WIP
Yes, yes. Very busy. Baby, work, life, etc. All to be reported on very shortly.
In the meantime, I’m once again involved in the Clarion West writeathon, and have promised a bunch of people I’d post a bit from my work in progress. I’m hoping this is part of something that will turn out to be much, much longer. I always hesitate to use the word “novel” because that denotes commitment, and as any painfully earnest self help guru will tell you, commitment is scary. So, I’m just taking one baby step at a time, embracing my inner buddha, or something.
This is still in first draft form, so it’s relatively unpolished. Here goes…let me know what you think.
Doctor Husainey’s office was not a place one walked into expecting an emotional lift. It was dark, with the tiles and wall colored a pale, sickly green. Even the steel instruments, lined neatly next to the exam table, seemed to lack the requisite shine of sterilization. This ten-by-ten hole had a medieval feel, like the good doctor should be performing bloodlettings in some dungeon, not neurological tests on the fifth floor of a government facility.
“Anomaly 24 reports no signs of identity recognition.” Doctor Husainey dictated to his antiquated voice recorder. “Physically, she remains in good condition.”
Thirty Eight. It was a good number, Eve always thought. Enough cases to make it more than a coincidence, enough that those afflicted felt a certain affinity for one another, that they, if they really wanted, could form a little secret club of memory wipers. Maybe wear creepy rings like the masons. Plus, they got a cool name: ‘The Kindred.’ It could have been a lot worse; some lousy, characterless acronym assigned by the white collared hypochondriacs that were always breathing over their shoulders.
Not that the all-powerful ‘they’ couldn’t find a way to put a damper on things.
“Christ, Doctor, that makes me sound like some engine up on the blocks.” Eve rustled around in her cheap paper gown, fighting the urge to jump up from the examination table. Husainey always kept the window in his office closed, sending inklings of unwarranted adrenaline up Eve’s spine. She’d spent so much time staring at the ceiling over the past two years that it was starting to stare back, threatening to come down there and show her what’s what.
Monthly check ups and tests with the Assigned Medical Practitioner were part of the agreement of her release from observation. Tests, to the government, were everything. The lifeblood of bureaucracy that kept the status quo pumping. If you test something long enough, keep poke, poke, poking it, anything unique or strange or interesting about it will eventually be explained. Most of the time.
Doctor Husainey had swapped his recorder for a blood pressure band. He wrapped it roughly around Eve’s arm, and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry Eve,” he said, pumping the ring tight, “it just comes with the territory, you know? “ The band tense, he looked over to read the result and gave a quick nod. “No headaches?”
“Nope.”
The doctor grabbed the shoulders of her gown and ripped them down. What was the point? Did he think it was somehow more dignifying to have a cheap piece of blue material unceremoniously ripped off than for her to just strip naked in the first place? Once someone’s seen inside your head, you’re pretty much laid bare anyway.
Husainey had mapped every inch of her cortex. Had poked at the insides or her skull with electrodes. At this point, clothing was nothing more than a social formality.
After feeling around her breasts and stomach. Doctor Husainey giggled like a schoolboy. “It’s just all so random, you know? I mean, why you?” For a scientist, he had a decent philosophical streak.
“Why the thirty seven others?” Eve encouraged.
“We’re thinking now you’re all just amateurs.” He rustled through his slew of illegible findings. “Just figuring out what you’re really capable of, still clumsy with your synapse. Like toddlers.”
Eve sat up, not bothering to cover herself with the flimsy remains of her gown. “Does that mean I get a lollipop?”
Husainey shook his head. “We’ll have answers in the near future, I believe.”
“You should come by my office sometime, Doctor. It’s light, breezy. Not suppressive, like this place you’ve got here. I’ve got nice chairs. And a sign over the door, the first thing my clients see when they walk in. “
He looked up from his notes. “What does it say?
Eve stood up and opened the blinds uninvited, squinting in the late afternoon sun.
“Peace lies in the past.”
July 14th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Yup, definitely a draft. :)
As always, I’m amazed at the tone you set in your stories. You always seem to be able to balance the fantasy elements with real life reactions impeccably well. People are capable of doing astounding things, but the protagonist never really sees them that way, ’cause life is messed up and throws all kinds of crap at you and you adjust or you die/go mad.
This draft is noticeably less “smooth” a read than what I’ve seen from you in the past, and it’s really kinda cool to see some of the progression of your work by inference.
So, when you’re writing a Longer Piece, do you have set milestones in place, or do you just kinda free-write things and add the foreshadowing-bits during the polish procedure?
July 15th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I really like the sentence ‘Peace lies in the past’ and the idea that the future is just fucked that it brings along with it.
Waiting, impatiently, for more.