These are my favorites this week!
What I’m wearing/using: I’ve really been into Neutrogena skin care products lately, such as their lip moisturizer.
What I’m eating/drinking: Green Mountain’s organic light roast coffee has a unique flavor.
What I’m reading: I’m almost finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir. I’ve seen the movie, which was awesome, but I can still safely say that the book was better.
“For me, the short story is the depth of a novel, the breadth of a poem, and, as you come to the last few paragraphs, the experience of surprise.” -Amy Bloom
I won’t tell you what I know now, but I’ll tell you what I didn’t know then. When I moved into this small Victorian cottage, no one warned me. They didn’t tell me of the legendary tales of a haunted house. They didn’t utter a word of the mystery surrounding an ancient building. Not one of my new neighbors told me stories of the house’s former tenants disappearing; of their warm coffee cups still sitting on the table and their laundry left in the washing machine. They welcomed me to their small town, greeting me at the door with homemade casseroles and pound cakes. They stared at me with lying eyes, knowing that it might happen to me, too.
Who am I, you ask? I’d tell you, but I don’t even know. Perhaps I was a doctor or a lawyer, moving into town to start my practice or even a curious journalist or an illustrious businessman. I’m not sure. All the details are blurred, faded quietly from memory.
On that first day, I arrived at Beryville, a small community in South Carolina, in the early morning hours. I unloaded my boxes from the truck and set to work cleaning my new home. It appeared that no one had lived there for some time. Dust covered every surface and hung in the air like an unanswered question.
Through the front door was the great room. The master bedroom and guest bedrooms were down the hallway to the right. To the left, there was the parlor, the kitchen, and the library.
In the library, wall to ceiling shelves were unoccupied. As I dusted them, I could smell the aroma of old books and tobacco smoke. There was an indentation on the worn rug where a chair had been sitting by the fireplace. I pictured a former owner perusing through history books, smoking on his pipe, and being warmed by the fire during a long winter. Above the mantel, there was a portrait of just such a man. He stood tall, looking distinguished with a gray beard on his chin and a top hat gracing his head. He looked the epitome of an elegant Victorian male, with a vest and ascot peeking out beneath a long coat. But what stood out to me most were his eyes. The color wasn’t extraordinary, as they were only a muddy brown hidden beneath bushy gray eyebrows, but they were piercing. Almost wild, they stared right back at me, seeming to give this warning: “Leave. Leave while you can.”
I blinked, willing the sight away. “I’ve been in here too long. The dust must be getting to me,” I thought and left the room to do some unpacking. As I emptied every box, it was like opening up my memory bank: old papers I’d written in college, the heavy bedspread my grandmother gave me for colder nights, and the t-shirts I’d earned from running in charity races. These were all items I hadn’t mulled over in a long time.
Gradually, I set up each room, so it began to feel more like a home. Every room was filled with treasured pieces, but my favorite room was still the library. The shelves weren’t entirely full of books yet, but some of them were filled with my books and that’s all that mattered.
One evening, I considered starting a fire for the first time. The nights were getting cooler and this night was especially freezing. I stood in front of the fireplace and found myself staring at the portrait of the man again. I wonder who he was. I peered at his penetrating eyes and, for a moment I swore they moved. It seemed as if he looked down quickly and then back up again. I looked down also and saw the fireplace. Scratching my chin, I moved as close as I could to it without burning myself, laughing at what I was doing. I stuck my head inside the mantel and looked all around. As I turned my head to the right, I saw that the fireplace was a lot deeper than I had imagined. The marble of the bottom stopped after a few inches and the wooden floor of a hallway began. It continued to the right inside the fireplace, enticing me to travel down it. I looked back at the library as if someone was watching and then shrugged as I went all the way into the fireplace and started down the hallway.
At the end, there was only one room. There was no door; only an opening for one. The floors inside were made of the same antique wood as the hallway. There were windows on two of the walls. The moon shone through one of them, eerily. There was nothing in the room. It was completely empty other than the layer of dust covering the entire area and dancing in the air. What was truly odd was that it was completely silent. The walls in this room didn’t creak like the others. I could feel a cool wind, but it didn’t make a sound. The only thing I could hear was my beating heart. There was something mysterious about this room, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
As I walked closer to the room, I could hear my footsteps, but they sounded like an echo; like a sound bouncing back from a black hole. I paused for a moment in confusion, but continued as my curiosity was piqued.
With one foot inside the room, I stopped. It had vanished right before my eyes. I could feel my right foot on the cold floor, but couldn’t see it. Paralyzed with fear, I looked into the room as I slowly reached my right hand in. It disappeared as soon as it was inside. All I could do for the next five minutes was put it inside the room and then take it out slowly. Magic? Sorcery? An illusion? I had to know.
