Fighting back at Writer's Block

I don't believe in writer's block.

That's a sentiment that I'm sure you often hear touted around writing communities, but it's of absolutely no help at all if you happen to think you suffer from the (make believe) affliction. The reason why I say I don't believe in it is because I can always think of something to write about -- it's just that often those ideas are a load of shit. And then beyond that, the hard part is doing the actual time consuming writing. Face it, if you really want to write about something and you put aside the fear of writing about rubbish, you could churn out a thousand words right now about how your dog likes to sniff everything. Problem is, it wouldn't be interesting.

But lo an behold, my foolproof, patented method for thinking of story or article ideas is here to the rescue. I very much doubt that I'm the first person to think of such a technique, but I know that it works.


The 1-100 Technique

I came up with this idea while I was trying to think of interesting ways to teach descriptive language in the high-school where I work. The pupils were set the task of writing a piece which would include as many interesting movement based verbs as possible. Prior to this, I got the pupils trying to list 100 different movement verbs to use as a word bank for their writing piece.

Obviously these lists started off with "walk", "run", "jump", and so on and they then evolved into much more eclectic and descriptive choices, "ooze", "bound", "trundle" once the easy ones had been used up. By the time you get to 100 you've been concentrating so much and letting your mind jump so far around the subject that you pull out the most bizarre ideas.

So anyway, this works wonders when you're trying to think up ideas for a story. Jot down the numbers 1-100 on some sheets of paper (you'll probably need a couple of lines for each one) and then start writing down the first story ideas that come to mind and try not to stop until you reach that golden three-figure number. Start off with the easy and shitty ideas (those ones that come easily) and see where you end up.

You'll find you work your way through themes and ideas in big chunks and come up with the most unorthodox prompts, which may just prove to be your saving grace when you are faced with an empty word document or notebook.

Like I said, start off with narrative ideas. Perhaps go for a list of "What if?" scenarios:

What if...?
1. Humans lived in alien zoos
2. The sun exploded
3. We could cure physical disability

Or perhaps try a list of different character professions or traits:

1. A baseball player
2. A pawnbroker
3. A kleptomaniac

Or interesting objects or interesting places or interesting historical events. Who knows what gems you'll dig up.

Recycling the old site

This site is currently going through something of a redesign after lying dormant for several months. Now that serialisation of A Pittsburgh Storm has finished and I'm looking at publishing further afield, this blog will now become the home for a wider variety of writing and commentary on small press and publishing. Expect to see some small press news, book reviews, and more writing updates from myself. All in time for a lovely summer.

Read "A Pittsburgh Storm" online

Welcome to LateThursday, where you can read my post-apocalyptic thriller, A Pittsburgh Storm, from your browser for the bargain price of nothing at all. Of course, if you want to support my hard work then please buy a digital or hard-copy using the links on the right, or alternatively buy me a beer through paypal.

(Sample cover design by Euan)

Part 1: Pittsburgh, PA

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6


Part 2: Mecca, Southside

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 3
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
(First Half/Second Half)


Part 3: Bramble, PA

Chapter 1
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 2
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 3
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
(First Half/Second Half)


Part 4: Downtown

Chapter 1
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 4
(First Half/Second Half)
Chapter 5

Chapter Omission

It's been brought to my attention that Part 3, Chapter 6 has been missing from the table of contents this whole time. Whoops!

It's been amended. The story is understandable without the chapter, which is why it must have slipped under the radar, but it is one of my favourite scenes -- the climactic action piece for Part 3. If you've been reading with the RSS feed, (or if you bought the ebook) you would have received it because I did post it a while back. Those new readers who've been using the table of contents for navigation will have missed it though.

It's now on the right column: Part 1, Part 2.

Sorry!

Dave

Part 4, Chapter 5

Eleven days between updates is a bit much, and for that I can only apologise, but lo and behold, here is the very final instalment of A Pittsburgh Storm.

If you've enjoyed reading the novel, then please go ahead and buy a copy from Lulu or Smashwords (the links are on the right) and support artists who do kind and noble things like give away their hard work away for free. If you want to give more or less than $1.25, or you want to cut out the middle man, then please feel free to use the donate button, which will direct you to PayPal. If you do any of these three things, you'll be visited by the holy angels of charity in the night, and who knows what they'll do in return!

But really, it's been a nice experience posting my work up here. I've received a lot of nice feedback and many thousands of visitors. Now that the whole work is finally posted, this site isn't going anywhere. It will still house A Pittsburgh Storm, and will be used to provide news on any news, updates, or writings of mine.

Now that the writing's complete, please feel free to send me any comments you may have. It's kind words and thoughtful comments that keep me going (because lord knows there's no money involved). And be sure to tell your friends -- particularly if your friend's a publisher, agent, or magazine editor!

Enjoy the final chapter.

Dave.

-------

5

I wake up. My vision is blurred and my breathing labored. I’m sat upright, resting against something. Martin crouches next to me, looking into my eyes, but falling in and out of focus. Behind him, I can see the loathsome tower of burnt furniture. Martin pulls his face back from mine and says something, but the sound is muffled. I can see the sweat on his face and the worry in his eyes. Then I see a body in the distance behind him: the second life I’ve taken. My jeans are red with blood, my own blood, clotting and sticking to my calf. The pain is terrible – I’ve never been shot before. Whenever I move the muscles in my leg, I stretch and tug at the wound with excruciating pain. I can see the trail carved in the ash where Martin has dragged me from the base of the tower, over to the sidewalk, to prop me against a fire hydrant.

The boy’s crying. “Are you ok?” he asks.

I can’t reply with words, but cough an acknowledgement. This satisfies him and a smile of relief crosses his face.

I stay on the ground for a long time, while Martin, crouching next to me, wipes my face and looks into my eyes, full of concern. We’re both exhausted.

It takes a while, but eventually the world returns to me, tactile and close. I can feel, again, the cold air on my face, and, when I put my hands by my sides, the soot that covers the ground, thick and slippery.

Somehow, I get to my feet, slipping on the ash, with one hand on the hydrant and the other on Martin’s shoulder, and I try to keep the weight off my injured leg. The wound doesn’t feel as bad as I expected it to. Maybe the shot just grazed me.

