11 of 52

A Time To Remember

We sat on the ground near the Thomas family grave site. The grass was still short for that time of year when winter was waving goodbye and spring was taking her own sweet time arriving. It was mid-afternoon. The sun had begun its slow decent and would be gone in a couple of hours. A soft breeze blew through the cemetery, ruffling my hair and sending a chill into my arms. I pulled my legs close to my chest and hugged them tight. My head hurt. It always hurts.

Jerry sat to my left. His appearance was a complete contrast to mine. I wore jeans and sneakers and a light coat with plastic sunglasses sitting on the bridge of my nose. He wore a black suit with a white button-down shirt beneath the blazer. His black shoes were as shiny as the day they came off the shelf at the Pic and Pay in the next town over. My hair was a tangled mess, and I hadn’t washed it in a few days. His was neatly combed with a part on the right side. I always wanted a part, but my hair didn’t seem to think it was a good idea. 

“The sun’s going down,” he said in his always soft voice.  

“It is,” was all I could think to say. We both knew what it meant, but I wasn’t ready to do anything more than acknowledge it.

“Remember when we were little, your dad used to take us fishing?”

“Yes,” I said. “How could I forget?” 

Truthfully, I had forgotten. But I remembered Dad, his Popeye arms, dark hair, and stubbled face always in need of a shave. Even after Mom barked at him once and said he had more whiskers than a dog, he still only shaved occasionally. 

“Do you remember riding in his boat with those horrible orange life jackets strapped on?”

I smiled. “Yeah. Those were the worst.”

“And the bomb islands. I loved going there. Remember when we found the blown-out shell casing of one bomb? Your dad yelled at you when you picked it up. It didn’t matter that there was a hole in it you could see right through. He yelled all the same.” Jerry raised a fist in the air like an angry old man. “Adam, don’t move!”

“He was afraid I would drop it and it would go off.”

“He ran at us like his hair was on fire that day.”

I laughed. Yeah, I remembered that, but only vaguely. A surge of pain ripped through the right side of my head. I took a deep breath and let it out. I blinked several times, hoping to push the pain away with no luck.

The sun dipped lower and lower. The sky wasn’t quite bright, but more of a fading yellow and orange color, as if someone took a paintbrush and ran it along the skyline. 

“Dad never took us back there,” I said.

“I haven’t been back since,” Jerry said, as if I hadn’t spoken at all.

I looked at him. He wasn’t facing me. His hands were behind him in the grass, his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes faced the sun and there was so much sadness in them. 

Neither of us spoke for a while after that. We stared at the dying sun. The sky was less purple and orange and more gray. On the horizon where Earth met the sky was a sliver of intense orange that should have hurt my eyes but didn’t. Still, the pain in my head increased. It felt like my skull was splitting into two.

Jerry licked his lips. “Your dad …” He shook his head. “Man, he liked to drink.”

“Yeah, he did. All the time.”

Jerry let out a deep breath. “I wish he hadn’t been drinking that day.”

I nodded. “I wish he never drank at all.”

“If he hadn’t been drinking …” he shrugged. “Maybe things would be different.”

“Maybe.”

“It started raining on the way back. Do you remember that, Adam?”

“I do,” I said, and that was the truth. I did remember. A storm came out of nowhere. The sky had darkened with black clouds that blocked out the sun. Lightning streaked across the sky and brought loud booms of thunder with it. And we were on the water in a metal johnboat.  The wind had picked up and the waves had become choppy. The boat skipped along the water like a flat rock tossed from a little kid’s hand. I remembered that well.

“He was going too fast as he rounded Charlie’s Cove. Way too fast.”

The pain in my head made things fuzzy, but I could recall the fear I felt as I sat in the bottom of the boat with my hands clutched to its sides. 

“He hit that wave … he hit that wave and we went sideways.”

I remembered. He didn’t need to say anymore. The last thing I recalled while being alive was being flung from the boat and landing, headfirst in the water. Then I ended up here.

I looked at Jerry. He looked older than I remembered. We had barely reached our teens when the accident happened. I looked back at me, at the old jeans I wore, the coat and sneakers. The sunglasses on my head had been there when I died. He was a young man, still grieving a friend who had died years prior. I was the friend.

The sun had finally set. In a little while the moon would come up with its calming white, glowing face. Maybe it would bring some stars with it. Maybe …

Jerry stood and wiped his bottom with his hands. He took a deep breath, then a few steps. He stopped at a headstone that was new compared to so many others in the cemetery. He patted the stone. “I miss you, Adam.”

He wiped at his eyes, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off, his head down. All I could do was watch him go. Eventually, I stood and went to the headstone. I read my name, my age, the Gone Too Soon, inscription. And my headache was gone.

10 of 52

This Place

Chet sat alone in a blue chair that might have been meant for a beach, but instead was around a metal firepit with chairs of the same type. A slight breeze blew through his hair. A car went by, a song he didn’t know blaring from it until it was off in the distance. There were too many people, mostly younger than him.

He didn’t know this place, had never been there until that day, but he knew he didn’t like it. It was too busy, with its crowded streets, loud music and people, and stores, stores, stores. Everything about that place screamed commercialism. He wanted to be home, away from the noise and the people, where trees dominated the landscape instead of concrete buildings, where animals roamed the countryside instead of cars zooming by on roads, where the sounds you heard were leaves rustling in the same breeze he felt right then, birds chirping and bees buzzing from flower to flower.

