Stranded

This is another excerpt of the sci-fi novella that I will work on at some point in the future.

When I woke up, I thought I had sleep walked again. I thought maybe I had tracked sand in from the park, but there was too much. I couldn’t remember and was totally lost as to where I was and from where I had come.

I moved my feet. My toes were dried and caked. I opened my eyes to bright blue skies with thick, puffy, cotton ball clouds nudging me awake by shadows going across my face.

I ached. More than ached, every muscle in my body cried out with the slightest movement. My neck muscles compressed into my nerve endings when I tried to turn my head, and the resulting tears stung my dry eyes, causing more tears and more pain.

With one big effort, I pushed myself up, sitting on my butt, my arms barely able to support my upper body. The pain of falling back down would have been worse, so I stayed in that position, wavering and swaying to stay slightly erect.

Through the filmy lens of my tears, I saw the white sand and blue water. A beach. Why was I at a beach? A fly buzzed in front of my face and I moaned loudly as I tried to stretch my arm to shoo it away. It was already too difficult to see. Instead of the fly going away, I fell backward, and wanted to forever close my eyes and not deal with what was going on.

I imagined the fly now lying on my forehead as my spiritual friend and guide, and focused my energy on that one speck of creation. Inside my head, a spectral, brilliant light soared out from within me, dissolving everything from the fly, to the sand on my feet, the beach, waves and trees, and even the pain within me. There was nothing left but the light pulsating and fluctuating with the flow of blood coursing through me.

I opened my eyes, and saw everyone smiling at me, pride beaming from their eyes almost as bright as the light that was diminishing and quenching itself in the core of my heart.

“You have made it!” One voice said, and they all gathered closer to me, helping me up from the mat on the floor.

“You’re one of us.” Another voice said. Then the overhead lights ignited, revealing through the invisible floor the five others who had attempted to become one of them and failed. The five flies fidgeted their legs, while licking their feet and wiping their heads constantly, as if incapable of believing the reality of their new existence.

Of course, there was no more pain. The beach was now underfoot, along with the five flies, who were truly stranded. Giving them one more glance and then looking up to my new family, I smiled. “At least they’re in a beautiful location.”

-- This short is a work in progress, part of the sci-fi novella I'm working on. I've decided that this will be a Christian book, although I don't have an outline and am not sure exactly what it's about. "Stranded" is not the title of the book, just this section, which is a longer piece than what's here.

I did write some yesterday, which made me feel better. Yesterday was just an emotional day for me. Glad I made it to church today. And my mom is home!

Irritated or Irritating?

Today, everything irritates me. Usually, it seems, that’s a sign that I’m not too happy with myself for some reason, or I’m impatient in waiting on God. Maybe it’s both. It’s a beautiful day, and I was excited about fulfilling my plans, yet everything bothers me! There are a lot of things going on, however, including I was too exhausted on Wednesday to attend Bible Study at my church, and neither Thursday or Friday could I make it to Home Group Bible studies. My mother had a procedure done on Friday to try and control heart malfunction episodes, and she’s still in the hospital due to feelings of nausea. Also, I haven’t written on the book in almost a week. Is that enough for me to be irritated today?

I’m at the library now to write, but have yet to begin. At least there’s a friend that I met at the SF Writer’s Conference who wants to start a writing buddy system. I think having someone to be accountable to will help me in writing. Maybe I’ll do a short story based on a writing prompt now. Hopefully my next post will be a story or an excerpt from one of the books I’m (supposed to be) working on.

Please pray for my mom!

Michtam's Hubris - Excerpt

- You, the reader, will likely not fully understand this excerpt since it deals with issues and characters you'd know from finishing Anticipation of the Penitent. Still, I'm hoping the interactions between the characters are understandable and interesting. The general outline from Anticipating Dawn is completed, so now the story is being written. I usually write at a point I feel like writing, which can be at any point in the book. Thank God for outlines. :-) 

Anticipating Dawn

Selah’s green eyes, the hazel flecks glowing in the flames of the bonfire, looked up to Michtam’s soft, dark brown eyes. He held her gaze for a moment.