With Martin’s help, I stagger over to the stranger’s body, which still lays face down in the ash. Imprints of his final footsteps recede behind him and turn into Third Avenue. The man's dead face is turned to his left and blood pools beneath him, dripping from his mouth. This mixes with the ash and soot on the ground, turning it into a dark red paste. I nudge the body over with my left foot, half-afraid that the man could get up again and resume his assault. The moment I see his face I know this fear will never transpire because the right corner of his forehead is missing. His right eye has popped out, but I don’t know where it is. It may still be in there, but is now indistinguishable from the mess of pulp. The sight doesn’t disgust me. The sight is too alien to have any effect like disgust. I expect to hear crying from Martin, but he stands by my side, watching the body, as emotionless as myself.

I look to what was once our truck. Yellow flames lick the interior, reaching out of fire-cracked windows to flicker up at the sky.

I’m over stimulated, overworked, and tired. The situation takes on a surreal quality, distorted by waves of fatigue, and then further by waves of adrenaline that the pain pushes through my system. My hands are shaking. Does this mean I’m going into shock? And is there anything I can do about it?

“Let’s take a walk,” I tell Martin, meaning for it to come out as a question, but failing with the intonation and instead issuing a command. He doesn’t respond, so I start moving in a half-hop, south towards the Monongahela River. My butt aches from sitting down and my leg is in obvious agony.

My mind’s a blur and I feel lost. Of course, I know where I am, but I don’t know where I’m going. These days, I rarely know where I’m going.

Martin doesn’t ask any questions. He simply follows.

I keep my eyes on the streets ahead. I can hear the boy kicking a can behind me.

After a few minutes of painful stumbling, I find myself on the Penn Lincoln Parkway. I veer left and stumble eastwards, with the setting sun on my back. My left leg aches from supporting all of my weight and I doubt I can continue walking much further, but my body won’t allow me to stop. Not like this. Not here. Not now that I’ve come so far. Both Martin and I are silent; he knows as much as I do. He knows that we are walking, in a vague manner, towards Oakland, where I’m familiar with the streets and houses and still possess a key to my old apartment and the promise of shelter. Before I can reach these districts, I see the Smithfield Street Bridge, stretching out towards Station Square across a thousand feet of calm dark water. As we approach the bridge, the ashes blanketing downtown thin out. The bridge has been reasonably unaffected by the fire and on a whim I decide I would like to walk out along the pedestrian walkway, to take a seat and watch the river flow.

Martin draws up level beside me. Despite everything that has happened, he seems cheered by the view along the river, which looks out towards the low buildings of the Southside. Behind us, there is the impressive burnt out skyline of Downtown.

After crossing a third of the bridge’s length, Martin and I sit down and take a break. We lean our backs against one of the steel trusses and inhale the refreshing soot-free breeze moving up the river to join the Ohio, maybe a mile behind us.

Everything Martin and I owned was in the truck when it was set on fire. Now we have nothing but the clothes we wear, a machinegun a few blocks to our left, and whatever miscellany is left in my apartment. Moments pass and I search through my pockets for the photograph of Karen Spellman, in a bikini, with her pert breasts, tanned thighs, and firm midriff. I finger the photo in my left hand, and Martin looks over my shoulder in admiration of the girl. The sun shines bright in the picture, down on her browning skin, and a red bikini, skimpy, sexy, and unforgettable. She’s smiling her big smile, with straight white teeth, flirting with the photographer.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Martin asks.

“No,” I laugh.

“Then who is she?”

“Karen Spellman is her name but I’ve never met her. I found the photo and someone else told me about her.”

“Well…” I know the boy wants to say how attractive she is, but he’s only twelve, and most twelve-year-old boys don’t say things like that, since they’ve only begun to realize that girls can be so staggeringly beautiful.

We both know what each other is thinking and we acknowledge the pain we share. Karen Spellman stands in the photo, on a sandy Florida beach, oblivious of what’s to come. Her beauty emphasizes her loss and our loss and everyone’s loss. I’ll never see another woman. Somewhere, I know, is the body of Emily Jacobs, probably unburied. Somewhere else is the body of my mother, but I couldn’t guess where. Somewhere else, you could find the body of my father, perhaps, and my brothers, and my sister.

It occurs to me how much I’ve changed, after only two or three weeks of mind-fucking fuckups. After surprise transvestites, and dogs in grocery stores, and multiple killings, and the biggest funeral pyre in history at the funeral to end history, and smashing windows, and falling snow, and having gun’s pointed at me, and pointing guns at others, and finding a boy living alone in a once diner, now fort, and driving all day, and card games in the rain, and dirty jokes, and realizing that I’m in the last one percent of one percent left, with nothing else to do. And then, realizing that all I need to do in this new life is to look after one boy, and then doing just that, against all the odds.

“Where are we going?”

“I still have to keys to my apartment. It’s only about, well, thirty or forty minutes away.”

“We have all day. Is it nice there?”

“Yeah, you can see the museum from the window, and it’s comfy enough.”

“And there’s food?”

“Yeah, and clothes. And come summer, maybe we can go to the park – it’s not far – and plant some tomatoes, some peppers, zucchini, potatoes, carrots, corn. How’s that sound?”

“Sound’s good. Shall we go?”

“Sure. Let’s get moving.”

Martin gets up first, eager to resume the walk along the river’s edge. As ever, his energy impresses me. After a moment, he turns to me. I’m still on the ground, twenty years older than my age. He too suddenly looks somewhere in that age bracket. He holds out his hand and helps me up from the asphalt.

Part 4, Chapter 4 (Second Half)

4 (Continued...)

I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to James’ old home. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, I may find James has returned there and is willing to team up with Martin and I. James is the only other person, aside from Martin, who I know I can trust. Despite this, I’m worried that James may know about Hank’s death, and I don’t know how he’ll react to me after such an event. In fact, it’s almost certain that James knows about Hank, as James would have crossed the Birmingham Bridge after me. Perhaps there are even witnesses to the event itself. I don’t care so much about punishment – I don’t see who is going to make justice their responsibility – but I’m aware than anybody I do find, like James, will prefer to ostracize me, and perhaps Martin, than to stick with a known killer. That could spell disaster.

Maneuvering the vehicle through the heart of the city’s devastation is laborious and monotonous. Every few yards I have to adjust our direction to avoid hitting various heaps of junk, burned out vehicles, and the contents of stores pulled into the street. I could have driven along the edges of Downtown, of course, by the Strip District, on the fast track to the East Pittsburgh regions, but curiosity pushes me on this awkward and convoluted route. Downtown Pittsburgh is relatively small, so I know this wont take all day. But then, we have all the time in the world.