Instead, he sat, uncomfortably, as a group of young men set up instruments on a stage at the end of the building. There was a cover over the stage meant to protect anyone playing from the elements of weather; the sun, rain, the cold—the last of those he had his doubts about. Based on the long sleeves the five men wore, they had theirs, too.

After several quiet minutes to himself, his wife, Allie, came to her seat next to him. She had a beer in one hand—bottled not draft. He smiled at this. She wasn’t a country girl by any stretch of the imagination, but with her hair pulled into a ponytail and a bottled beer in hand, he thought she pulled off the look quite well. 

“When are they going on?” she asked and sat down.

Chet looked at his watch—not a digital deal, and not a phone, but an honest to goodness analogue watch with ticking hands and lines for minutes. “In about ten minutes, I reckon.”

“Are you excited to see them play?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen ‘em play plenty of times.”

“Watching your brothers play at home or church is one thing, but they’re getting paid to play here.”

“They’ve been paid before …” he said and looked around. “… just not in a place like this.”

“You mean not in the city?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“You don’t like it here, do you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why?”

“It’s too …” He shook his head, looking for the words.

“Busy?” Allie interjected.

“Nope. That’s not the word I’m looking for. It’s too fast. People hurrying by like there’s no tomorrow, like, I don’t know, they don’t have the time to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, the exhaust fumes.”

Allie laughed at this, took a drink of her beer. “I guess this means you don’t want to move to the city?”

Chet frowned at this. He knew by being here that question would come up. “If you want to move back—and I know you do—I’ll do it. If that’s what’ll make you happy, then I’ll do what I need to.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming?”

He took a deep breath. “But this place … this isn’t for a country boy like me. I feel about as out of place as vegetarian at an all meat buffet.”

For half a minute they sat in silence. Then Chet spoke the most honest words he could think to say. “I know you want to move back home. I also know you won’t ask me to do that. Just know if you want to come home … to this place …” He waved one hand in the air, motioning their surroundings. “… then I’ll move the earth and moon to make it happen. As long as we’re together …”

Allie didn’t respond, but he saw the smile on her face. She reached for his hand as The Bluegrass Brothers began their first song. At the end of the song, she released his hand. 

“It’s just a place,” she said. 

He nodded. “Yup.”

AJB

8 of 52

Passing Clouds

He sat in the hospital room alone. It was the first time since his heart attack that someone wasn’t in there. Even at night when he was asleep—or trying to sleep if the nurses would just stay out of there—someone had been sleeping on the couch. The first two nights it was Evelyn. Last night his son, John, stayed over. He was as restless as Norvell was, but probably because he was too tall for the loveseat the hospital called a couch. It didn’t look all that comfortable.

But right then, no one was there. Evelyn was at the house. John stepped out to make a phone call and the nurse—Cruella, he thought of her as with that white streak in her otherwise black hair and the stern tone to her voice—had done her morning rounds. He thought he might have ten or fifteen minutes of peace. 

The clock on the wall to the right of his bed was nothing more than a cheap dollar store battery operated thing. The second hand tick ticked away. It read seventeen minutes after three in the afternoon. Norvell stared out the window. Gray clouds rolled by. Earlier John said a storm was on the way. With the way the clouds moved, Norvell thought it might be a doozy. Black clouds began taking the place of the gray ones as he watched. He thought they moved a little faster than they should. He frowned. Yup, a doozy indeed.

“I see a face,” he said. His voice cracked and sounded tired, almost breathless. He shook his head slowly. He raised his hands.. They were thin and wrinkly and there were several liver spots on them. HIs wrists looked too thin for his liking.  “When did I get so old?”

The face in the clouds rushed by, replaced by gray and black and the occasional puff of white that looked like the only clean spot on an otherwise dirty sky. As the clouds moved along, a swirl of white clung to the underside of a dark one.

“That looks like a cinnamon roll.”

Norvell smiled at this. 

A laugh came from his right. When he looked, a kid stood there in brown pants, a tan button-down shirt and brown suspenders. His feet were bare and his face was smudged with dirt. 

“Hey, Ed,” he said. The kid smiled, showing he was missing two teeth.

“Hey, Norvell, Ed said, then added, “That does look like a cinnamon roll. Remember Grams’ cinnamon rolls?”

Norvell nodded. Grams was his grandmother and she baked the best cinnamon rolls. She put them in the open window of her kitchen to cool before scooping them out of the pan.  “They were the best.”

“Yeah, they were.”

They sat in silence for a minute, then Ed pointed with one long finger at the clouds. “Is that a cat?”

Norvell shook his head. “No. That’s a lion.”

“I guess so. Remember how we used to lay in the field out behind the house when were kids?”

“I do,”

“We watched the clouds go by with our hands behind our heads.”

“And we chased the rainbows after storms.”

Ed nodded. “Those were good times.”

“The best times.”

Another minute passed. Norvell didn’t look back at his older brother who died when he was only thirteen thanks to a clumsy fall off a wall and a busted skull. “It’s time, isn’t it?” he asked.

“We can watch the clouds a little longer,” Ed said. “Whenever you’re ready, just close your eyes and the clouds will stop moving.”

Norvell nodded. He thought of Evelyn, of how hard his health issues have been for her. He thought of John, of the many times he took off from work or left his own family to take him to the doctor or the hospital and the many nights he slept on too short and uncomfortable  couches like the one in the room he was in. 

He looked at the clock on the wall again. The hands had stopped moving and it read nineteen minutes after three. Norvell’s lips turned up slightly, then he looked back out the window. 

“What do those look like?” Ed asked and pointed to the window where white clouds tried to overtake the gray and black ones. A flash of lightning was followed by a rumble of thunder. 

