We stood where green turned to blue, watching the spectrum spin in all directions, caught in the spray of a garden hose. We heard the kaleidoscope tinkle mosaic out of the windows of old houses. Old homes. We were yellow and orange and purple and all the glint of silver and gold. And we knew where to put the shadowy black to bring out the fire in red.
In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.
He said his eyes rasped audibly when he blinked. Which wasn’t very far from the truth. Very small amounts of dust particles crept into his eyes at night and bonded with his cornea to form a strange layer of gritty paste on the surface of his eye. In a literal sense, his eyes were like sandpaper.
Not, of course, that anyone else could see it. He had been to doctors who told him nothing was wrong, gave him simple saline drops and the equivalent of a pat on the head. He had been to several shaman who told him that the condition was a result of his continued ignorance. So he had tried to learn everything there was about physics, chemistry, mysticism, philosophy, society, psychology, languages, literature from every available culture – anything that was in the world or hidden between the cracks of physicality. The condition remained. He was a medical mystery.
“So that’s why I’ve come to you,” he concluded.
“Well, Mr. Marson, what do you expect me to do about it?”
He paused to take in the bleakness of my habitat. The air was cold and pulling moisture from the ground. “Why do you live here?”
My focus left his face and wandered to the grey-white horizon. “Because it’s home,” I replied with a shrug.
He blinked slowly, wincing a little as he opened his eyes again. “I want you to be my companion to every type of habitable place on the planet, from least to most hospitable. After that, I will ask you the same question and I want a better answer. Because that is the last thing I don’t know. And if that doesn’t cure me, I will have my eyes removed.”
I ran my tongue against the back of my teeth to keep my face neutral. “Why me? That’s a lot of pressure on a person.”
He smiled. “Because you, like me, have never really seen.”
In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.
She was writing on paper so thin the ink was bleeding onto the table. Indelible marks on the forty-year-old Formica. So obviously this was the end of nothing. Hints of thoughts were there beyond scrubbing and bleach. They had to know that.
The pen moved carefully, its tip fine enough to tear the paper in a sudden surge of emotion. She remained reined in and solitary. Each letter self-contained. Deliberate. She crackled underneath the stoic scratching.
A thunk against the window. Her hand jerked with her head, made gift-wrap crinkling noises as the page crumpled and tore. Thoughts became pianos and singing and cackling chatter. Her fingers pulled the rest of the page into her fist.
She had never believed in bad timing. It was foolish and elastic against the rigid reality of choices. Leeway thinking, as if there could have been another route. She stared at the table. Not a complete word in the ink tracings. Just self-important permanence. She wondered if there were any way a bird could survive an eight-story fall after being stunned against a window.
In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.
My gran used to say, “There’s only darkness until you open your eyes, but never stare directly at the sun.” But when I combined those two pieces of advice, I noticed that it was brighter staring at the sun with my eyes closed than keeping my eyes open after bedtime.
After visiting gran, my oldest brother would tell me that she was a senile old vampire. I would swear I didn’t believe him, but each time I saw gran, I would try to examine her papery skin and puzzle over the cloudy centres of her eyes without her noticing. My mother told me, after gran died, that gran was careful never to let on that she knew what I was doing.
But that was the memory. The one that triggered my reaction to Jason at the newstand the day before the eclipse. Try explaining that connection to the cops as a man is standing in front of you bleeding from the mouth.
In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.
We were looking for a savior long after saving our ideals was beneficial. I mean, we couldn’t conceive of deeper shades of bleakness. Marshall Pennigton had a slick-toothed smile and apologetic eyes. He had us believing he damn near invented achievement.
Jenny knew that was a lie, of course. She knew better than any of us that what we really wanted was just something to work towards. Our constant frustration was, to her, merely our failure to accept that our lot was never to reach our goals.
Depressing? Yes and no. Jenny was our real source of hope, though it wasn’t nearly as apparent before that sentence was written down just now. Our adoration was shown in constant condescension for her blindness regarding Marshall’s worth. Marshall made glory attainable in our eyes. We did not realise he had said nothing about the road.
