root: A completed novel, especially one with potential, becomes a part of a larger legacy. It can spark conversations, influence other artists, become a touchstone for readers. That “End” begins a quiet, yet powerful, ripple effect in the world.
So, the next time you type “The End,” take a moment. Bask in the satisfaction, yes. Dream of those bestseller lists and movie deals. But also understand that you haven’t closed a door; you’ve opened a universe. Your novel’s journey is just beginning, and the true “end” is a concept that perhaps, as storytellers, we’ll never truly reach.
What does “The End” mean to you as a writer? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
If something is too good to be true, then it generally is. Those words bounced around in my head only moments after the winner of the award had been announced.
And it wasn’t me. I had worked hard, done everything that was asked of me, and yet at the eleventh hour, I had been usurped
Of course, I had only myself to blame.
Some other words that rattled around in what could probably now be called an empty space in my head, because no sane person would have believed that McGurk was a worthy recipient, were that good guys come last.
They did.
I have been too trusting.
I wanted to believe that McGurk honestly wanted to help me win, but all the time he was getting the information needed to win the award for himself.
After all, the prize was worth a million pounds.
And he was never going to stay long enough to show them anything for the money. The proposal was slick, the pitch was slick, and the man himself was slick personified.
However, one item I did know about him was that he had done this before. A number of times, and after each success, he disappeared with the money and wasn’t seen again.
It was exactly what he would do this time if we let him.
Everyone was also oblivious to the deception. He was far too affable, far too obliging, far too kind. And too accommodating. He was everybody’s friend.
Except mine.
Jason McMaster, the head of the selection committee, came over to offer his commiserations.
“Sorry, old boy,” he began, “but it was a close call, 4 to 5. You put in a brilliant prospectus, but the numbers didn’t quite add up.”
I noticed far too late that someone had slipped in a revised budget, and it had the look of a grade six student’s horrible attempt to balance a small budget.
I had tried to fix it, but the committee decided the submissions would be as is, where is. I knew McGurk had a hand in getting those papers, and I was sure it was someone on the selection team who helped him; without proof, I was not going to change the result.
At least one of the members dared to tell me what had happened and not let me be shocked on the night.
Evelyn had worked as hard as I had, and it seemed to me he had not approached her. Perhaps she would have seen him for what he was. More than once, she told me to be wary.
Like I said, it was on me.
McGurk was in his element, the centre of attention, soaking in the adulation as the man who had beaten the sure thing.
Some people didn’t like me, not many, because what they mistook for determination was really the desire to be fair and equitable.
His acceptance speech was the sort to be expected, praising the competition, acknowledging the help I’d given him, and stating that he was going to make a lot of people’s futures much brighter.
I was not sure who those people were, because no one in this county would.
After shaking the selection committee’s hands and thanking them all, he wandered over to see me.
He was brave or stupid, I wasn’t sure which, but then he didn’t know what I knew.
“You do realise the race was over before it began.”
He was all smiles and shaking my hand for the cameras.
I was all smiles for a different reason.
“Not at first, but I did get a sense of it towards the end.”
“You didn’t seem to be all that well-liked.”
No. I got that. Alfred Knopper, next door neighbour and staunch enemy when I won the council election over him, was on the committee.
I should have tried harder to win him over.
“Happens in small towns. You can’t please everyone all of the time. You will discover that “
“I’m sure I won’t. I understand the brief.”
I smiled. “I hope you do.”
I could see Evelyn coming over, and so could he. Her face was set, and I could feel the heat from where I was standing. Seeing her approach, he quickly excused himself.
Her eyes followed him as he retreated.
“Snake.”
“He’s the one they deserve.”
“No one deserves a creature like that.”
I shrugged. “Well, like him or lump him, he’s all they’ve got.”
Until he cashed the check.
A week is a long time in politics, or so I was told the first time I ran for council.
I didn’t want to, but a lot of people said that it was time for a change.
I rode the crest of that wave of change for three terms, after which those same people voted for another change. It didn’t bother me. I had tried to be fair and equitable, but not everybody’s definition of those words was the same.