“Angels,” he whispered as the clouds continued to move along briskly. “I’m ready.” Norvell closed his eyes … 

5 of 52

My brother and I were never the best of friends. He lied. A lot. He stole. A lot. He cheated. A lot. He did a lot of things I never thought good people would do. I never thought he was a good person. 

He was three years older than me and far meaner than I would ever become. He beat me up more than a few times.

I was eleven when my grandfather broke up a particularly nasty argument that had me lash out and punch Bart as hard as I could. He saw the punch, not what led to it. He sent Bart in the house for some ice and some good old-fashioned consoling from our grandmother. I imagined he would twist this into some lie, and I would get the blame for it somehow. I was right, but that’s not what this is about.

Granddad pulled me aside and said, “Do you want to play marbles?”

I was confused. Was this a calm before the storm?

He nodded. “Sure, you do.”

He went to the porch and grabbed my marbles off the swing. They were in a purple Crown Royal bag my dad gave me. He came back to where I stood, still unsure of what was happening. He knelt, wiped dirt away with his palm and drew a circle with a stick in the clearing he had made. The marbles went into the circle and we each picked out a shooter, his a plain green one, mine a shiny purple one with white speckles. 

We only played for a few minutes. At one point, I took my shot and knocked a yellow and white swirled marble from the circle. Before I could pick it up, he did. 

“That’s mine,” I said.

He looked at it. “It is.” Then he reached into the circle and picked out another yellow and white swirled marble. He held his hand out, the two marbles side by side on his palm. Then he closed his hands.

He spoke in the way only he could, calm, soothing and wise. “Brett this circle is your world, your surroundings. These marbles …” He pointed to the ones within the circle. “… are the members of your family. These two …” He held up the two yellow and white swirled marbles, one between each pointer finger and thumb. “… are you and your brother.”

Grandad dropped one marble inside the circle. “This one is you.” He dropped the other one on the outside of the circle. “This one is your brother.”

He paused, as if thinking of what to say next. “Sometimes, you will not like your family. Sometimes they will do things that make you mad and you will not want to be around them. But they will always be your family.” He picked up the marble representing my brother. “You may not like him, but Bart is your brother and one day … one day you will wish you kept him in your circle.”

Grandad set the marble back in the circle, stood and went inside the house. I stared at it for a moment or two, then scooped them all up and placed them back in the bag. At some point, I lost track of that bag of marbles.

Life went on and Bart and I never really got along again. 

Twenty years have passed since that day. I found the bag of marbles the other day as I helped clean my grandparents’ house. It had been sitting empty since Grandad’s death a year ago. The bag was at the bottom of one dresser in the room I slept in when I was a kid. I opened it up and dumped the marbles out. Among them were two white and yellow swirled ones—my brother and I. 

I stared at it for a long while …

…

…

Now, here I stand, at my brother’s grave. It’s been four years since drugs took him in the form of an overdose. When I leave, I will go visit Grandad and tell him he was right—I wish I would have kept Bart in my circle. For now, I will stand here a little longer, silent and in thought. Before I leave, I will set one of the two yellow marbles on his head stone. I will never have him back in the circle, but maybe … maybe this will wash away some of the guilt and pain I feel. I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.

***

Before anyone asks, the only thing true in this story is the game of marbles and the conversation my grandfather and I had when I was a kid. Yes, it did come after a moment of fighting between me and my real brother, but it never escalated to the point of the two brothers in this story—thankfully.

AJB

The Rainbow Bridge

She takes a rose with her each time she crosses the bridge that separates one part of the world with another. Today it is bright red, the petals full and thick, its fragrance like Heaven to the senses. She holds a purple umbrella over her head. The clouds are grey, verging on black, threatening stormy weather. The breeze fluffs her brown hair, carrying the promise the clouds have made to her. Her dress billows up and falls back around her legs. 

The toes of her shoes touch the edge of the bridge. She stares ahead at the arched bridge, at the way the stones that construct it shine like black glass. The odd white light that passes through the gray clouds twinkle like stars in a night sky on the stones, reflecting back a prism of bright colors. The rails are wrought iron and black and smooth like marble. There is no flaking paint, no dirt on the stones, nothing to mark a passage of time. 

Here, she slips out of her shoes. They are no more than old pair that has seen far better days, but she hates the click and clack of the heels on the hard stone. She steps onto the bridge, the rose in one hand, her umbrella over her head. The rains will come, but not for a while, not until she is done. At least, she hopes.

The stone is cool under her feet. Shivers run up her legs and into her tailbone. With her head held high, she crosses. With each passing step, the stones’ colors change, from black to reds, to indigos and purples, to greens and yellows and oranges, the colors of rainbows. Halfway to the other side, she stops near the railing to her right and looks out at a world that appears unblemished. Clear blue water flows below. On the bank are tall trees that seemed to stretch into the Heavens. 

A cool breeze blows through her, ruffling her hair and dress. Another shiver follows, this time it’s a full body experience. She steps back into the center of the bridge and continues. 

From where she is, she can see the other side. A dirt path leads from the bridge, bright green grass growing up on either side of it. Trees, not as tall as the ones by the river, stand tall, their leaves green, their bark healthy shades of brown. She’s always liked that side of the bridge, where the grass is truly greener and the world …

She shakes her head and continues on. 

Thirty feet from the end of the bridge, a little girl appears. Her blonde hair is in pigtails, each one dangling by the sides of her head. She has a broad smile on her face that reveals a missing front tooth. Dimples accentuate each cheek and her eyes are a dazzling blue. She wears a pink dress that has pockets on either side of her small hips, but no socks or shoes. 

