No chapter this week. My father had minor surgery done on his mouth, and I’ve been drafted as a kind of amateur, live-in nurse. To add to the fun, my mother decided that tonight was a good night for us to babysit my year-old niece, so… kinda’ crazy right now. @_@;
I’ll make certain next week’s chapter is extra-long to make it up to you.
As a crappy sort of consolation prize, here’s a bit from one of my original stories:
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The last thing Andrea saw was the pair of car headlights bearing down upon her. The world shattered, the impact like a thunderclap from within her own body, and she found herself within a strange, dim room, watching a man read a newspaper by firelight.
Am I dead? she thought.
She was there, and yet she was not there. She had no feet or hands or eyes, yet she could see her surroundings. There was no sensation of gravity. She could move – or rather, she could change her perspective, but there was no feeling of movement or physical effort at all on her part.
Where is this?
The room was small, with only the barest excuse for a window, smeared and streaked with dirt. Bookshelves lined every available wall, crammed to the point of collapse with books and papers and boxes. A well-preserved rolltop desk sat opposite the small lit fireplace, and a much-abused armchair and side table occupied the space between.
The man sat sideways in the chair, legs dangling over the arm. His face was thin and angular, his nose sporting a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses, but the light of the fire changed his eyes to a tawny brown, making it hard to guess their true color. His hair, long and wheat-blond, dangled over the opposite arm of the chair, tied back so securely that not the first flyaway strand could be seen. Andrea thought of her own hair, curly and unruly, and wondered how many hours with a straight-iron it would take to make hers that obedient.
Probably an entire week. Or more.
The man gave vent to a harsh sigh, snapping the paper closed and tossing it over the back of the chair. It joined a pile of similar discarded papers, all in various stages of shabbiness.
“If you’re going to haunt my sitting room, would it be too much trouble that you not stare?” The man swiveled and sat up properly, peering toward her with a vaguely put-upon expression. “Not to offend, but it’s taken me weeks to get rid of the last ‘geist that wanted to set up camp here, and I would be most appreciative to not repeat the ordeal so soon.”
He sees me?
“ ‘See’ is not the word to use. Sense, yes. Now, would you mind leaving? Dispersing? Whatever it is that you do when you go somewhere else.”
Definitely not in heaven. Purgatory, maybe.
“… you’re not seeking closure, are you?” The man sounded plaintive at that, a pained look crossing his face. “Because that’s really not my area. There’s a lovely medium just down the lane, though, quite good at her job. She can get you in contact with whoever you’re looking for. Of course, she’ll want payment. I don’t suppose you left an inheritance?”
Andrea thought of the several thousand dollars’ worth of college loans steadily leeching away at her bank account and felt bitterly amused.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ Look here, I’m quite serious. It took a good half month’s rent to set up a proper exorcism for the last of your kind, and my landlady has it out for me as it is without me losing the other half of the rent money. One would think she’d take the exorcism as part of the rent, proper upkeep of the rooms and whatnot, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Nearly had a fit, to tell you the truth.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, briefly displacing the spectacles from their perch atop his nose, and he sighed.
“Fine, then. What do you want? I have no desire for a roommate, I can tell you.”
Speaking was problematic, what with a lack of a body and all its acoutrements – such as vocal cords – but that hadn’t stopped the man from hearing her.
What happened? She tried to visualize herself speaking, and for a brief moment, she felt as though she were halfway there, arms, legs, and all, but it faded as quickly as it came.
“My dear spook, it’s called death. And you are obviously having a difficult time dealing with it. Closure, closure, it’s all about closure. Now, what would that mean for you?”
I am not dead.
“Denial.” He sighed. “Of course. What’s the last thing you remember? Nothing happy, I would wager. Falling from a horse? Being held at knifepoint? Or gunpoint, whichever your preference.”
Preference!? Who has a preference over knives or guns?
“I do. Knife. I’m no slouch at hand-to-hand, and there’s always a chance for disarming one’s opponent at close quarters with less risk of injury. I’ve never liked guns.”
You’re nuts.
“You are incorporeal. Which is a bigger problem?”
He grinned up at her, smug as a cat, and she wanted to slap him, straight across the mouth, as hard as she could.
She landed on the floor with a thump that shook the furniture and knocked a glass jar off a nearby shelf.
“Ow!”
Her tailbone sang with pain, and she curled in upon herself, hands clenched into fists.
It hit then that she had hands to clench into fists, and she blinked down at the appendages as though they belonged to a stranger. She looked up.
The man stared down at her, grin gone, glasses sliding down to the very tip of his nose. His golden eyes were wide.
“Well,” he said, “that’s new.”
It was too strange. Her head ached as though a giant hand were squeezing at her temples, and the fire-bright room dimmed to gray and then to nothingness.
