On we go...

In an effort to not worry about whether the most forward thinking and clearly most brillant agent in the world will take me on as I client I have begun (or gone back to working on) a new novel. I am posting the epilogue (though epilogues are generally looked down upon) before editing it to give my multitude of readers (hi MJ, hi Susie) an idea of what a novel starts with in the hopes that I will finish and you'll see how completely it is changed.

Feedback is always welcome as are FANS!! (see become a fan button, please!)

And Because....

Epilogue


I was sitting around a campfire with friends enjoying a heated but friendly political exchange when my friend John said, “Hey wait! Did you guys just hear that?”

Being a mature group of 30ish adults we immediately assumed a Jason like being was lurking in the woods waiting to chop us to bits so we quickly fell silent and listened; hard.

“I didn’t hear anything, “ I finally said feeling it my duty to rescue John who was now looking a little sheepish at having staunched the flow of conversation for what amounted to nothing.

“I’m telling you I heard something BIG in the woods over there,” John said hoping the addition of a size descriptor might help in the group’s auditory effort.

“Yeah, I think I heard it too,” said Brian, my neighbor who had been working all day and was just glad to be relaxing with a cold beer.

“Anyway,” I said as I raised my eyebrows and looked to Brian’s left at his Rebecca. “You were saying?” Rebecca had been proselytizing about how the nation had made a huge mistake by voting for Obama.

“Right,” she said as she jumped back into her monologue. “Obama just let those prisoners out of Guantanamo without having any kind of plan. Where did he think they would go? Where…”

John sprang from his chair interrupting Rebecca, “See? Did you see that?”

“I did! It’s big alright,” said Brian. Whether this was to agree with John for the sake of it or whether he actually heard a BIG noise I’ll never know.

Both men got up and slowly started to tiptoe while trying to look manly (which is all but impossible). They pranced over to the tenuously constructed wooden lean to that was the home of my haphazardly stacked firewood. They got about five feet from the lean to and paused; heads tiled toward the wood listening.

Rebecca and I gave each other a quick eye roll and took the opportunity to refill our plastic wineglasses. This act apparently was too “loud” for the men who immediately started wagging their hands and ssshhhing at us.

A faint rustling could actually be heard. Rebecca and I looked at each other in surprise. The noise was distinct but clearly not coming from the woodpile. It seemed to originate from a plastic bin I used to store kindling wood. Based on the noise we were all now hearing it was clear that the creature making the noise was not so much BIG as very small. John and Brian, relieved that they weren’t going to have to battle the famed New England Lion approached the plastic bin with renewed swagger.

“Oh look,” said John as he flung pieces of wood from the bin toward the wood pile.

“It’s a baby mouse,” said Brian leaning over the bin.

“Oh!” said Rebecca as she got up to look. Rebecca was a lover of all animals both small and disgusting. It was only democrats she couldn’t stand.

“Well, get rid of it!” I said. I may have followed that with a religious epithet directed at John but it doesn’t add to the story so better left unsaid.

Once all of the kindling had been flung from the bin John tipped the bin slowly in my direction, most likely in retaliation for the previously mentioned epithet. The mouse started skittering out of the bin and I lifted my legs making a clear path under the bench into the woods behind me.

To my right the fire blazed and flickered in it’s cobblestone cave. The mouse, as mice do, darted to the left and to the right as it approached my bench and then, against all logical reason, ran directly into the fire.

“Aahhhh!!” I screamed before I could help it.

A huge intake of breath could be heard from the group at large. We all stared into the fire aghast.

“Why would he do that? I asked expecting some logical explanation.

“Maybe he was cold?” joked Brian.

“But that was just so stupid,” I said.

“It was a mouse, they aren’t that smart,” said John sitting back down and taking a sip of his beer.

“I know but…” I said stopping when I realized everyone else had lost interest in the suicidal mouse.

While the others picked up the political discourse I continued to ponder the fate of the mouse. I wasn’t sure why it was bothering me so much, I’m not a lover of animals and certainly have no use for mice but it was so clearly the wrong decision.

Then it came to me. We all make decisions we wish we hadn’t. The smallest things we do can change our lives. Take a right instead of a left, buy a coffee instead of a tea, go the grocery store instead of the post office. The most mundane activities can change the course of our lives and we can’t do a damn thing about it.