There are no clouds here, no threatening storms and no breeze to lift her hair or skirt or even pull on her umbrella. There is the sun and there is warmth.

“Good day,” the little girl says and curtsies. 

“Good day,” she repeats back, then extends the rose.

The little girl takes it. “Just the one?”

She nods. “Yes, thankfully.” Or, maybe not. It just depends on how you see things. For her, this could be good, but so often, in so many other cases, it is not. She usually only brings two or three roses, but sometimes she brings half a dozen. Only once has she brought more than ten. On that day her heart hurt as if it had been cut out. That feeling stayed with her all the way until she reached this point, this spot on the bridge. After she would smile, knowing the worst was over, but … 

“Okay.” The girl said. “One it is. He or she?”

“He.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s coming. He’s a bit older than most.”

“A natural?”

“Yes.” She was thankful for this. She didn’t have very many naturals these days.

The girl sets the rose on the ground, it’s red somehow more vibrant on that side of the bridge, somehow more alive. She reaches into one of the pockets and pulls out a brown object, shaped like a bone. “This is for him.”

“I’m sure he will like it,” she says and takes the bone. She turns, her smile somewhat forced. “Here, Boy,” she calls, kneels and holds the bone out at arm’s length, and she waits.

Half a minute passes before she sees him, a tan lab with floppy ears. He’s thinner than he should be for an animal almost twenty in age. His fur is thinner than it was when he was younger. He walks with a limping gate. It’s painful to watch, but not the way some of the others are, those who were struck by cars or killed by their owners or by other dogs. Those are the ones that hurt her heart the most, that make this part so painful. This one, this sweet lab who lived a good life, one where he didn’t fear his owner, but loved him, one where there were no fights or a car that rolled up over him, one where death came naturally as he lay his head in his owner’s lap, his head being petted, this one doesn’t hurt her as much.

His nails click clack on the surface of the stones, much like a pair of heels would a hard floor or concrete. He stops in front of her, his head up, his tail still. He looks exhausted from the walk.

“Here you go,” she says. The dog takes the bone in his mouth but doesn’t chomp down on it. “Good boy.” She pets his fur, feeling the bones beneath.

“Come,” the little girl says. 

The dog looks up at the woman who brought him here, then he steps slowly off the bridge and over the rose lying on the ground. The rose’s bright red petals and green leaves slowly wither until the stem is a dark brown and the petals and leaves are brittle and black. The dog’s pelt grows thick. Meat forms on bones and the limp he had crossing the bridge is no longer there. He sits at the girl’s feet. She pets him and his tail strikes the ground hard.

The girl looks up at the woman. “It’s time to go.”

“I know.” She let’s out a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, I would like to stay a while longer.”

“I don’t mind.”

The little girl turns. She taps her leg with her right hand, “Come,” she says to the dog.

The dog stands, falls in line beside the girl and they begin to walk up the path away from the bridge. 

“Bye,” the woman says.

As if he heard her, the dog stops and looks back. His tail wags fast. 

She waves and the dog turns around to follow the little girl. They disappear into the trees, leaving her on the edge of the bridge by herself. She fights back tears.

It takes a minute, but she finally turns and begins her trek back to the other side of the rainbow bridge. There are other puppies and dogs that need safe travel to the afterlife, others far less fortunate than the one she just walked across with. 

Halfway across the bridge, a breeze cuts through her and she shivers. The clouds are darker than before. She sees the world on the other side. It’s trees are bent and branches lay on the ground. The grass is gray and high, and the path is lined with rocks and roots. It’s a dangerous world, one she wishes not to go back to. A mournful howl beckons her on. Her shoulders slump. She fears this one isn’t so fortunate. With tears in her eyes, she hurries across the bridge.

As she slips on her shoes, it begins to rain. She lifts her umbrella over her head and steps back into the world of the living.

____________________

I started this story in November of 2018. I wrote two paragraphs, maybe a little over a hundred words and had no clue where this story was meant to go. I saved the document with the title, UNTITLED 4. A little while later, I moved the story to a folder titled, UNFINISHED STORIES. I don’t delete any story I start. Ever. I save them and if I don’t end up working on them, I moved them to that folder in hopes of one day coming back, seeing the words and thinking it would be great if I finished it. 

That was the case for this UNTITLED 4. 

I wasn’t looking for this particular story, but something else, a story I thought I might know how to complete. I couldn’t remember what I called it, so I started going through files. Near the bottom of the UNFINISHED STORIES folder are all the untitled pieces. I opened the first three, didn’t find what I was looking for, then opened UNTITLED 4. I read the two paragraphs and thought, Where was I going with this piece? I honestly, have no clue where the story was supposed to go, but I liked the girl with the umbrella and rose and I wanted to know why she kicked her shoes off. 

I moved the story to my desktop and the next day, I opened it, read the two paragraphs half a dozen times. There had to be some significance to four things in the first two paragraphs. They are:

Why was she carrying a rose? What is it’s purpose?

Why was she carrying an umbrella?

There had to be a reason the bridge was pristine. What is that reason?

Finally, why does she take her shoes off? I believed there had to be an emotional connection to that final question. It turns out, there really was.

As I reread the words, my brain started clicking. The stones shimmer with the sunlight. What if … what if the sunlight created a prism of colors that shone off the stones? Then, my brain latched onto the thought of a rainbow bridge. And I knew the story. I still didn’t know the purpose of the rose, but I knew immediately the woman was a sort of grim reaper for dogs and she was ushering one or many dogs into the afterlife, to a place where they can run in the sun with no fears of an angry owner, no cars to hit them and no age to make wither them away. 