I tried to please all of the people all of the time and failed miserably.
We lived in a different world from the one I thought I knew.
It was time to move on, and the plans Evelyn and I had made a few months before, plan B, were in motion. The children had moved on. We had sold the house, where I had lived my whole life and my father before me.
All I was waiting for was…
The phone rang, its shrill insistence penetrating the fog of sleep, and only years of training forced me to answer it.
“Yes.”
“He’s gone.” Jason McMaster sounded panicked.
“Who has gone?”
“McGurk. Office cleaned out, residence as clean as the day he walked into it.”
McMaster had been very generous in giving him the house rent-free until he was settled.
“The funding.”
Silence. Then, it’s not in the corporate account.”
Of course not.
“It was transferred to a Cayman Islands bank.”
“You called them?”
“Transferred to a JN Corporation, a shell company. It’s going to take an army of forensic accountants to find it, and McGurk, if that’s his real name.”
It wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Why are you telling me?”
“The selection committee asked me to ask you to come back and maintain continuity while we sort this mess out.”
“Too late. I’m off on holiday this morning. Time to take a break from everything.”
“Then, in a few weeks, when you get back. We’ll talk.”
“Can’t. Not coming back. Not getting the award settled a few things for me, and the main one, our future. Twelve months in a cottage in Tuscany and then, well, who knows. Have a nice life, Jason.”
I hung up.
Evelyn rolled over. “McGurk?”
“Not at the office for his first day.”
“Jason?”
“Nearly hysterical. He went to the house, and there’s no sign he had ever been there.”
“McGurk wasn’t. He’s been dead since the day after he was born, but Michael Oliphant, that’s a different story.”
“That his real name?”
“So Viktor told me. Took three days, but he broke him. They all break eventually.”
“And the money.”
“It’ll be in Geneva by the time we get there. Now, come back to bed.”
This story has been ongoing since I was seventeen, and just to let you know, I’m 71 this year.
Yes, it’s taken a long time to get it done.
Why, you might ask.
Well, I never gave it much interest because I started writing it after a small incident when I was 17, and working as a book packer for a book distributor in Melbourne
At the end of my first year, at Christmas, the employer had a Christmas party, and that year, it was at a venue in St Kilda.
I wasn’t going to go because at that age, I was an ordinary boy who was very introverted and basically scared of his own shadow and terrified by girls.
Back then, I would cross the street to avoid them
Also, other members of the staff in the shipping department were rough and ready types who were not backwards in telling me what happened, and being naive, perhaps they knew I’d be either shocked or intrigued.
I was both adamant I wasn’t coming and then got roped in on a dare.
Damn!
So, back then, in the early 70s, people looked the other way when it came to drinking, and of course, Dutch courage always takes away the concerns, especially when normally you wouldn’t do half the stuff you wouldn’t in a million years
I made it to the end, not as drunk and stupid as I thought I might be, and St Kilda being a salacious place if you knew where to look, my new friends decided to give me a surprise.
It didn’t take long to realise these men were ‘men about town’ as they kept saying, and we went on an odyssey. Yes, those backstreet brothels where one could, I was told, have anything they could imagine.
Let me tell you, large quantities of alcohol and imagination were a very bad mix.
So, the odyssey in ‘The things we do’ was based on that, and then the encounter with Diana. Well, let’s just say I learned a great deal about girls that night.
Firstly, not all girls are nasty and spiteful, which seemed to be the case whenever I met one. There was a way to approach, greet, talk to, and behave.
It was also true that I could have had anything I wanted, but I decided what was in my imagination could stay there. She was amused that all I wanted was to talk, but it was my money, and I could spend it how I liked.
And like any 17-year-old naive fool, I fell in love with her and had all these foolish notions. Months later, I went back, but she had moved on, to where no one was saying or knew.
Needless to say, I was heartbroken and had to get over that first loss, which, like any 17-year-old, was like the end of the world.