So, I immersed myself fully into the cold room and saw people. There were boys and girls and men and women of different ages and races moving slowly around the room like depressed zombies. They weren’t alive, but they weren’t dead either. Their innocent-looking eyes were blank as they shuffled across the floor. I wondered who they used to be. The blonde girl in the corner could have been a college student studying to be a nurse. The middle-aged male in faded overalls looked like a farmer. A young boy and girl held hands, looking straight ahead. Surely, they were best friends who chased each other around during recess. I mourned for these strangers. Their lives were cut short by death or a sort of eternal purgatory. They wandered this small room without genuinely seeing or feeling anything. It pricked my heart, but also made me yearn for their simple existence.
There’s something in my past I can’t remember. Was it unrequited love or a broken heart? Had I been running from the law or buried deeply in debt? Mistakes or burdens, I remember wanting to forget something. In that moment, I made a decision. I decided to join the serene dance of these lost people. I roamed around the room, trying to find my place in the somber choreography. With heavy steps, I beat out their rhythm with my feet. I kept their slow pace for a minute and then felt my brain go numb. Flashes from my past haunted me for a while, but then they were gone.
Read from the beginning here.
“Who would I call? I can’t even remember my name much less the numbers of complete strangers from images in my head.”
Melanie ate some fallen bananas that she hadn’t noticed earlier near the beach. Then she decided to go back and follow the path past the old cabin. At the end of it, she found a road, unmarked, but paved. It wasn’t busy. She might have seen one car go by if she had been paying attention. All she noticed was a sign.
She knew she recognized it, but she didn’t know what it meant. It looked like a normal yield sign, but in the middle there was a single black star. Underneath it the word Lunal was printed in block letters.
She looked up and down the road for signs of civilization. Seeing nothing but the horizon on the right and the left, she began to walk down the right side of the highway, hoping to find a car to pick her up or maybe just a phone booth. She laughed internally at the thought. Who would I call? I can’t even remember my name much less the numbers of complete strangers from images in my head. Yes, it was ludicrous, but still she trekked on.
As if fate was making a joke of her, a phone booth appeared as soon as she crossed the next hill on the road. Shrugging, she went up to it anyway. Once inside, she discovered a number etched into the thin wall of the booth. Smiling at what she was doing, she quickly dropped in the change she found on the floor of the booth and dialed the number.
“Hello,” a deep male voice answered.
“Hi. Um, this is…uh…Melanie.”
“Yes, we’ve been expecting your call,” he said pleasantly.
Shocked and frightened, she let go of the receiver. She ran off, a trail of dust swirling out behind her.
Read Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here.
“Melanie slept fitfully as flashes of memories continued in her dreams. Most of them involved her mystery man who piqued her curiosity and frustration simultaneously.”
After gaining control of herself, she realized, “My name is Melanie…..He could have been talking to someone else.” But somehow the name resonated within her. “Maybe I’ll call myself that until I figure out who I really am.”
Then she decided to set up camp at the beach. “It’s where I woke up,” she thought. “So, I better stay here; it might be important.”
It was easy enough for her to start a fire. “I must have been a Girl Scout growing up,” she laughed bitterly to herself. After a supper of the last of the blackberries, she lay down beside the warm flames. Sighing, she fell asleep to the now surprisingly soothing sound of the ocean with a blanket of stars as her only covering.
Melanie slept fitfully as flashes of memories continued in her dreams. Most of them involved her mystery man who piqued her curiosity and frustration simultaneously. In the last one before she awoke, she was laying in pain in a hospital. “I’m right here,” the man spoke while holding her hand.
She woke up with a start, sweaty and breathless. “I have to get out of here!” she thought. But she didn’t know where she was going or how to get there. “I’ll find a way,” she said to the ocean. Determined, she ignored her hunger and started traveling down the path through the trees.
After a few hours, without fruit; either in a meal or in finding a way out of the forest, Melanie sat down to rest. Suddenly seeing a clearing a few feet ahead, she got up and walked towards it. As the trees parted, a cabin came into view. With hopes for food and someone to converse with, she walked closer and knocked on the door. “Foolishness; there’s no one here.” The cabin had obviously not been inhabited for some time. The wood in it was rotten and the hinge on the door was rusted. Even so, she pulled the door open with a little effort.
Inside was what one would usually find in an old cabin masquerading as a set for a pioneer TV show: old pots and pans in the kitchen and an old bed and trunk in the common room. Not surprisingly, she tried to open the trunk. “Of course it’s locked,” she thought begrudgingly. Although, she thought it odd that it didn’t fit in with the rest of the cabin. “It looks almost new,” she thought astonished. Her stomach rumbled and decided for her that she was done with discoveries for the day. Sighing, she left the cabin as it was and headed back into the forest to find some food.