I’m normally a fairly fast writer, but this story, though less than 1400 words in length, went painstakingly slow. It’s as if the story wanted me to feel the pain of losing an animal. That brings me to the tan lab. When I met my wife, she had a tan lab named, Sugar. He was smart and sweet. A few years passed and Sugar grew sick. If I remember correctly, he had Cancer and Cate’s brother made one of the toughest, most heartbreaking decisions of his life. In January of 2009, Sugar was, mercifully, put to rest. My brother-in-law was with him to the end. That evening I helped him bury Sugar. He cried. I cried. I wrote a story titled, Farewell Old Friend, the day after we buried Sugar. It was one of the more difficult pieces I have ever written. I might post it here one day. 

This is what I thought about as I wrote about the dog crossing the bridge. For me, this is what I hope happens for dogs as they cross the Rainbow Bridge, they become whole again. 

The rose was the key to becoming whole again. When the dog steps over the rose, he absorbed whatever life had been in it and it restored him to his healthiest. That is why the rose withered and died.

That brings me to the ending of this piece, with her crossing back the way she came. The scenery on the side where the dog was ushered to is a paradise, a dream, a Heaven. But on the other side, the world is gray and dismal and dangerous … and stormy. It is a sad place, a place she never wants to return to but has to. And she puts her shoes back on, the shoes that remind her of paw nails tapping on the stone bridge, and she steps into the gray, bleak world of the living, and into rain. 

I hope you enjoyed this piece, if you can call it ‘enjoyed.’ I hope it moved you and I hope you will take a minute and let me know and share it with others. 

As always, until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Broken Shells

A few years ago, I wrote a story titled, Broken Shells. (Brief spoiler coming) In it a teenaged boy who recounts the last night he saw the girl he loved and how he believed it was his fault she died. It’s a terribly sad piece about how things are viewed as ugly or beautiful, how people are viewed in that same manner. 

I wrote the story one night around Thanksgiving of 2013. That year we went to Folly Beach for Thanksgiving with my wife’s family. It was insanely cold during the day and even colder at night. We went out one afternoon, braving the cold and the wind that whipped around us. As we walked, I did what I always do: look for shells. I came across this shell that was nothing more than a fragment. It’s edges were purple and faded into pink. I almost threw it back, then stopped. It wasn’t a full shell, but it was beautiful, probably one the prettiest shells I’ve ever seen.

That’s when the story began to take shape. You see, beauty can be found in anything if you look for it. It’s what the main character of the story didn’t know, but what Mazzy did. I tucked the shell into my coat pocket and wrote the story shortly after.

Fast forward to the end of 2021. Cate and I return to Folly Beach on a warm day shortly after Christmas. We walk the beach for a couple of hours. At one point, we pass these driftwood trees to our right. Cate had seen them on one of her prior trips earlier in the year and she wanted to show me. She takes me to this tree, one with all these half shells attached to it with twine or string or anything that people could find. Up a little high, as if it were the star on top of a Christmas tree, was a starfish with some words written on it. She took a few pictures and we left. But a seed had been planted. Now, all I had to do was water it.

That night, I sat at my laptop and wrote the story, Forever Broken, Forever Beautiful. It takes place five years after Broken Shells. It deals with the guilt of poorly chosen words and the perceived results of those words. Below are those two stories. I hope you enjoy them.

As always, until we meet again, be kind to one another and keep taking one step forward. It’s the only way you get anywhere.

A.J.

Broken Shells (2013)

Mazzy wanted to walk on the beach. I thought she was crazy. I’ve always thought she was a little nuts, but this time, she was taking it to a new level. It was bitter cold—twenty-six degrees—and it was well after noon, so the temperature wasn’t going to rise much, if any. The sun was as high in the sky as it would go before making its descent back the other way. The wind blew off the ocean, dropping the temperature another ten or so degrees. We had tried the beach before lunch, but the gust whipped her blond hair about her head. It cut through my coat and sweater and the T beneath it. It made my face hurt and my nose run and my body like ice. We gave up then after only a few minutes.

Still, Mazzy wanted to walk on the beach.

“Why?” I asked.

“I want to look for shells.”

“Shells?”

“Yes. Seashells.”

“I know what you mean. Why do you want to look for them now?”

“We can add them to your collection.”

With that, I donned my long shirt, my sweater and jacket. She pulled on only a thin coat, not enough to keep the chill from her skin, much less the wind off her bones.

“You’ll be cold,” I said.

She regarded me with pale blue eyes that hid a truth in them I didn’t see right away.

It didn’t take long to get to the beach. It was a block from the house her parents rented. My hands shoved deep into jean pockets, I still shivered, even with the layers I wore. Mazzy gave no indication she was cold at all.

Clouds rolled in, brought by the wind. A threat of sleet or ice hung in the air. 

“We shouldn’t stay out long,” I said.

“You can go back,” she remarked, knowing I wouldn’t leave her.

For the next two hours we picked up shells to add to a collection I had started years before, when I was only a child of six. I picked up one with frozen fingers, dropped it back to the sand, and plucked it up again. By then the sun was setting behind the darkened clouds, giving the clouds a purple hue. I stared at the shell for a moment, before flipping it into the incoming tide. 

“Why do you throw back the broken ones?” Mazzy asked. In her hand she held a curved piece of a conch shell—it was just a piece, and nothing more. 

“It’s broken—it’s not worth anything.”