But it was the best hour I’d ever spent in my life and would remain so until I met the woman I have been married to for the last 48 years.
As Henry, he was in part based on a rebel, the son of rich parents who despised them and their wealth, and he used to regale anyone who would listen about how they had messed up his life
If only I’d come from such a background!
And yes, I was only a run away from climbing up the stairs to get on board a ship, acting as a purser.
I worked for a shipping company and they gave their junior staff members an opportunity to spend a year at sea working as a purser on a cargo ship that sailed between Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart in Australia.
One of the other junior staff members’ turn came, and I would visit him on board when he would tell me stories about life on board, the officers, the crew, and other events. These stories, which sounded incredible to someone so impressionable, were a delight to hear.
Alas, by that time, I had tired of office work and moved on to be a tradesman at the place where my father worked.
It proved to be the right move, as that is where I met my wife. Diana had been right; love would find me when I least expected it.
Navigating the Darkness: Sprinting Through Your Marathon Novel
E.L. Doctorow, a titan of American literature, once famously described the writing process as akin to “driving a car at night – you can only see as far as the headlight go.” This beautifully encapsulates the inherent uncertainty, the step-by-step progression, and the reliance on instinct that comes with crafting a narrative.
Then there’s the other, equally valid, piece of advice: writing a book isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. This speaks to the endurance, the discipline, and the long-haul commitment required to bring a sprawling story from conception to completion.
On the surface, these two nuggets of wisdom feel contradictory. How can you sprint through a marathon? How can you navigate the darkness with pinpoint precision if you’re also settling in for a long, grueling race?
The truth is, they aren’t contradictions at all. They are two essential facets of successful authorship, and the key to achieving the best of both worlds lies in understanding how they can and should work together.
Embrace the Headlight: The Power of the Present
Doctorow’s metaphor is a powerful reminder to ground ourselves in the immediate. When you’re staring at a blank page or a daunting plot point, the sheer magnitude of the “marathon” can be paralyzing. This is where the headlight comes in.
Focus on the Next Scene: Don’t worry about how you’re going to end the book. Just focus on writing the next scene, the next chapter, the next conversation. What needs to happen right now to move the story forward?
Trust Your Intuition: The headlight illuminates the path immediately ahead. This is where your creative impulse, your gut feeling about character motivation, or your instinct for dialogue takes over. Allow yourself to explore without needing to see the entire roadmap.
Embrace the Unknown: Sometimes, the best stories emerge from the unexpected detours revealed by the headlight. Don’t be afraid to go where the light takes you, even if it wasn’t part of your original plan. This is how discovery happens.
Pace Yourself for the Long Haul: The Marathon Mindset
While the headlight keeps you moving forward, the marathon mindset provides the structure and resilience to keep going. Without it, you’ll burn out before you even hit the halfway point.
Establish a Routine: Whether it’s a daily word count, a dedicated writing time, or a weekly goal, consistency is your marathon fuel. It’s about showing up, even when the inspiration feels dim.
Break Down the Giant Task: The marathon is made up of many miles. Similarly, your book is made up of chapters, plot arcs, and character development. Break down the larger goal into smaller, manageable chunks. This makes the journey less daunting.
Cultivate Patience and Persistence: There will be days, weeks, even months where the writing feels like wading through molasses. This is normal. Understanding that this is part of the marathon allows you to persevere through the tough patches without losing sight of the finish line.
The Long Game of Revision: The marathon isn’t over when you type “The End.” The real work of refining, shaping, and polishing is a crucial part of the longer journey. Trust that the initial draft, guided by the headlight, will be the raw material for a more polished creation.
Achieving the Best of Both Worlds: The Dynamic Duo
The magic happens when you stop seeing these as opposing forces and start integrating them.
Start with the Headlight, Build with the Marathon: Begin by focusing on the immediate scene, letting your creativity flow. As you complete sections, start to see the broader strokes, the emerging patterns that define your marathon.
Use the Marathon Structure to Guide the Headlight: Have a general outline or a compelling premise? This “marathon vision” can act as your distant parklights, giving direction to your immediate headlight-led explorations.
