Preview- Chapter 2, Take 3

The moment his mind was allowed to wander, he found himself in an unusual world. The ground felt like sand under his feet as he walked through what seemed to be a desert under a dark sky. Then he looked up, and the sky was an endless swirl of dark blues and light purples. It was as marvelous as you could picture it, spotted with the brightest stars, piercing through the dancing colors and shining down on his world. As he took this all in, one star got his attention. It wasn't the brightest one, but it was in the perfect place. Something felt right about where it was in the sky.

Then the ground grabbed his attention. He tried to move but his legs were stuck. He couldn't understand what was happening, but as soon as he tried to move away, a platform formed under him, in a way that he was on the edge. Then it began to rise. Then the other parts rose with it, the shifting sands hardening up to stone, glass and even wood. Before he could even think, he noticed that the setting was becoming a skyline. His platform continued to grow as others slowed down. As he recognized where he was, he became scared. As soon as he could blink five times, he was on the clock tower he had seen in pictures, but never in person. It stood over what he thought looked like London, and he realized that he had a fear of heights

But he was always curious. So he looked down. The ground was so far below him, he clenched the wall, which felt like brick. Then he looked over the edge another time for the thrill of it. But this time he leaned too far-and his grip slipped.

Those seconds when you know you're about to fall make your heart leap, your stomach clench itself, and your body scream "panic”. He screamed as he fell to his supposed death, the ground seeming to accept him in closer embrace. But he awoke before he reached the ground.

His heart was leaping out of his chest, his pajama gown wet with sweat, and wide-eyed from the ordeal. His body trembled from the realness of the danger. Then he saw someone tiptoeing close to his bed.

Oh no.

"David, was that you?"

The only person with that voice was-

“Sorry George. It was just- just… oh, it was all so strange.”

“What happened? You almost woke up everybody else on my row.” He sounded either concerned or scolding. Either way David felt terrible.

“I had a nightmare. A really frightening one.”

“Oh, I see. What did your Mum look like?” As George sat on the edge of the bed, David could tell he calmed down. He knew that David was always strange in some way, even if he was there for only a few months.

“I didn’t have that nightmare. I dreamt…”

David was hesitant because he could barely remember it.

“This is going to sound crazy.”

“Dreams are meant to be crazy, David.”

 “Okay so…I was high up on a tower.”

“Huh? What kind of tower?” He knew how unusual David’s mind worked. He didn’t know that he woke up someone else a row down from the bed.

“Well, it was a clock tower, and I think it was in… London?”

“You mean here? Like a few minutes away, this London, with the clock tower? You’ve never seen it.”

“Yes I have.”

“When?”

“Well- um, I remember it somehow. I think Sister Deborah told me at some point. But otherwise, why wouldn’t I know it?”

“Maybe you can make up London just as much you can a mountain.”

They both turned to see Nathan walk towards them in a slow, yawning walk.

“Sorry. What did I miss?” David made him a place to sit on the bed. There was enough room anyway. But something was up.

“David had some sort of nightmare. Did I wake you?”

“No,” He shrugged it off, “I was just nodding off here and there. When I heard you guys talking, I thought- might as well get in on the conversation. Did you dream about the story you were supposed to tell tonight?”

 “No, but… wait, can you tell me more about how you stole that whole carriage once, with your friends?”

“Yeah, something to hear from ol’ Georgy here. That should help, somehow.”

“Maybe some other time. I want to know more about this nightmare. What about this clock tower- you were standing on it?”

He hesitated to answer more. He recalled more and more of the images, to the point that it scared him to talk about it. Now he had two friends to talk to.

“Well, I… I was on the edge of it and… I became afraid of heights...”

George was unfazed. “Okaay. That makes sense…I think. But how did you end up there?”

“Well, um, the whole place was originally made of sand-”

“Wait- sand? Now this is definitely a dream. You never said anything about sand-”

“How do you know there’s no sand in London?”

“I just know these things, Nathan. Well, David?”

“You have to hear the rest. Oh, you must… Then I looked down and… fell…all… the… way… to the ground.”

“Well…Did you hit it?”

“No. I… I think I woke up in time. And that’s all I remember.”

The two boys just stared at him; one curious, the other fascinated.

“…That was it, David?”

“Just ‘it’? George, I don’t know what to think. I fell a long way down”

“David, it’s just a nightmare. And I can’t interpret that. I don’t have any more of an idea of it than you.”