The sun is high and bright and bakes vivid detail into everything it touches. Under such a glare, the familiar Downtown surroundings seem all the more uncanny. The sunlight beams down, filtering through thin wraiths of black smoke that rise from charred remains of car, building, postbox, and awning. The only sound is the familiar engine of the four-by-four, like a moon buggy on a dusty, dirty, alien planet. The heat of the fire evaporated any snow in the region. Even so, during the journey to Pittsburgh, I’d noticed a distinct thinning of what was once a perpetual blanket of white. In the outskirts of Pittsburgh the snow still lies thick, but with asphalt creeping up from underneath. Here the blanket is one of unrelenting soot and ash.

Maybe the old man, Saul, was right about one thing: maybe Spring really is on its way.

Martin gazes out of the truck window and watches the destroyed city move past. This is the first time he has seen Pittsburgh since the world went to shit. This may be the first time he has seen Pittsburgh in years. I expected a more visible reaction from Martin, perhaps tears, I don’t know. Although, if the truth is told, Martin, like myself, has been so desensitized by the preceding weeks that he doesn’t know hot to react. I have to keep reminding myself that Martin has already witnessed the deaths of each member in his immediate family. He’s had the horrible opportunity to look upon each lifeless corpse and know that it was once an animate and loving individual in his life. Gazing out of the window, the bodies of these strangers, once frozen in the snow and now charred by the fire, are surely the least of the boy’s concerns.

The truck rolls through Downtown and ahead, I can see PPG Place, with the ice rink by its east side. Looming above it is the complex of towering glass – the same towers that Hank and I had watched from a rooftop in the Southside, as a stranger pushed office furniture out from the windows and yelled obscenities into the wind. The high glass buildings that make up the PPG complex are visible from miles around. Now this huge monolith of the capitalist ideal is a warped and melted tower of weeping glass. Behind it, the thirty-one floored granite Highmark building on Fifth Avenue stands charred and wounded. Its huge pyramid roof that once poked defiantly into the sky now stands dirty and purposeless.

As gusts of wind usher ash out of the ice-rink and into the street, curiosity keeps me edging the vehicle forwards through the debris. Martin, of course, is unconcerned and unaware of what this place could represent. However, I can taste the tension in my mouth; a dry, bitter clogging in my throat.

“Martin, you know there’s a gun in my backpack, right?” I ask. I don’t want to concern him, but I’m unnerved and could do with some company in that feeling.

“Sure, yeah I know.” He looks uneasy.

“Will you get it out for me?”

“Why?”

“Just— please, Martin.” He at least needs to be aware of what’s going on. To keep his eyes open.

Martin clambers into the back seats, finds my bag, and tugs at the straps holding the gun. I slow the truck further as we round the corner of Stanwix and Fourth. Aside from the cars, which were already there, now hundreds of filing cabinets, desks, office chairs, wastepaper baskets, photocopiers, fax machines, computers, telephones, and notice boards litter the street. A few of the items have been scattered into separate clumps, perhaps with an attempt at some kind of order, but the majority stand in a huge man-made mountain. I can only guess at what many of these objects once were. Now they are blackened, charred, and crumbled out of existence. They sit in a broken ash pile, bits of steel and scrap poking up here and there amongst solitary surviving pieces of desk-frame and filing cabinet. This monolith must have taken days of non-stop labor to build. It must have been under constant construction since I last saw the plaza, when I was leaving Pittsburgh. Martin climbs back into the front passenger seat, handing the unloaded gun to me and staring at the pile in wonder. “Whoa,” he says as he drops the ammunition clip into my lap. The street is impassible in the truck, but I want to examine this tower of destroyed corporation, on this cold and still day amongst all these other high rises. If I drive away, this moment will stand as another of those many moments in the past few weeks, where witnessing the signature instances of mankind’s decline took a backseat to my own health and stoicism. This moment will stand next to the time I left the Oakland riots when they became too intense, and I returned to my apartment on Craig Street to find Emily worried and waiting. It will stand alongside my decision to hole myself up in my apartment for a week, while all around me the world changed, devoid of my input.

I open the driver-side door and step onto the ash. The sound of the door’s mechanism and the light tap as my foot hits the ground echoes in the otherwise total absence of sound. The fire has even scared the birds away. Every so often, I hear the rustle of a light breeze, like flicking the pages of a book, and see the flitter of drifting ash.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” I tell Martin. “Stay in the car, ok?”

He looks at me and raises his eyebrows; he doesn’t want to be alone. I nod my head and he in turn opens his door, sliding off the seat and placing his feet on the ground.

Completely calm with my heart racing, I load the ammunition magazine into the gun and hold the weapon loose by my side. I’m conscious of the weapon’s misleading weight. Martin comes up a few steps behind me as I approach the blackened tower of office junk in the middle of the street.

In a way, the tower’s beautiful, stood there in all of its sooty haphazard grandeur.

Once I arrive at the edge of the tower, I begin to climb. It’s the only sensible option that faces me. The grime is thick, but enough metalwork is contained within that climbing is much easier than it initially appears. Occasionally, pieces of the furniture shift as the tower accommodates my weight. Then sometimes my foot slips on the thick ash, which covers the tower, and also my torso, legs, arms, hands, and face. Behind me, Martin is following a similar route.

We climb in silence; save for our own ragged breaths. I reach up, landing my hand on a wastepaper bin, which tumbles away beneath me, clattering and bouncing to the ground below. I watch the billows of soot that rise in its wake.

Finally, I attain the summit of the structure, pulling myself up onto the flat edge of a filing cabinet. The manner of its placement makes it look like pedestal. I’m confident that the tower’s builder placed it here (though I couldn’t guess how) so they could survey the surrounding courtyard. This unnerves me because, all along, I’ve known who the builder is. This tower exists because a twisted mind decided to put it here and I’ll never forget seeing, from across the river, the twisted mind in this building’s windows.

Finding my feet upon the filing cabinet’s side, I turn in circles, taking in a panorama of the unbelievable carnage. Moments later Martin joins me. Looking down on the ground below, I can see five other small piles, stacked only a few objects in height, arranged in a ring around this central peak.

Martin has also noticed these stacks. “That’s weird,” he mutters.