Allow for Detours, But Keep Moving: The headlight might reveal an exciting side road, but the marathon’s awareness of the destination ensures you don’t get lost indefinitely. You can explore, but always with a sense of returning to the main path.
Celebrate Small Victories (Headlight Moments) on the Long Journey (Marathon): Finishing a chapter is a milestone in the marathon. A particularly brilliant piece of dialogue is a shining moment in the headlight’s beam. Acknowledge and appreciate both.
In essence, writing a book is about learning to be both a navigator of the immediate journey and a seasoned long-distance runner. You need the courage to step into the darkness, guided by the light you have, and the wisdom to understand that this is a race that requires stamina, strategy, and unwavering dedication. By embracing the power of the present while respecting the demands of the long haul, you can indeed achieve the best of both worlds, and bring your story magnificently to life.
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.
Navigating the Darkness: Sprinting Through Your Marathon Novel
E.L. Doctorow, a titan of American literature, once famously described the writing process as akin to “driving a car at night – you can only see as far as the headlight go.” This beautifully encapsulates the inherent uncertainty, the step-by-step progression, and the reliance on instinct that comes with crafting a narrative.
Then there’s the other, equally valid, piece of advice: writing a book isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. This speaks to the endurance, the discipline, and the long-haul commitment required to bring a sprawling story from conception to completion.
On the surface, these two nuggets of wisdom feel contradictory. How can you sprint through a marathon? How can you navigate the darkness with pinpoint precision if you’re also settling in for a long, grueling race?
The truth is, they aren’t contradictions at all. They are two essential facets of successful authorship, and the key to achieving the best of both worlds lies in understanding how they can and should work together.
Embrace the Headlight: The Power of the Present
Doctorow’s metaphor is a powerful reminder to ground ourselves in the immediate. When you’re staring at a blank page or a daunting plot point, the sheer magnitude of the “marathon” can be paralyzing. This is where the headlight comes in.
Focus on the Next Scene: Don’t worry about how you’re going to end the book. Just focus on writing the next scene, the next chapter, the next conversation. What needs to happen right now to move the story forward?
Trust Your Intuition: The headlight illuminates the path immediately ahead. This is where your creative impulse, your gut feeling about character motivation, or your instinct for dialogue takes over. Allow yourself to explore without needing to see the entire roadmap.
Embrace the Unknown: Sometimes, the best stories emerge from the unexpected detours revealed by the headlight. Don’t be afraid to go where the light takes you, even if it wasn’t part of your original plan. This is how discovery happens.
Pace Yourself for the Long Haul: The Marathon Mindset
While the headlight keeps you moving forward, the marathon mindset provides the structure and resilience to keep going. Without it, you’ll burn out before you even hit the halfway point.
Establish a Routine: Whether it’s a daily word count, a dedicated writing time, or a weekly goal, consistency is your marathon fuel. It’s about showing up, even when the inspiration feels dim.
Break Down the Giant Task: The marathon is made up of many miles. Similarly, your book is made up of chapters, plot arcs, and character development. Break down the larger goal into smaller, manageable chunks. This makes the journey less daunting.
Cultivate Patience and Persistence: There will be days, weeks, even months where the writing feels like wading through molasses. This is normal. Understanding that this is part of the marathon allows you to persevere through the tough patches without losing sight of the finish line.
The Long Game of Revision: The marathon isn’t over when you type “The End.” The real work of refining, shaping, and polishing is a crucial part of the longer journey. Trust that the initial draft, guided by the headlight, will be the raw material for a more polished creation.
Achieving the Best of Both Worlds: The Dynamic Duo
The magic happens when you stop seeing these as opposing forces and start integrating them.
Start with the Headlight, Build with the Marathon: Begin by focusing on the immediate scene, letting your creativity flow. As you complete sections, start to see the broader strokes, the emerging patterns that define your marathon.
Use the Marathon Structure to Guide the Headlight: Have a general outline or a compelling premise? This “marathon vision” can act as your distant parklights, giving direction to your immediate headlight-led explorations.