“Honest?”

“Honest. And I’ll make sure to keep this quiet.”

“You won’t tell anybody?”

“Of course. Just like before. Speaking of which, why were you taken out of line today- I mean yesterday?”

David hesitated to answer- The other two simultaneously understood. Something happened.

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” They knew how sensitive he was at times like these. Sadness makes everything hurt worse. It took a while for him to speak clear enough to hear him.

“I…was chosen by Father Priest to replace him. I’m going to be the next priest. So I’m… to stay here…forever…to train...”

The words sank in at the pause. Nathan dropped his jaw, exposing his buck teeth. George took aback.

“So that means… You can’t leave?”

David nodded. He let hopelessness pull out the tears.

“Oh, no.”            

“They’ll never let me leave now!” Some sobs escaped.

“David, please. Be quiet.”

“They never even asked me beforehand. They must think that I want to grow up to be a… a priest?! I don’t! I won’t!”

“David, quiet! You want to wake everyone up?”

“There, there, Dave. Don’t get so…well, sad about this.” Some tears escaped

“What on Earth are you talking about, Nathan? How could I not be upset? I’m doomed!”

He ran his thin fingers through his short black hair. “Um, well, there must be some way to avoid this disaster.”

“How? What are we going to do? Run away?”

“Maybe… There’s always a way. I just can’t think of one.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, thank you for telling us David. We won’t tell a soul. I promise.”

“Me too.”

“T-thank you... George?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

He sat up while he wiped the tears off of his face. “Why do people only notice that I’m different? Why can’t they just like me?"

Silence. A deep one that made the other two think a little harder.

“Well, I always thought it was because of the way you look. I know I’ve never seen it before...”

“People only seem to see what’s in front of them, David. It’ not your fault.”

It didn’t help. David stared downward in defeat, tears still blurring his vision.

“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this-” George grew a smirk- “I stole the carriage at midnight.”

David looked up with sparkling interest, even when he still had bits of tears on his eyes. David was very quick to switch emotions.

“How?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Really, George?”

“Yeah, like we wouldn’t. I’ve said weirder things before.”

“Okay, guys. I’ll tell you first who owned it. It was the judge’s”

“Wait- the judge that had tried locking you away before?”

“Yep.” George beamed with pride.

“It happened when I must’ve been you’re age, or close to it, a few years ago, something like four years. Yeah that makes sense. Anyway, we had it all planned. Me, Johnny, and Willy, - you remember them, right? I told you about them before-we made a bet with the mates at a theatre that if we stole the carriage and horse of the judge’s, they would give each of us 10 pounds. So we started with getting any carrots we could find, since Johnny said he saw someone give a carrot to a horse. Then that nigh’, we followed the judge back to his flat, to the place where he kept his carriage. It also happened to be where he kept his horse, so it became easier to bribe the horse with the carrots as we strapped the carriage to it and gave it a good slap to move. The horse gave such a neigh and loud gallops that it woke up everyone on the block, but we were long gone by the time the judge realized.

“Then the bobbers got on our tail. We were able to keep moving because Oliver thought of the idea to attach a carrot to a stick with a string and the horse kept trying to get it. So we were in a chase that lasted for a long time. We needed to lose them fast. So we all jumped onto the horse and cut the carriage lose so that when we turned onto the street parallel to the Thames River, it broke off and flew into the drink, while we escaped with the horse.”

“That’s amazing, George! That’s actually as crazy as some of David’s stories.”

“Well, it is. You really had to be there.” George, and eventually Nathan, left a bright-faced, wide eyed boy on the bed as he got up to his own.

“Try to get some sleep, David. It’s still dark outside.”

 But, for some reason, he couldn’t. 

Preview- Chapter 1, Take 3

This is the newest draft of the first chapter that I have so far. I hope you all like it. Any thoughts/ questions can be submitted in the comments section. Enjoy!

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The playground square, colored with green grass and grey stones, was surrounded on three sides by black bars that jutted up to unclimbable heights. To the orphans of St. Augustine’s House for Abandoned and Delinquent Children, this was paradise. The moment the bells rang from the classrooms –the signal for recess- they all rushed into the green square to play and enjoy a few measly minutes away from studies, even settling with the old balls and sticks for games.

But none of the boys looked out beyond the gates- except one. His head leaned up against the black bars, his skinny hands holding onto them like a prisoner. Yet he wasn’t sad at all; in fact, his head stayed up as he looked at the people, the streets and sky. It was the only time David got to see the world beyond the bars of the orphanage.