Again, she regarded me with those pale blue eyes. They were sadder than I had ever seen. She held up her piece, turned it over in her hand. “Is that how you see them? Just broken pieces that have no meaning. Pieces so insignificant you can’t see the beauty in them?”

“There is no beauty in broken things.”

She frowned, looked down and whispered, “A shell is like a life—fragile and easily broken. Each one should be looked at for what it is: once something beautiful before the world destroyed it, before people destroyed it.” She dropped the broken shell and turned away from me.

I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t. Even if it had been a hot sunny day, my legs would not have moved, and my voice couldn’t be bothered to speak up when I needed it to most. 

I looked to the sand. The piece of shell was there. I bent, picked it up and had a hard time standing upright, thanks to the cold that had seeped into my bones. With the dying sun sinking further into the horizon, I caught a glimpse of the purple edge of the shell, the way it turned red, then pink. It was a beautiful fragment of something much larger. It was like Mazzy, and right then I understood her grief.

Life had been cruel to her, but she kept going, kept putting one foot in front of the other. At least until then. 

“Mazzy,” I called, but she was gone. I looked up the beach in the direction she had gone but didn’t see her. I saw shoe prints in the sand that led to the water. You can figure it out from there, right? I don’t need to go into all the details of how I called her name until I was hoarse, or how I ran into the water up to my knees, even as the tide rolled in harder and harder, pushed along by the bellowing wind, or how her body washed up on the shore three days later, bloated and blue and nipped at by hungry fish, or how I cried until no more tears would come, and still, my heart lay shattered in millions of tiny pieces. Or do I?

All that really matters is Mazzy is dead, and I can’t help but believe part of it is my fault. The words I said echo in my skull, haunting me daily, keeping me awake until the early hours of morning. 

There is no beauty in broken things.

I was wrong. 

Mazzy was a broken shell, but she was beautiful in her own special way.

I once had a collection of seashells. They were whole and carefully cleaned and sat in boxes in my closet. They were beautiful. They still sit in their boxes, but I haven’t added any to them since Mazzy left. Now, I walk the beach in search of the beauty of broken shells …

Forever Broken, Forever Beautiful (2021)

It’s warm today, even for mid-November. The last time I was here, it was bitterly cold, in the mid-twenties and with a wind coming off the ocean that made it feel like it was below freezing. That was five years ago. Five. Years. Ago.

I can only shake my head at that. 

I left my car in the gravel parking lot. Four years ago, this part of the beach had been wiped out thanks to Hurricane Andrew. The parking lot had been just a dirt road that dead ended at a small building with two changing rooms—one for women, one for men. A sandy path led from the building to the beach; a thin slat fence kept people from going onto the dunes. Now, there’s a building with four ramps leading up, up, up to changing rooms and bathrooms. There is even a deck area with nice wooden tables you can sit at and look out at the ocean. It’s a beautiful view from there. 

Mazzy would have thought it was neat, maybe interesting, but beautiful? I’m not so sure. 

The ramps lead to a long boardwalk that takes you right onto the beach. Real guard rails keep people off the dunes. 

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

I look to my right. Kimberly stands there. Her light brown hair moves with the slight breeze. There is concern in her hazel eyes and written all over her face. She holds a small paper bag with both hands in front of her. She’s a good person, my friend, my heart. She’s understanding, and in so many ways, I don’t deserve her. She knows Mazzy no longer had my heart, but a big part of me still missed her … still mourned her. She knows that, too.

“Not really,” I reply. “But I need to do this. I need to put this behind me. If not now, when?”

She nods. It’s a sweet gesture of pure understanding. She also knows this is as much for her as it is for me. We can’t go on until this is done. 

We walk, not quite side by side. She’s a little ahead of me, and I’m okay with that. She can’t see the anxiousness on my face that way. We go up the ramps and to the boardwalk, where the view is absolutely breathtaking. The tide is coming in and the whitecaps roll along the shore. There are a handful of people on the beach. We stand there for a few minutes, then walk down the boardwalk to the beach. There are three steps that lead to the sand. She goes down. I stop. 

“Are you okay?” she asks after taking a few steps and realizing I’m not there with her. 

I take a deep breath, swallow the nothing in my mouth and nod. I’m not okay, but I hope … I hope, soon, I will be.

Kimberly walks back to the steps and reaches out to me. Her nails are light purple and seem to shimmer in the sunlight. “I’ll be right beside you the whole way. Just take my hand.”

I take the three steps down to the sand and grab her hand. It’s warm and soft and everything I need to go forward.

To the left are a row of houses that span about a mile, then a hotel that seems to extend forever. Just beyond that is the pier loves stand on and grumpy men fish from. To the right is just beach. No houses. No hotels. Just beach. We go right. 

There are less people in this direction than the other, mostly out of towners from up north who probably didn’t expect it to be in the upper sixties down south this late in the year. What they don’t know is this is typical South Carolina weather. Today it’s upper sixties, tomorrow it might be lower thirties. Stick around a few days and you can experience all four seasons in less than a week. 

Neither of us speak as we walk along. I try not to look at the ground, at the broken seashells that dot the sand. To the right a few small trees have grown up on this side of the dunes. They look like nothing more than driftwood that sprouted roots and grew into the ground. 

Then I see what I’m looking for. It’s still over fifty yards away. One of those driftwood trees stands by itself. It has no real branches and it looks like it could be a wooden person standing there with two arms extended out and a pointy head separating them. Part of me thought the tree would be gone, pulled into the ocean when Hurricane Andrew blew through, but there it stands. And what lies beyond it is our destination. 