Allow for Detours, But Keep Moving: The headlight might reveal an exciting side road, but the marathon’s awareness of the destination ensures you don’t get lost indefinitely. You can explore, but always with a sense of returning to the main path.
Celebrate Small Victories (Headlight Moments) on the Long Journey (Marathon): Finishing a chapter is a milestone in the marathon. A particularly brilliant piece of dialogue is a shining moment in the headlight’s beam. Acknowledge and appreciate both.
In essence, writing a book is about learning to be both a navigator of the immediate journey and a seasoned long-distance runner. You need the courage to step into the darkness, guided by the light you have, and the wisdom to understand that this is a race that requires stamina, strategy, and unwavering dedication. By embracing the power of the present while respecting the demands of the long haul, you can indeed achieve the best of both worlds, and bring your story magnificently to life.
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
Writing exercise – The world is upside down; climate change has made our home uninhabitable
…
We had all seen it coming, and to a certain extent, pretended it wasn’t happening.
Until we could ignore it no longer.
Perhaps we could have kept our collective heads in the sand, but Mother Nature wasn’t going to wait that long.
We woke up one morning to snow.
Three months early, just as Fall began. Perhaps the fact that the trees had been losing their leaves far earlier than usual was a sign.
There were others, but it had happened before, a few years back, and it had sparked the usual warnings from scientists, debunking of climate change, politicians’ umming and erring, but in the end, nothing changed
We did the same this time. Been there, done that, nothing to see here. The government, such as it was, laughed it off.
As they did with most things that concerned the people, unless they were among the President’s private circle.
At first the snow turned the surroundings into a winter wonderland, usually here in mid-November, an interlude before the main event: Christmas.
It was barely into September, and it was a long way to the festive season.
It snowed every night for the next two weeks. All night, virtually at blizzard level, and so badly that it was difficult and then impossible to keep the roads clear. Except for the essential roads.
The houses were snowed in, then abandoned.
Whole areas were shut down and people evacuated.
I went up to the lookout once, and all I could see was white, except for a small area where the shopping centre was located
The whole was gone. Our house would be next.
Beth was holding a light blue sheet of paper in her hand, a hand that was shaking.
I knew what it was.
“We got one.” She held it up.
“Lou got his yesterday.” Lou was across the street. He’s lived there all his life, as did his parents before him.
We all knew this was the end. Any more snow and our town would disappear.
It was the same in any direction you could go.
She had the TV on. There was only one channel, reporting the weather and emergency information 24 hours a day. She never turned it off.
“They’re not ignoring it now. They keep playing the President saying it’s nothing and would go away in a few days. Now he won’t talk to anyone.”
No surprise. The last crisis, the pandemic, had been met with a similar response.
There were over a million deaths at that time; this had been exceeded in just two weeks. If it didn’t go away, the total was going to be horrific.
“We’re not going to be leaving any time soon. The police had shut the road for everything other than official vehicles.” The trains stopped at midnight; the last one snowed in at our station.
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Last I heard, we’re going to the missile complex.”
It was a ubiquitous small town, with a big secret. We made up part of the air defence system in place to prevent invaders. And the threat of being wiped off the face of the planet if anything went wrong.
Freda hated the idea of nesting with nuclear bombs. So did I.
“Do we have a choice?”
“If you want to live.”
“So, in your opinion, it’s not going to stop.”
“No.”
I’d asked old man Bowen, ex-weatherman on channel 6 news, old meteorologist for Nasa, whose wife read tarot cards.
An expert.
“It’s part of a phenomenon that has happened in the past. Two more years, if we’re lucky.”
“And you know this…oh. the crazy old fool down the street. Seriously, Monte?”
There were things wanted to believe, believable things, things that some people just didn’t want to hear.
Fundamentally, a good person, when she had first met the Bowens, she took an instant dislike to them. He was abrupt and she was aloof, but that was just defence.
I smiled. “As much as you hate them, so far, everything he’d said had come true. As for the next, well, that was going to be the killer.”