I nod in response as I puzzle over their significance. Five of the smaller stacks stand around this central cone. A realization clicks in my mind – an image from the past. I try to explain to Martin what I see, and the possible significance of the pentagram.

“Who put all of these here?”

“I saw someone here, weeks back…”

Martin waits for me to continue.

“He was in one of the PPG buildings, throwing all of this junk out of the windows.” I want to tell Martin that the madman was yelling, swearing to the heavens, and that he sent chills down my spine, which remained there for days, but these aren’t the kinds of things you should tell a kid.

We stand in silence for a moment. Martin stares at the base of the giant tower. I stare down the street, at the eastern corner. This is why Martin is the first to notice the corpse lying a few feet below us, on the far side of the mound. The corpse of a large dog, burnt and charred, destroyed save for its bones: its distinctive skull and a small wiry rib cage.

“What?” Martin says. He’s crying again, with tears running through the soot on his face, leaving streaks like the reverse of mascaraed drunks crying outside of nightclubs and bars on a loud, after hours Southside or Strip District evening. Martin’s appearance would be comical if it weren’t so heartbreakingly tragic to see the boy’s soul crushed.

He looks to me and we simultaneously understand what we stand upon. The dog was a gift and this tower is no pedestal, but a sacrificial altar. And furthermore, the pentagram indicates that this was no innocent ritual.

Martin’s look of panic is contagious. “Time we got out of here, eh?” I ask and usher him ahead of me, down the tower, back in the direction of our truck. Utter fear replaces the sense of uneasiness that has possessed us for the last thirty minutes. Fear of an unknown malevolence that holds too much sway where we stand. I tighten my grip upon the machinegun and hold it at hip level, looking around to the ground far beneath us. Martin is only a few feet lower than me and I’m panicking — fear taking over my better judgment. I need to get off this tower.

We clamber down, our faces into the ashen dirt, missing handholds and footfalls in our rush.

We’re several meters from the ground when the architect of this grand alter makes his appearance. His casual manner makes it seem that he’s been hiding for the past few minutes, aware of our presence, and waiting for us to become scared enough for his theatric entrance to have its full effect. My face whitens beneath its soot covering as I crane my neck at the sound of his approach. He holds a small handgun in one hand and a burning torch in the other. Frozen on the edge of the precarious tower, I feel like a butterfly pinned into a collector’s book.

This new character is too far away to make out details, yet I’m convinced that on his face a smile has spread. He stands by the truck, gun in hand, and looks up at Martin and I. I’m no longer so sure that I want to be off this wretched tower and closer to this gun-wielding madman. A heartbeat passes and he tosses his torch through the vehicle’s open door. He looks back to us, to gauge our reaction, I suppose, and our horror is clear. Then he takes a step away from the truck and towards the tower. “Everything must burn,” he says in the still silence of midday, his voice deep and old. “This is our punishment,” he gestures to our shared surroundings. “This is retribution for mankind’s sins. Now everything must burn. Everything must flicker and burn and die.”

“Don’t go any further,” I say to Martin in a cracked voice. “Stay where you are.” I clamber past the boy. Ash cakes my throat and my breath comes out in ragged gasps.

“The world was supposed to end,” the stranger announces as he observes my descent. “Both of you, it was supposed to end. But some things lingered on. We did, for instance. And that’s not good enough, you see. We’re still here. ”

Standing directly in front of Martin, his hand on my shoulder, I gain enough of a footing to turn my body towards the dark haired stranger.

“You see, it’s not good enough!” He raises his gun and points it at me; the second time I’ve had a gun pointed at me today. “Not good enough. Something went wrong, but I’ll fix it! I’ll fucking fix it as easy as—”

And there’s a crack in the air, and a ping sounds immediately afterwards on the metal frame of an office chair a few feet to my right. The bullet pulls soot behind it and caves a segment of the structure.

Another heartbeat passes, I try to raise my own weapon, but two more cracks ring out. One of the bullets strikes me in the leg, spins me around, heavy and clumsy and with excruciating pain. I lose my balance and look down: a few of meters of jagged burnt scrap. I meet the ground with astonishing swiftness.

The next thing I’m aware of, Martin is an impossible distance above me and I’m rolling from my back onto my stomach. I look ahead and see the anonymous gunman strolling towards me. Then I notice my arm extends out in front of me, along the ground, pointing towards him. A second ticks by like an hour and I notice that the machinegun is still in my hand and still within my control.

So I pull the trigger and swear through my teeth.

A series of cracks rattle through my ears into my skull, and simultaneously along my arm, into my torso. My entire body convulses with the force and shock. The stranger’s body convulses significantly more my own as bullets shred through him. I’m filled with relief because I know he’s dead and that Martin and I are safe. This thought comes as I lose consciousness for the second time.

And the world fades to black.

Part 4, Chapter 4 (First Half)

Well, I'm at my new home, and in a new job. Things have finally settled, so updates should run a bit smoother. This is a small one, the first half of the fourth chapter, working to establish the climax of the novel. I hope you all enjoy it.

There's been a massive surge of visitors these past few weeks or so, which is really satisfying to see, and there's been a big increase in the number of books bought, which is awesome. In case you missed it, you can pick up your own copy of the entire ebook, using the links on the right, for only $1.25. If that feels too measly for such a volume of work, then by all means, please donate through paypal. Or read it all for free, when I manage to get the updates online.

If your one of the many new visitors, don't forget that the whole thing starts right here.

Anyway, I'll post the next update on Thursday, September 10th.

Enjoy your week,

Dave

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4

Most of the ride back into Pittsburgh passes without much event. Martin and I make small talk, but we’re both too preoccupied with the concluding drama at Saul’s home to progress much father than that.

And although it’s a touchy subject, Martin asks me again, after a couple of hours on the road, “So what are we going to do in the city?”

It’s only a touchy subject because I don’t know the answer.

I think maybe I once understood my plan, but now, in the face of what’s happened, I’m no longer so sure. If nothing else, the conflict with Saul has served to emphasize how helpless this situation is. I’m no longer actively trying to improve my situation because I feel like nothing I can do will ever help. Ultimately, Martin and I are fucked no matter what. So instead, I simply glide along, wherever the road may lead. I make gestures of action and defiance, but little more. Taking Martin under my wing was all along, perhaps, only a gesture. It’s a gesture to nobody in particular, maybe only to myself, and indicates that I’m progressing somewhere and working towards something – whatever that is. Returning to the burnt out city of Pittsburgh is only another one of these gestures, because it proves to the world that I’m doing something. I’m aware of the futility of it all as I drive the truck south, down frozen, dead, aimless roads, but I don’t know what else to do.