I squeeze Kimberly’s hand. She squeezes mine back. 

We approach the tree. About ten yards from it, we stop. Just beyond the driftwood tree is another bank of smaller trees, these with dozens and dozens of limbs. One, in particular, calls to me.

“Is that it?” Kimberly asks.

“Yes.”

For at least a minute, maybe two, we stand there, staring at the tree.

“Are you okay?” 

I’m not. “Yes,” I lie. She knows. 

I release her hand and take a few tentative steps. I pass the driftwood tree that could be a wooden person and stop in front of one that could have been a bush at one time. Like the driftwood tree, I half hoped it had been swept away. Its branches have no leaves. It holds seashells, put there by people over the years, memories of loved ones or important moments. Most of the shells are gray or white, just boring things that, at one time, I would have thought were ugly and not all that special. I was wrong then. Each of those bland shells means something to someone.

“Here,” Kimberly says and holds out the small paper bag. 

“Thanks,” I say and take it. I open it. Inside is a piece of a shell—something I once thought was insignificant. I reach inside, pull out the shell. It’s the curved piece of a conch shell. It’s white and pink and when the light reflects off it, the pink looks purple. Once upon a time, I would have tossed it back—in fact, I had, five years before, on a frigid November night when the temperatures were anything but warm. Mazzy had picked it up and regarded it with terribly sad eyes. 

“There is no beauty in broken things,” I said that night. I’ve lived with the guilt of those seven words ever since. Mazzy considered herself broken, even at sixteen, with what should have been her entire life before her. She looked at the shell and spoke about broken things and humanity and dropped it back to the ground. Then, as I bent to pick it up, she walked into that icy ocean. Her body washed up on the shore three days later. It may have washed up sooner, but she wasn’t found until three days passed. 

And I haven’t been the same since.

Last night I drilled a hole in the thick end of the shell. I ran a zip tie through the hole and connected the two ends, creating a loop. I wrote on it in tiny print, Mazzy. Forever Broken. Forever Beautiful. Forever loved. This morning, Kimberly put it in the small bag. Now, I hold it in my hands. The sun shines off it, making the pink a beautiful purple. 

I lick my lips and swallow hard. My chest tightens and I struggle to breathe. Finally, I hand the bag to Kimberly and take the few steps to the tree. There is a shell on one branch that someone—either Rochelle or Augustus wrote the words: Rochelle and Augustus 4 Ever 11/02/2021. There’s a dried out starfish on the top someone wrote a bunch of words on that I can’t read it. I guess it represents the star on the top of a Christmas tree. Maybe.

I hold the shell up by the zip tie, turn it over and read what I wrote. Mazzy. Forever Broken. Forever Beautiful. Forever loved. 

I slip the ornament on a branch not too far below the starfish and pull the end of the zip tie, tightening the loop and securing the shell in place. 

“I’m sorry, Mazzy,” I say as tears fill my eyes. “I miss you.”

I lower my head, take a deep breath. The floodgate breaks and I can do nothing to keep from sobbing. A warm hand touches my back, then I turn. Kimberly’s arms go around me, pull me into her. One hand goes onto the back of my head when I lower it into her shoulder.

We stay like that for a while, until I have cried my tears out, until I have wet the shoulder of her shirt. Not once did she remove her arms from around me. Not once did she tell me I needed to grow up or get over it or anything else along those lines. I said I didn’t deserve her. I don’t. 

Then I hear it, a soft voice. Not Kimberly’s but Mazzy’s. Two words. That’s all.

It’s okay.

I look up. I pull away from Kimberly and turn around. The sun shines off Mazzy’s shell and I see that beautiful purple. A soft breeze blows through the branches and the sun catches the shell. The pink and purple and white glisten and seem to wink at me. I smile. It’s nothing much, but still a smile. 

“Thank you,” I whisper. 

I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. For the first time in five years, I feel light; the weight of guilt lifted from my shoulders. I turn around. Kimberly stands in front of me, her eyes full of her own tears.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I nod. “Yes.” It’s the truth this time. She knows it.

Crumbled Blacktop–Rough Cuts #3

I saw the woman on the bridge right before she jumped. 

A little context: I often take long drives on the weekends. I get in the car, crank the music up and drive until I want to turn around, then I usually come home. I usually go on either Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes, especially if the world has been particularly cruel, I go on both days. Still, on a handful of occasions, I drive until it gets dark, stopping only for gas and food, then park for the night on the side of the road at a rest stop or in a state park if one was near. On those occasions, I usually spend the next day driving home.

This was a Saturday, which was shaping up to be the first day of a two day bender. My head ached, as did my heart. The lady I loved—Lelani—left me a couple of days earlier, while we sat at a restaurant during my lunch break. She barely touched her food and she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. 

She stared down at the table. Her hands were in her lap. When she brought her right one up she had the ring I gave her when I proposed four months earlier (and she said yes then) in it. She set the ring on the table. 

“What’s this?” I asked. I knew what it was. I knew she was breaking up with me. 

She shook her head. “I can’t do this.” She stood and walked off, leaving me sitting at the table, staring at the engagement ring. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to chase after her and find out what was going on, what happened and how I could fix it. The other part told me it was over. Our turbulent on again, off again relationship was over and chasing her down would do no good. That part won out. 

I paid for our meals, stood and walked away, leaving the engagement ring on the table. 

This is what I thought about as I drove roads I don’t remember and lost hours I would never get back. And my head hurt and my heart hurt and I wanted nothing more than to stop hurting.