While it’s true that he was able to look out from the huge windows in the sleeping quarters, here it looked alive, like there was more to it than what he saw at night. Some of the people even slowed down to stare at him like he was on display, but never to talk to him. He knew already that the only fault with living behind bars was being ignored from the outside. Orphans weren’t liked very much in London.

 Yet he kept looking out, regardless of the stares. Maybe, just maybe, he would find one person who could bring him into the world outside. He had always dreamed of a place where there was always color, places to run, trees to climb, and nightlights to help him sleep at night.   

Yet here, on an autumn Saturday in 1913, clouds blocked the sky and colored the world with shades of grey. The only bright colors were from the leaves still on the trees, slowly drying and being taken by the wind. London's autumns were always grey; they barely had any sun, replaced with clouds and rain. Maybe that's why everyone else appeared so dreary and bland, especially the administrating Nuns. He wanted to be out of the confines of that uncomfortable, lifeless place.

Maybe the outsiders thought he was in a time out, that he deserved to be behind the bars of the orphanage. But they wouldn't know anything about him if they didn’t ask. Plus they were mostly what he began to call grown up.

He had learned to repulse a new word- grown up. It had bad thoughts attached to it, especially since it came from the person he least liked in the Orphanage's administration: Father Priest, the only man among the nuns, with cold eyes and a sturdy white beard. He had said it before, when the 12th year boys, like him, were starting to learn more of the New Testament. He had said that this was the "first step to becoming what you all want to be- good grown-ups." Anything Father Priest had to say about things like that never came across well with him, even though Father rarely spoke to the boys outside of sermon.

He was supposed to have learned a lot today, especially after what the class was told at the beginning of the lesson. Sure he was able to pay attention, but that day he just didn't like what he heard. He drifted off into another daydream.

And now, as he moved from one side of the grounds to the other, he continued to spin a tale around it. His friends knew he had great stories to tell at night. Even some other boys would sit in as he spun a tale about some place beyond their wildest dreams. Places where clouds flew below the ground, where water flowed upwards, where people could fly higher than birds, places where people were so tiny they used prams to get around.

George and Nathan loved his stories. They gave them a place to go to if they got too bored to study.

Yet time always flew when he lost himself in daydreams. The end-of-recess bell rang him back into reality, into the one thing he hated the most of recess; the single-file line back inside.

He never felt like he belonged to the orphanage. All you had to do was look at him.  His hair stuck out from the endless heads of black and brown hair, even if it was always cut short and covered with the smooth plaid hat that Sister Deborah got him for his birthday a long time ago.

He was the only one who always looked down to avoid getting attention to his freckles and especially his eye color. Even though some didn’t mind, others still avoided him. Most of them were new kids and they spread the rumor they heard before; He had a rare disease that turned his eyes hazel, his hair blonde and gave him hideous spots on his face.

They marched in tight rows, their hard shoes clomping on the cobble-stone floor. He followed his row of classmates to the classroom, until a Nun walk straight up to him and got his full attention.

"David, please come with me. Fathe' Priest wants te see ya." It was Sister Agnes, and she looked like she was trying to hold back a smile.

The surrounding boys didn't know what to think as he was pulled out of line. Out of the Hundreds of boys here, why him?

David looked curious, but couldn’t say anything.

She chuckled a little, which concerned him.

They walked the rest of the way not only in silence, but at a quicker pace than usual. The booth was on the other side of the building, and past the huge sanctuary, shrouded in darkness due to the absence of light, near the Priest's office.

When she went to open the booth, a stench of garlic, wrinkles and some powder rose up and smacked him in the face. It took a while to get used to, but it smelled terrible as he went inside.

As she shut the door, Sister Agnes assured him she would be there.

Probably to snoop on what Father Priest says.

After the door closed, the only light was a small candle in the corner of the small quarters. The rest of its walls needed serious cleaning, as they looked black from the light's reflection, or lack thereof.

Then he heard the door open on the other side and as he saw a silhouette of a person walk in, he immediately bowed and took of his hat, a muscle reflex of respect. He came so close to the seat that he began to hear mumblings of Latin- David never liked Latin. Something about knowing a language he'll never use in real life made him despise it.

Then the mumbling stopped.

"David, I presume?" His voice was raspy and direct.

"Yes, Father Priest."

"I've called you in here for something very important. So important that I needed to tell you in private."