When Rachel spoke, Michtam shifted to his mother's warm hazel eyes, softened even more by the sheen of developing tears. “Nothing can be said to make any of the family members think of him differently. What could be expected from any of them? Their hurt was much more than my own. Many of them never even found out what happened to their babies.”

Rachel’s view panned over to Tim, who after staring into the fire, looked to her. The grey flecks of Selah's husband's eyes hued more toward tan in the light, while the brown looked darker and sadder. Holding Rachel's stare, Tim said, “I’m not sure if that’s what he means right now.” Shifting his eyes to Michtam, he said, “I don’t know for sure, but I think you want to understand whether your father ever considered what the families thought. Did they even exist in your father’s mind? Is that it?”

Michtam looked to him, his gaze expressing uncertainty, and he remained silent. Alezea, whose face was lifted above the flames as if the flickering light scratched a soft spot under her chin, voiced a soft humming sound. Then, seeming to read directly from within Michtam’s heart and inner thoughts, she said, “There’s no way to know the whole of what’s in a young man’s mind. Except that he wants to know who and why his father was, and if there’s anything he could do to help fix the harm he caused. That’s usually what a good man wants, to repair what’s been broken.”

Facing Alezea, it seemed to Michtam that the dark patches in the crevices of his grandmother’s eye sockets reached out from within her soul to comfort him with the vast flowing of her love. He felt that cradling of tenderness and tears pooled at the edges of his lids and ran down his cheeks. Michtam shamelessly looked from Tim to Rachel and back to Alezea, then held. Alezea continued talking, stroking his heart which ached with what was years of longing to know his father. “You’d like to put the pieces back together even though you had nothing to do with what’s been shattered.”

Understanding past the generation between them, and their different roles as grandmother and grandson, Alezea placed herself on equal plane with Michtam’s loss. Michtam never had his father in his life, and Alezea never really had her son, only what she had believed was Satan’s prodigy. They both knew of Thomas’ true heritage and his eventual transformation to good, but not having known him after the transformation, it was hard to look past the years of damage and legacies of destruction he must have caused so many families. Not that they could ever discount that damage, Alezea prayed everyday that Michtam could celebrate that Thomas did not propagate that line of destruction like he initially longed and planned to do. Instead, there was this beautiful, sensitive young man before her.

Of course Alezea had never laid eyes on Michtam. She never had eyes since he existed. Even so, during Selah’s drawings of portraits of Michtam over the years, she described him to Alezea with the loving vision and exquisite detail that only a mother could have. Because of those years of hearing Selah describe her growing son, Alezea felt she saw Michtam clearly each time she thought of him, especially when he was near and she could feel his spirit.

Mysterious Is Not Enough

Mysterious is not big enough. A finger is mystery. Dust is mystery. God, all your wonders of changing us, loving us, guiding us, being with us, are magnificent.

God you are magnificent in the desires you place in my heart, in how you teach me, guide me, forgive me. And yes, you let me make that mistake. And then you show your magnificence in how you transform my error to a thing of beauty – erasing what the devil would want to make as his bed of ugliness. Instead, you tickle my heart when I, yes I, want to bargain with you, “Let me do this one thing.” Laughter pours out along with tears because I know that your ways are not just mysterious, but magnificent. When that bargained for time – a one-sided bargain – comes, as so many times in the past, I mysteriously no longer have interest in that “one thing.”

Your mystery truly lies not in our hoped-for wrongs, but in those unseen and unintended sins. Then, how mysteriously you reveal our true mistakes to us to learn, to grow, to forgive. And your magnificence transforms those wrongs to the beautiful blossoms you want to grow in all of us.

You, my dear God, are not just mysterious. You are that magnificent explosion in my heart. Will you teach me to not be afraid to let that explosion loose? How I do understand the men of the Old Testament who feared to see your light, your beauty! God, let me know that I can survive your magnificence that shines so brightly in me so I will not dampen it.

Mysterious is not big enough, because your magnificence is so much more than me. Still, you magnificently tickle my heart with joy, laughter and love.