Read chapter 1 here.
“Her life seemed to go on just like the waters reaching out to the shore over and over. It was just as pointless.”
Sunlight washed over Melanie’s face. She winced and turned over. Not having yet acquired the taste for sand, she got up and brushed herself off. The redundant sound of the waves crashing was more haunting to her today. Her life seemed to go on just like the waters reaching out to the shore over and over. It was just as pointless. “Am I glad to be alive?” she asked herself in her thoughts. “Yes, but it would help if I knew something!” Frustrated and hungry, she escaped from the beach and went back amongst the trees to look for food. Finding a blackberry patch, she indulged herself swiftly. Satisfied, but thirsty, she decided to go further into the brush to find water and escape from the oceanic sounds.
After pummeling through the green maze for an hour, she began to hear something other than the crunch of her feet on the forest floor. It was the sound of moving water! Running, or her version of it, she scurried weakly to the clearing on the left. Melanie knelt down, practically falling on purpose to scoop up the clear water. She lifted her gaze after having a fair share.
“Beautiful,” she said aloud softly. There was a clear waterfall surrounded by rocky boulders. Resting at the bottom of the sparkling water were myriads of smooth stones. She picked up an especially flat one and skipped it on the deepest part of the waters. Gasping, she realized the action was somehow significant. She closed her eyes and let the movement trigger her memory.
At some point in the past, she was in a lake; knee-deep wearing a green retro style bathing suit. A man came behind her, guiding her hand as he taught her how to skip a rock. The waterfall sounds in the memory and the sounds in the present combined until she opened her eyes.
She didn’t think it was this place that she recalled, but somewhere similar. Closing her eyes again, she focused on the memory of the man’s face. He had a handsome face, but not clean-shaven. Tall, with broad shoulders and a steady chin that jutted out slightly, he was someone who could intimidate. But his eyes, surprisingly green yet hazel at the same time, were gentle and smiling. Melanie gasped audibly. Her body had reacted from the memory of this mystery man. She found herself smiling at the butterflies and warmth coming from her soul. Then confusion washed over her as her eyebrows pulled together. Either to clear her head or to wash the sand off, she dove suddenly into the deep waters near the waterfall.
After swimming deep to amuse herself with the sight of the various rocks, she came up for air and swam to the edge. Melanie pulled her lean body up and out, her clothing sticking to it as her long golden blonde hair dripped around her. Peering back into the clear water as if it was a mirror, she untangled her hair with her fingers. A young woman of around 25 looked back at her with round blue eyes and lips shaped in a bow. She recognized her face, but she didn’t know who she was, where she was from, or why she was here. It was an unsettling feeling.
All of a sudden, the man from her memories appeared in the water beside her reflection and said, “Melanie, don’t worry. We’re in this thing together.” In shock, with wide open eyes, she ran all the way back to the beach without thinking about what she was doing. When she arrived, panting with hands on her knees, she realized a little late that it had just been another memory. Or so she thought.
Read chapter 3 here.
“The sound of the ocean conjured up faint, fleeting memories; just flashes of images like those seen in a dream.”
Here is the first chapter from my soon to be released novella, No One. I’m categorizing it in the science fiction genre, but it’s also full of mystery and romance with a few action and paranormal elements. It tells the story of a young woman waking up on a beach with no memory and how she begins putting the pieces together to discover who she really is.
Her clear blue eyes fluttered open gradually. Her pupils adjusted to the sun that was beating down on her skin. She sat up to see an endless ocean before her. Then she pulled herself upright. Feeling groggy, she shifted her feet in the warm sand. The sound of the ocean conjured up faint, fleeting memories; just flashes of images like those seen in a dream. It was more like a feeling than anything else.
She closed her eyes and let the waves guide her breathing: in and out…in and out. Then, without warning, fear and ignorance crept up her spine; anxiety was not long after. She tried to remember why she was there and who she was, but it was like her mind was a prison. Cloudy images of strangers and the unknown were all that was there to greet her. Panic set in next as she grasped the notion that she had no idea where she was. “Breathe,” she said in a barely audible whisper, but there was no one to answer but herself.
Using the ocean as a distraction, she stared at the waves to help set her heart rate back to its normal level. Suddenly, she began to feel sick to her stomach. “It’s just the heat,” she said to reassure herself. The young woman wiped her brow and then felt her face go white. Her gaze was held steadily to the ocean as if trying to latch onto it to keep her strength. After a few moments, everything went fuzzy and she collapsed helplessly on the beach. Darkness held her in its grip until the next morning.
Read chapter 2 here.