“Or as the government says, we just have to wait it out a little longer.”
“While all the top officials, including our fearless leader, swan off to a country with a warmer climate.”
All the rich people were gone.
The president tried to sneak out by the back secret entrance that no one was supposed to know about. Except for one old press hack.
She didn’t answer. We agreed to disagree on certain matters, because not to would be letting politics destroy something good.
She glared at me. “Don’t say it. I’ve already had seventeen phone calls. It’s easy to lay blame, not so easy to prove it.”
Yes. He could do no wrong. And it was going to kill her.
But I wasn’t going to be drawn in this time. Just saying what I was thinking would get me arrested, and Beth would turn me in, husband or not.
“Then I guess God has a lot to answer for.”
That did it. The president and then God, sometimes the two fused, according to the president, speaking candidly about his ‘friends’, telling the reporter, or rather the stooge paid to preen his ego, that who was he to dispute they believed he was the almighty himself.”
It had been impossible not to burst out laughing.
The truck came to pick us up, one small bag allowed. Beth was going to come, but remembered that she had a small job to do and would come later.
She was warned that she had 24 hours. After that, no one knew what was going to happen.
It was more like they did, but to tell us mere mortals might have set off a chain reaction of dissent.
The last I saw of her, she was waving. I don’t think she expected me to leave.
We collected all the people on the street and headed to the silo. There were two other trucks. There was an officer in the truck who said there were rooms for 200 people. It was once a mass point for soldiers in case of an attempted invasion.
I found it amusing that anyone would come to put two for the purpose of invading it.
So did the others.
There were five trucks. The last of the townsfolk. All outlying areas had been evacuated earlier.
About a dozen had chosen not to come or had something else to do, like Beth.
And after the sun went down and Beth or any of the others deigned not to come, it was the worst-case scenario. The silo boss sent a team out to find them.
Then the snow started.
The search party came back in half an hour. The cold was too intense.
That was what was going to happen.
After the snow, the earth was going to freeze.
It came and it didn’t go.
Everything froze unless protected.
Four months passed before the cold lifted to a point where we could go back outside.
By that time, we needed food, and I was charged with finding it, and took six volunteers.
We found food, and we found something else.
A place where those who believed that nothing was going to happen had frozen to death, dying as a result of their beliefs.
It was a terrible loss of life that could have been easily saved.
It was predicted that there would be a thaw, Mother Nature’s planet-wide reset.
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.
Writing exercise – The world is upside down; climate change has made our home uninhabitable
…
We had all seen it coming, and to a certain extent, pretended it wasn’t happening.
Until we could ignore it no longer.
Perhaps we could have kept our collective heads in the sand, but Mother Nature wasn’t going to wait that long.
We woke up one morning to snow.
Three months early, just as Fall began. Perhaps the fact that the trees had been losing their leaves far earlier than usual was a sign.
There were others, but it had happened before, a few years back, and it had sparked the usual warnings from scientists, debunking of climate change, politicians’ umming and erring, but in the end, nothing changed
We did the same this time. Been there, done that, nothing to see here. The government, such as it was, laughed it off.
As they did with most things that concerned the people, unless they were among the President’s private circle.
At first the snow turned the surroundings into a winter wonderland, usually here in mid-November, an interlude before the main event: Christmas.
It was barely into September, and it was a long way to the festive season.
It snowed every night for the next two weeks. All night, virtually at blizzard level, and so badly that it was difficult and then impossible to keep the roads clear. Except for the essential roads.
The houses were snowed in, then abandoned.
Whole areas were shut down and people evacuated.
I went up to the lookout once, and all I could see was white, except for a small area where the shopping centre was located
The whole was gone. Our house would be next.
Beth was holding a light blue sheet of paper in her hand, a hand that was shaking.
I knew what it was.
“We got one.” She held it up.
“Lou got his yesterday.” Lou was across the street. He’s lived there all his life, as did his parents before him.
We all knew this was the end. Any more snow and our town would disappear.