So I don’t reply to the boy’s question and he doesn’t push the subject any further. We both know the answer, so we sit in silence.

Hours pass, and we eventually enter the city boundary again, driving through the northern edge of Pittsburgh, back towards Downtown, and like I said, it’s not because there’s anything there, it’s because this feels like the logical thing to do. Of course, it feels logical that we should head Downtown. If anything were to happen, that’s where it would be, right? But when Pittsburgh was still alive, only weeks ago, Downtown was a pure anomaly. During the daytime, it was busy mainly because of all the offices there. Retail and living in the Downtown area was almost non-existent. In the evenings, most of the area’s life stemmed from the theatres in the cultural district and at the baseball and football stadiums across the Allegheny River. And that was it – all of the life in Pittsburgh centered in the Strip, or the Southside, or Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill… So I doubt this would be the centre of events at all, but returning there simply feels like the right thing to do.

At this moment, on this clear day next to Martin in this rusting red monster of a vehicle and miles from anywhere, we can see how much fire damage Downtown has suffered. And behind it, swathes of the Hill and Strip District smolder. From miles away, we can see the rising smoke and ash.

It takes hours to make it through the northern end of the city. We have to leave the parkway, because of the abandoned cars that block huge sections of the road, and instead take the smaller roads and intermediary links. As we cross the Fort Duquesne Bridge, the fire damage astounds us. Many of the trademark high rises of Downtown Pittsburgh are now little more than charred, smoking monoliths, gutted on all sides, their contents spewed out onto the streets below. Anonymous debris clutters any spare space on the streets, blackened and destroyed.

I idle the truck on the bridge exit, and we take a moment to catch our breath and digest the surreal vision. I almost expect devils to fly out of the holes in these charred towers. The sight is so bizarre, dark, and hellish, the sight of winged nightmares wouldn’t seem in the slightest bit misplaced. This is straight out of Lovecraft.

Careful to avoid debris on the road, I roll the truck forwards, across the cluttered bridge, and into Downtown.

Part 4, Chapter 3 (Second Half)

Updating this blog-book has been a nightmare as of late. For that, I can only apologise, as I have done at the start of the past three or four updates.

Here's the second half of Part 4, Chapter 3, as way of redemption.

Enjoy!

Dave.

-------------

3 (Continued)

“Get your things, Martin,” I say. “We’re leaving.”

The boy still lies on the ground. Blood covers his head, but he appears to be more worried about me than for his own health.

Saul coughs and rolls onto his side. Blood comes out of his mouth in a thick red river and drips to the ground.

“Get your things, Martin!” I shout this time, and martin struggles to his feet. Uneasy on his legs, he hobbles to the front entrance where our bags stand. He stops when he sees the blood on his palm, and his mouth opens in shock. “Don’t worry,” I say. “It looks worse than it is.” He nods through the tears.

I walk over to him, looking back at Saul on the ground as I pull my jacket on and tug a hat over my head. “I'm sorry,” I say with all sincerity to the boy and he nods again in dumb reply.

Saul is rocking on his side, coughing, as Martin and I carry our bags outside.

*

Quickly, we throw our bags into the truck. It’s cold outside and we can see our own breath. Our bodies are still running on adrenaline; my own body feels like it doesn’t even belong to me, as if I’m watching these events from afar, utterly disconnected from the situation. The sensation of autopilot is so intense.

We climb into the cab of the truck, without exchanging a word. I fumble for the keys, stick them in the ignition, and attempt to get the vehicle started. The engine keeps growling and spluttering, but nothing more. The truck faces Saul’s home, so Martin stares alternately at me and then at the home’s open door.

Back and forth, as the engine growls and growls and finally roars.

As the truck kicks into life, Saul emerges from his home, bloodied and limping. He is too far away for me to read his expression, but close enough for me to notice he is carrying his rifle again. He raises the gun to shoulder height and points at the car. My stomach drops.

Martin yelps and I yell at him, “GET DOWN!” Saul stares into my eyes and I stare back into his own, and I see nothing. An eternity passes, I turn to look behind me, and kick the vehicle into reverse. I can feel Saul’s eyes drilling into the back of my skull, and with them, the barrel of the rifle he holds. I continue to reverse the truck down Saul’s long sloping driveway, as fast as I can handle, and towards the main road. I turn my head forward again and Saul is walking down the driveway to follow us out, still holding the rifle at shoulder height, still pointed at the truck. Martin fidgets and I warn him again through tight set teeth, “Stay down!”; just to stay down a little while longer.

And then I roll onto the road, as simple as that, and swivel the car to face south. Martin pulls himself up over the dashboard, timid and curious. I don’t reprimand him. We can both see Saul watching us and as we pull away, he drops his rifle back to his side, his chin falling, sorrowful, into his chest.

“Are you ok, Martin?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply.

A long time passes.

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

“I know.”

Silence fills the air between us as we stare out of the windscreen and at the curving road ahead.

Part 4, Chapter 3 (First Half)

Again, I'm sorry about the slow updates. I'm moving apartment (again!) today, so it's been a busy week. Enough excuses though, here's the first half of Part 4, Chapter 3. There are only three chapters left after this one, and it's at this point that conflicts start to come to the fore, and we see the resolution on the horizon.

I'll post the second half on Thursday, and I'll even schedule it into the Blogger program, so I don't forget.

Enjoy your coming week.

Dave

-------

Chapter 3

The next morning I wake to the noise of somebody moving around in the living room. I drag my lethargic body out of bed and stumble through the doorway. I know I look a comfortable mess. Martin is awake, groping through his backpack. It occurs to me that throughout the night, my own bag has sat in the corner of the room with the machinegun strapped to its side. This realization gives me a brief sense of panic until I notice that the gun hasn’t moved an inch since I left it there. The relief washes over me in a cool wave.

“Hey,” martin says with a smile. “How’d you sleep?”