"Of course, Father."

He cleared his throat and sealed David's fate.

"I thought there was something special about you the moment you came into our lives, that G-d had a plan for you. As you grow up (there are those words again) before our eyes, I've seen you become the man that we need. I've only heard the best about you, and I've seen how you'll be able to take my place someday. You understand?"

David paused in utter disbelief.

"I'm to... replace you... as the Priest?"

"Correct, my son. But you’re still too young, being that you’re still in your 12^th year. So after you reach your 13^th year, you will become my apprentice. You will be trained to replace me when I pass on."

Even when in shock, David only questioned Father Priest, to spite his rules.

"D-Does that mean I can't be adopted? I can't leave the orphanage? Forever?"

After a tiny pause, Father made it clear.

"Yes, David. You will stay here. No one will take you away from what G-d has intended for you. Nothing evil will taint your soul."

The next question just slipped out, without any thought.

"W-W-What did you see in me that made me so different?"

Father sounded more and more confident by the minute, almost teasing David.

"I'm glad you asked. You have all the proper traits of a true servant of G-d: humble, kind, respectful, disciplined and you are different than other, both physically and mentally. You were born to be a messenger of the word of G-d. When you are a grown-up, you will be a greater person than all of the other boys in the orphanages, no matter they become."

"But I-"

"No more questions David. You are missing your studies. Now, accept this message with honor and walk with the pride that G-d has bestowed upon thee. Concentrate and excel in your studies. Become the man G-d wants you to be. Please forgive me for spending your time, as I must return to my own studies now. Sister will return you to your class."

…

Sister Agnes was ecstatic, but David felt a depressing shock that not only frustrated him, but crushed his dreams. He would never be able to walk out the doors of this place. She kept saying how much pride he should feel, how much honor it is to be chosen, but he felt worse and worse. She never once looked down to see his feet shuffle, his face towards the ground. That was the problem with this place; they never cared to look at the children's faces. Only one Nun did, and she was the closest person that David had to being a Mother.

Yet as he returned to his class, the teaching Nun's lecture turned into white noise. He had always thought some nice couple would adopt him, take him into their world and he’ll make the most of it. But now he'd never leave, in order to fulfill some "destiny" he never knew about, could never question, and could never change.

The day flew like a blurry picture. He didn’t tell anyone why he couldn’t say the story he had planned, and just went to bed when the Nuns announced curfew. Then the nightmares began.

Literary Immortality

Hey there again guys!

I know this isn't an answer to any question in general, but I feel that this is something I wanted to share, especially to the creative ones among us.

It's a literary technique I made up.

I'll give a brief introduction:

I've been making stories ever since I was able to draw, as said before. But it was inevitable; I realized that those stories were just Frankenstein-esque messes from trying to combine various aspects of my favorite movies and books into just some big ideas. They stunk and I proceeded to drop them one by one. I stopped thinking about them and tried making up new ideas instead.

But the characters never died. I kept putting them into new stories, giving them new identities and looks. They quite literally grew up with me, even until today, coming full circle from their original roles to newer ones.

Then came the Newtown shootings and the Boston bombing. I, along with many others, got feelings of helplessness. I'm not such a man of action, one of those people with the connections and the passion to start a huge project to build a playground in their name or something like that. But I HAD to do something.

Soon I realized what my writing technique could do. It was drastic but it was the only thing I really felt like I could do that would make me feel the loss while making a lasting memory for the deceased.

I made up a literary tool to give the people/children that were killed a chance to live on in a literary work. I took their names and put them in as new characters in my future stories, a tool I call literary immortality.

It felt good the first time I put down some of the names as characters, but I needed to keep the tool in check. So here are a few rules to help not only you but the family of the dead in remembering them

1) Ask permission from the parents/family- I don't have to do this yet  since my work is still not even close to publication/production. But if you guys are going to put someone into a story, make sure the family knows beforehand if you want to tell others who the character is based on.

If they say no, please do not go against the family's wishes. There are many more names out there.

2) They cannot die in vain, or not at all- They must live for something valuable and meaningful. Being part of a death count is not one of them. But if you need the character to go, they should in a valiant way, in an unavoidable way to advance the plot or deepen the story. If you're looking for characters to kill,

3) They are the essence of the person- Try to find out more about the person and how they might act in various situations. If there's no name, then the essence sometimes is all that's needed.

What do you think? Let me know. More posts on the way!

-Zach