It was the same in any direction you could go.
She had the TV on. There was only one channel, reporting the weather and emergency information 24 hours a day. She never turned it off.
“They’re not ignoring it now. They keep playing the President saying it’s nothing and would go away in a few days. Now he won’t talk to anyone.”
No surprise. The last crisis, the pandemic, had been met with a similar response.
There were over a million deaths at that time; this had been exceeded in just two weeks. If it didn’t go away, the total was going to be horrific.
“We’re not going to be leaving any time soon. The police had shut the road for everything other than official vehicles.” The trains stopped at midnight; the last one snowed in at our station.
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Last I heard, we’re going to the missile complex.”
It was a ubiquitous small town, with a big secret. We made up part of the air defence system in place to prevent invaders. And the threat of being wiped off the face of the planet if anything went wrong.
Freda hated the idea of nesting with nuclear bombs. So did I.
“Do we have a choice?”
“If you want to live.”
“So, in your opinion, it’s not going to stop.”
“No.”
I’d asked old man Bowen, ex-weatherman on channel 6 news, old meteorologist for Nasa, whose wife read tarot cards.
An expert.
“It’s part of a phenomenon that has happened in the past. Two more years, if we’re lucky.”
“And you know this…oh. the crazy old fool down the street. Seriously, Monte?”
There were things wanted to believe, believable things, things that some people just didn’t want to hear.
Fundamentally, a good person, when she had first met the Bowens, she took an instant dislike to them. He was abrupt and she was aloof, but that was just defence.
I smiled. “As much as you hate them, so far, everything he’d said had come true. As for the next, well, that was going to be the killer.”
“Or as the government says, we just have to wait it out a little longer.”
“While all the top officials, including our fearless leader, swan off to a country with a warmer climate.”
All the rich people were gone.
The president tried to sneak out by the back secret entrance that no one was supposed to know about. Except for one old press hack.
She didn’t answer. We agreed to disagree on certain matters, because not to would be letting politics destroy something good.
She glared at me. “Don’t say it. I’ve already had seventeen phone calls. It’s easy to lay blame, not so easy to prove it.”
Yes. He could do no wrong. And it was going to kill her.
But I wasn’t going to be drawn in this time. Just saying what I was thinking would get me arrested, and Beth would turn me in, husband or not.
“Then I guess God has a lot to answer for.”
That did it. The president and then God, sometimes the two fused, according to the president, speaking candidly about his ‘friends’, telling the reporter, or rather the stooge paid to preen his ego, that who was he to dispute they believed he was the almighty himself.”
It had been impossible not to burst out laughing.
The truck came to pick us up, one small bag allowed. Beth was going to come, but remembered that she had a small job to do and would come later.
She was warned that she had 24 hours. After that, no one knew what was going to happen.
It was more like they did, but to tell us mere mortals might have set off a chain reaction of dissent.
The last I saw of her, she was waving. I don’t think she expected me to leave.
We collected all the people on the street and headed to the silo. There were two other trucks. There was an officer in the truck who said there were rooms for 200 people. It was once a mass point for soldiers in case of an attempted invasion.
I found it amusing that anyone would come to put two for the purpose of invading it.
So did the others.
There were five trucks. The last of the townsfolk. All outlying areas had been evacuated earlier.
About a dozen had chosen not to come or had something else to do, like Beth.
And after the sun went down and Beth or any of the others deigned not to come, it was the worst-case scenario. The silo boss sent a team out to find them.
Then the snow started.
The search party came back in half an hour. The cold was too intense.
That was what was going to happen.
After the snow, the earth was going to freeze.
It came and it didn’t go.
Everything froze unless protected.
Four months passed before the cold lifted to a point where we could go back outside.
By that time, we needed food, and I was charged with finding it, and took six volunteers.
We found food, and we found something else.
A place where those who believed that nothing was going to happen had frozen to death, dying as a result of their beliefs.
It was a terrible loss of life that could have been easily saved.
It was predicted that there would be a thaw, Mother Nature’s planet-wide reset.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 