The reaction from the boy cheers me, as for the first time since arriving at Saul’s home, Martin has shown enough confidence to start talking again. I know this is because Saul isn’t in the room. I don’t understand the boy’s aversion to the man — Martin has never displayed any nervousness around me, so I know he doesn’t worry about strangers. Saul is old. Saul is black. Saul is a loner. Any of those things could be an explaining for the boys attitude. “Yeah, I slept fine thanks,” I say. “It was great.” I look around the living room, uneasy in another man’s strange home. “Is Saul awake yet?”

“Yeah, he uh—” Martin pauses long enough to shrug his shoulders. “Well, he went out earlier, but I don’t know why. He thought I was asleep when he left so he was quiet about it.”

This strikes me as odd. “Oh, ok then. I guess I’ll make tea.”

*

While Saul is gone, Martin and I sit around the coffee table in the living room and talk. I ask Martin about his school life, trying to unearth why he was often so insular and shy, but after much digging I get no closer to understanding his reasoning.

Martin tells me about a particular teacher at his school who, in an effort to combat Martin’s shy nature, would make him read aloud in front of the class each day. Martin despised this, but his English skills were far exceeding those of his classmates who were denied the same opportunity. Martin laughs about how relieved he is, now that he will never go through that ordeal again, and we hear Saul turn the handle on the front door. The boy’s laugh falters. It’s a terrible way to react, but I’m inexplicably worried for my own and Martin’s safety. Saul’s mysterious disappearance didn’t concern me too much, but his silent approach upon the house is uncanny and unnerving. As he fumbles the door open and walks into the room, I’m on the edge of my seat.

Saul looks at us, aware of the strange atmosphere. He smiles, surprised and innocent.

“What?” he says, gesturing to his hands. He holds several small logs of wood. His smile turns to an amused smirk. “I was only getting wood for the fire.”

*

Noon approaches. Through the remainder of the morning, Saul and I sit in the living room and he tells me stories from his life. I know that he enjoys the role of the older man who passes on knowledge to his younger protégés. I know he doesn’t do this often, so I rarely interrupt his narratives. He tells me about the time he enlisted with the military, stationed in Israel in the 1950s, jumping from planes, fighting with his superior officers, landing himself in military hospital and finally military prison. He tells me of when he was stationed in the Egyptian desert, watching the huge battleships move slowly along the Nile. In that endlessly flat landscape, the ships look like they sail through the sand instead of any misplaced waterway.

As Saul tells me of beer, cigarettes, and violence in an intolerable heat, Martin sits by the fireplace, poking at the burning logs with a metal rod.

Saul tells me how his love of literature came to fruition. He’d started a fight over a beer tab. Things didn’t go his way and he woke up in an Egyptian military hospital with a knife wound in his stomach. Bored shitless in the hospital, he turned to reading to pass the long hours. He borrowed books from the meager hospital library and stole others from a rich British soldier in the next bed. He repeatedly devoured J.B. Priestley’s, An Inspector Calls, and several of the patients staged a performance of the play with Saul’s direction. Then when Saul was transferred to military prison (because the other combatant was an Officer), he turned to books again to survive the harsh environment in which he found himself. Saul had heard rumors that military prison was supposed to be an easy affair, but his own experience was far from this. He found himself the only black man in the complex. This was unusual and he was soon an outcast, despite the camaraderie normally found in the armed forces. From that time onwards, books saturated Saul's life. His method escape from these hardships was through the musty pages of old hardbacks, the quiet flutter of paper, and the overwhelming swarm of words as one flicked through a tome. Saul buried himself in those pages and words and never left, retreating into bibliophilia, loving his books more than anybody or anything else in this world.

Perhaps this explains his violent overreaction to Martin’s accident.

As Saul recites his stories, Martin entertains himself with the fireplace, nudging the wood with the steel poker, causing the flames to surge and fume, taunting the fire and losing himself in fascination. I watch the fire dance as I listen to Saul’s tales of his youth. When a chunk of wood falls from the fireplace, much to Martin’s dismay, it takes me a moment to react. It takes Saul longer. He notices my reaction first, and then turns to notice the burning log. Already Martin is trying to scoop the wood back towards the fireplace with arwith a, but in one regard, it’s too late. The unfortunate casualty is a copy of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. A flame licks it’s dusty, peeling cover, and fries the top pages. Martin bats the burning wood away and it rolls to the base of the fireplace where it rests on the hard flooring. Then he hits the flickering novel and puts out the burgeoning fire, leaving a jagged hole in the books centre.

Saul stands in silent disbelief and stares at the novel. He scoops is up from the ground, still hot, and holds it before his face. “What—” he begins. An eternity passes, and he continues to stare. Martin looks to me, nervous. “Saul?” I ask.

But he just stands in the middle of the room, cradling the book. “Oh no,” he says in a flat tone. Then he repeats himself. “Oh no, oh no.” I can’t grasp the depth of his devastation. It seems so alien. How is he so upset over a single book when surrounded by so many thousands more? Like a child who damages a toy and decides that toy had meant the world to them. Saul is so self-absorbed that he fails to place such a small loss in any reasonable proportion.

I ignore Saul’s lamentations for a moment and turn my attention to the burning wood on the ground. I pick up the two open beers on the coffee table and pour them over the flames. Then I turn back to Saul and The Pilgrim’s Progress. The old man holds the book away from his body at waist height trying to ascertain the damage, which is greater than I first realized. Again, he says, “Oh no, oh no.” The smoke from the extinguished wood fills our lungs. It brings back images of burning down my family home. Now, that was loss.

Martin’s face is a mask of worry and horror. “It’s ok, right?” he says to Saul. When the boy fails to evoke a response, he turns to look at me. I stand a couple of feet away. I don’t know what to do, or even if there is anything I can do. Instead, after Martin and I make a brief eye contact, I shrug my shoulders in a gesture of reassurance and turn to wait out Saul’s bizarre reaction.

“Look what you’ve done,” Saul says. He shakes his head and repeats himself, spitting through clenched teeth, the book held in the firm grip of newly appeared anger.

“I’m sorry,” is all Martin says.

I try to defuse the situation. “Saul—”

“Look what you’ve done.”

“But, it’s alright?” Martin says, as he reaches up to touch the book. I’ve broken out in a sweat. The perspiration on my forehead is a shocking cold, like electricity through my brain. My arms have begun to heave and wobble as adrenaline surges through my body. I’m nervous of what’s going to happen next and worry that Saul’s reaction could manifest itself physically. Didn’t he only just say he was once holed in military prison? I know something terrible is about to happen — I can read such a reaction in Saul’s bloodshot, bulging eyes.

Saul steps slightly away from Martin; more like his body veers an inch or two to the side. “No, it’s not alright,” he says with his teeth set tight in anger. “It’s not alright!”

Martin utters an upset, “But,” and retracts his hand from Saul and the prize the old man grips.

And Saul snaps.

“Does this look alright, you little fuck?” he yells at Martin. This from the man who only one night previous had told me how much of a responsibility Martin must become to me. “Does this look alright?” He thrusts the book close to Martin’s face, so the boy can see what he’s done. Martin takes a step backwards in fear.

“Hey, Saul!” I yell. He was right last night. He said the boy was my responsibility and so I won’t let the old man bully him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

But Saul doesn’t hear what I say. He’s too absorbed in his own anger. He’s not angry at the book’s value diminished, or even angry that Martin committed such an accident, instead he is angry that something has been taken from him. He’s angry that he has had to deal with another loss. Perhaps this is why he has imposed such an isolated lifestyle upon himself. Perhaps Saul has been through more loss than any reasonable mind should have to cope with. But that excuses nothing.

All that loss is a mute point as I watch this old ex-military man advance on a twelve-year-old boy, tears on both of their faces and my own body pumping with new fury.

“Saul!” I yell.

“Please!” Martin begs.

“You little fuck,” the old man screams, clutching his book. “You little fuck!”

And the boy is tumbling backwards, tripping on the raised tiles of the fireplace’s terracotta base. The tiles are cracked and lined with soot and Martin falls towards them with a yelp, cut short by a thud, his head cut short by the hard wall. He’s on the ground, crying, a long drone at first, and then a hoarse intake of breath, before a wail cutting through my ears.

Saul’s expression has changed. He heaves air into his lungs, panicked at what he may have done, horrified at what he has already done. Then my own emotions of anger manifest themselves in physical outrage at Saul. I see blood around Martin’s head.

“You old fuck,” I scream. “You dirty — you bastard fuck!”

And then I’m running at him, my peripheries burring, the boy’s screams filling my skull and Saul turning to face me, in slow motion, in horror. My fists are pounding the old man and make contact with his bald head. He drops backwards to the ground and I follow him down, screaming. “You fucking bastard. A boy! You fucking bastard. I could kill you!” Somewhere behind me, I know Martin’s bleeding. And really, really, I do, for a moment, try to kill Saul, wishing him dead as I continue to pound my fists through my ragged breath and a lip bursts or a nose bursts and my knuckles are numb and Martin’s crying has stopped because he sees what’s happening and, somehow, I’m dragged back into the world with an unconscious, maybe dead, old man beneath me, with red running down the black valleys of his creased face and blood on my own knuckles. I roll back and lie on the ground. All three of us on the ground, and all three of us wondering, what the fuck has happened? What the fuck has happened? How the fuck did this happen?

*

“Get your things, Martin,” I say. “We’re leaving.”

Part 4, Chapter 2

I know this is pretty late, but here's Part 4, Chapter 2. If you enjoy it, please consider buying a copy of the ebook using the links on the right, and supporting a first time writer.

All the best,

Dave

--------

2

I maneuver the truck up Saul’s driveway later that day. Upon hearing the truck’s engine, the old man appears at his door, again holding his rifle at shoulder height. I know he won’t shoot, he did this the last time I arrived too, but the experience is still harrowing. Martin, in the seat next to me, draws a breath and mutters in fear, but Saul soon recognizes me and lowers the weapon. His softening expression appears behind it.

“It’s ok, Martin,” I say. “This man’s a friend of mine.”

“Some friend!” he responds in disbelief.

I stop the vehicle several yards from the home, climb out, and walk to greet Saul. Martin trails behind me. Saul remains stock-still, resting on his gun as if it’s a walking cane and beams a smile towards us.

“And now there’s two of you!” the old man exclaims. For a self-professed hermit, he seems happy to have company.

“This is Martin,” I respond, gesturing behind me. “He’s the only person left in Bramble.”

Despite this news, Saul smiles further and reaches to shake Martin’s hand. The boy reluctantly accepts the gesture. “It’s good to meet you, Martin,” Saul says in the warm manner that befits old men so well.

Martin, unnerved, blubbers, “You too, sir.”

“Yes, well.” Saul replies. He looks at the boy in a long uncomfortable silence and then turns to me in a gesture of hospitality. “You should both come in, of course. I’ll make coffee.” He turns to Martin, “Maybe I have some lemonade for you; I’ll have to take a look around the kitchen.”

*

Saul is excitable and eager to tell me what’s happened while I’ve been gone.

“There’s been a fire in the city! You could see the smoke billowing up from the Northside or maybe Downtown, and there was a hell of lot of it. It’s windier now – you can’t see it so well – but yesterday afternoon, once you left, I could go up the hill behind us and see the thick clouds rising from the south.”

Such an event seems fitting.

“I guess I'm surprised it didn’t happen before,” I respond.

“The world works in strange ways; only when everyone has gone does the big fire hit. You must admit though, it’s exciting stuff.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.” This is only half-true. My agenda was to go back to the city, and now that plan’s gone up in smoke too.

Saul smiles with a black humor and moves into the kitchen to arrange drinks. Of course he knows he shouldn’t be excited by the fire, but maybe, outside of books, this is the first interesting thing to happen to him in years – aside from the whole apocalypse thing. The guilty excitement reminds me of when, as a young teenager, I visited a family friend in small-town Massachusetts. While I was there, a storm broke out. A dispute within the local authority meant that nobody had cleared the drains for some weeks that autumn, and the town was flooded with several feet of water by the end of the day. Despite our best efforts, the water ruined much of the ground floor of my friend’s home, so we sat in his bedroom, upstairs, with the rest of the family across the hall, and we watched the road outside turn into a river. I had no idea when things would be clear enough for me to go home, and the material losses were nearly incalculable, but I’ll never forget how exciting it was to watch all the junk float down the street.

Saul returns from the kitchen, carrying a kettle, and puts it over the fire to boil. “So how were things in Bramble?” he asks.

“It was deserted. Really strange – but I don’t know what else I was expecting.” Martin nods his head in agreement from the other side of the coffee table. Saul waits for me to elaborate. “You know, I went there because, well, I guess leaving Pittsburgh was about leaving my responsibilities, maybe just symbolically, and going to Bramble was about finding my family, who were responsible for me instead.” Saul nods. “I wanted to find someone else who could do the hard work, I guess. Maybe my family, sure. Yeah, and seeing my family was important, but—”

I pause and Saul raises his eyebrows, waiting for me to finish.

“Well, like I said, there’s nobody left.”

The kettle on the fireplace whistles as the water boils, so Saul climbs out of his chair and makes tea. I turn to look at Martin who still looks uncomfortable. He stares about himself as he digests the strange environment that the bibliophile, Saul, calls home. He turns his gaze to me and I give him a reassuring gesture. This appears to cheer him up.

Meanwhile, Saul has returned to kitchen, from where he yells through to us. “While you were gone, I finished a book I was reading. I meant to have read it years ago after a friend in New York told me how much they enjoyed it, but I’d put it off because this friend was a bit of a tool – he was the curator of some shitty art gallery in Manhattan. Sorry.” He means he’s sorry for cursing in earshot of Martin. “The gallery was some junk about painting mattresses. But anyway, the book was Crime and Punishment. Have you read it?”

“No. Is it good?”

“Long. I’ve heard people say it’s poorly written; I think Hemmingway said so in a book of his, maybe in A Moveable Feast…” his voice fades out in thought and possibly because he’s trying to find clean mugs. “But I enjoyed it regardless.” He drops something on the ground with a clatter. “So near the end of the book, after six hundred pages or so, the protagonist, Raskolnikov, has these delirious dreams while he’s locked up in prison.” He returns to the living room, without the tea, and picks up a copy of the book. “Listen to this,” he says as he flips through the pages and digs out a bookmark. “‘He,’ Raskolnikov, ‘dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen.’ And the plague, you see, is this plague of ignorance, kind of. I mean, it makes everyone think that they have found the one and only absolute truth and this means that everybody has these unchangeable notions of right and wrong different from everybody else. So communication falls apart in the face of anxiety as everyone thinks all those around them can’t grasp their same truth. And so, for instance, armies will be fighting and it will all fall apart as the soldier’s start fighting within their own ranks. The soldiers all think, as individuals, that they’re right about what they’re doing and that everybody else is wrong and they’re unswerving in this opinion. That’s the idea behind Dostoyevsky’s virus. So, he goes on, here and there, ‘men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further.’ And this is the bit that really stuck in my mind, listen, ‘only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth,’” he pauses for dramatic effect, “‘but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.’”

Saul puts the book down, with pride. “Isn’t that a great image? A great portrait of humankind’s mentality? I love it. This plague brings the worst in us to the surface. And that’s why we see horrible things like looting. We always wanted to do it and a situation like this provides the rationale. And then at the end of it all, the inability to help yourself out of your desperate situation transpires into you waiting for some great third party, some man in the sky to lift you out, like Dostoevsky’s ‘pure chosen people’…”

It seems that sometimes when Saul talks to you, it seems he is only talking to himself and you happen to be there, willing to listen. Not that your willingness to listen has anything to do with it. He’d tell you anyway.

*

An hour later, we sit drinking tea and telling stories about our lives before the plague. We sound like those old men who sit in the park and drink one-dollar McDonalds’ coffee. The conversation wanes. After a brief silence, Saul tilts his head to the window and announces, “I think spring is on its way.”

As normal, Martin and I wait for him to continue.

“It will soon be that time of year. I can already feel the weather easing up, slowly but surely. Soon enough the snow will begin to thaw and the green will reappear. It can’t be long now, boys. The birds will fly back north and carry on their lives as if nothing ever happened. The earth will renew itself and repair the damage we’ve all done to it. Give it a few hundred years and Pittsburgh, and New York, London, Paris, and all those, will be like the Incan cities we keep finding buried in the rainforests.”

This topic has been on my mind for days. “Yeah,” I contribute, “I can almost see the archaeologists digging all of this up again, in years and years, and finding a, uh, a…”

“A spoon.”

“Ha, yeah, a spoon, or a cell phone, or something, and looking at it like it holds a key to the mystery to our civilization, and sticking it in a museum.”

Saul laughs with words, “Ha ha ha. Imagine them trying to figure us out, when not even I understand all that bullshit.”

We both laugh again, but Martin is uncomfortable. He turns to me and bluntly asks, “So are we going to stay here now?”

I don’t know how to respond. I begin with a denial, because this feels like an accusation, stop myself after a syllable, then I try to utter an affirmation, but stop again. I compromise. “Maybe for a short time.” I turn to Saul. “Is that ok?”

Saul nods and hums a high note of welcome.

Martin’s annoyed by the state of affairs. He stands up and states, without emotion, that he is going to the bathroom.

He leaves the room and Saul looks at me with solemn eyes. “You have a big responsibility with this boy,” he says. “Don’t fuck it up. He may well come to hate you, but don’t fuck it up.”

*

I spend my second night at Saul’s home, but this time, out of respect for Martin, I only get slightly drunk. It’s an enjoyable evening. Saul cooks more root vegetables, which are much better than they sound, and Martin has his first beer.

Later that night, in a room half library and half office, I lie on a couch, tucked under in a thick, warm sheet. The beer making my mind swim, and I stare at the ceiling, illuminated by candle light. The roof is unevenly plastered and the bumps and grooves on the gray surface make me think of how the moon must look once you get close enough. It looks like the moon from a mile out. I daydream like this for a while, studying the valleys and craters in the ceiling and listening to Martin snore in the bed I slept in two nights ago. Saul is in his own room and sleeps silently under the light scream of the wind outside. The room is warm and comforting. I know the wind outside would freeze my bones and I’m eternally grateful for Saul’s hospitality. I find myself regretting my earlier, bizarre evaluations of Saul. I judged him as awkward and emotionless. I’d taken a flight of imagination, coming to a judgment based on his social anxiety, communication problems, and erratic hand gestures. It was unfair.

I look at my fake moon surface, the shadows of the peaks and valleys ebbing and flowing in the ever-changing light. I imagine swooping through the crevices on a most literal flight of fancy. A while passes in daydream before I lean over, blow out the candle, and lie there with my eyes closed. My thoughts take on the rhythm of Martin’s snoring; slow, heaving, lumbering thoughts, on moonlight, on what I’ve lost and on what I’ve found.

Sleep swims up to greet me, but of course, that’s an event I can rarely recall.