I got off the interstate hours before, following road signs for a town I never actually found. I did come across old houses along the road with rusted out cars in drive ways or sitting up on blocks in front yards. I didn’t see any people and I didn’t pass any other cars. The road was blacktop that was more crumbled than whole with weeds and grass growing through all the cracks and crevices. 

I drove slowly, as if on a dirt road with deep ruts that made the front end shiver and the back end shake. At some point, I turned the music off, silencing some punk rock band or other—I truly can’t recall which one it was. The world grayed at some point and the music felt off, as if where I traveled commanded a quietness that felt loud in my ears. 

I rounded a curve. Ahead about a hundred yards or so sat the bridge. Even from that distance, I could see it was old and wooden. I won’t lie and say my curiosity didn’t suddenly pique. There I was on an old forgotten road after spending all day in my own head and that was in my sights. I drove on, but by then I was mostly on the road’s shoulder and trying to stay off the bumpy black top. 

About fifteen feet from the bridge, I pulled off the side of the road and parked next to a tall, thick tree with bare branches. It was well into mid-afternoon by then and I would need to start trying to find my way back to the interstate. But the bridge … I had to see it up close. 

That’s when I saw her. She stood in the center of the bridge, her back to me, looking out at the world to her right. She wore a light colored blouse and blue slacks, kind of like the ones my grandmother wore when she was alive. Her hair was gray and she was thin—maybe too thin, as if she were sick. 

I got out of my car and closed the door gently. I didn’t want to startle her. Thinking about that now, it sounds stalkerish. I wasn’t trying to be creepy but I thought it odd that there was an old lady out on this road that didn’t seem to have a name and with no other cars to be seen besides mine. I was afraid she might have wandered off from a home and she was lost, or maybe her car had broken down and she needed help.

For a minute or so, I stood at the front end of my car and stared at her. She didn’t move. The slight breeze that came off the water blew through her hair and ruffled her shirt. I took a step forward, suddenly very concerned for this woman I had never met. My head swooned and the pain that had been small earlier, bloomed.  I was slow about it but I made it to the edge of the bridge. The wood was mostly rotten; there were quite a few holes in the planks and some boards were missing all together. The rails to either side were mostly warped but still in place. 

“Ma’am?” I called. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t look back at me or even flinch like she had heard me. 

“Ma’am?” I called again, a little louder this time. “Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath. My head still thumped but it wasn’t swimming. I stepped onto the bridge. The wood was soft beneath my feet and I hesitated, afraid I might fall right through to the … the what? I couldn’t see water in either direction, just land on my side of the bridge and land across it. Up until that moment, I didn’t notice what was beneath the bridge or what it crossed over. I leaned to my right to peer over the rail. I saw muddy water, but it couldn’t have been much more than a wide creek; the bridge probably wasn’t needed.

When I looked back at the woman, she had turned around and now stared at me. Her jaw was slack and her eyes were blank. Beneath her eyes looked like bruises. Her hands hung down at her sides and the front of her blouse had a large brown stain on it, almost in the center of her chest. I knew immediately she had been shot, or at the very least, stabbed.

“Ma’am …” I said. Both of my hands were out in front of me, as if trying to keep her from moving. “You’re hurt.”

I looked down, then took a few unsteady steps toward her, then looked up again. She hadn’t moved. Her eyes still looked distant and her jaw was still slack. She didn’t see me. I was almost certain of that. It didn’t matter if she could see me or not. I could see her and I couldn’t leave her out there to die. Every few feet I looked down to make sure I didn’t step through a weak spot or fall through a hole that was already there. And every few feet my head spun and I had to regain my bearings.

Thirty or so feet from her, she seemed to notice me for the first time. Her eyes seemed to clear and her jaw clamped shut hard enough for her teeth to clack together. She looked out at the world beyond the bridge’s rail. 

“No,” I yelled when she moved far quicker than I believed she could. She took four quick steps, put her hands on the top wooden rail, her foot on the bottom one, then launched herself off the bridge. She didn’t scream. She didn’t yell. She just plummeted. 

I went to the rail and looked over, the pain in my head forgotten. The woman was gone. She didn’t land in the water or hit dry ground. She was just gone, as if she had never been there before. Maybe she hadn’t been. 

“No, no, no, no,” I said over and over. Then, as if someone watched me, my skin began to crawl. I was in a horror movie come to life and fear gripped my heart. I backed away from the rail and hurried back toward my car the best I could. The pain in my head intensified with each step I took. I reached the end of the bridge, stepped off and started to run for my car …

And somehow ended up back on the bridge, standing where the woman had been when I first saw her. I turned, first to my left to the side of the bridge I had no intentions of walking to, then to my right, to where I stepped onto the bridge and where my car … my car didn’t sit on the side of the road where I parked it. It was off the road, the front end smashed into the thick, tall tree. The front windshield was splintered right about the spot a head would have struck if …

I touched my forehead and pulled back red fingers.

“What’s going on?” 

I touched my head again, this tim planting my palm on my forehead. The skin there was torn. I could feel flesh bunched up near my hairline. I probed a gash that seemed like it ran the length of the top of my head, feeling something hard that could only be my skull. I pulled my hand free and looked at it again. Blood dripped from my fingers and palm. I wiped my mouth with my other hand and suddenly felt the urge to run, that something was terribly wrong and I was in danger. 

I ran for my car, not worrying about the holes or weak boards in the bridge. I couldn’t hear my feet or my breaths or feel my heart beat hard in my chest. I only felt the heavy weight of panic and fear in my chest and mind and the sharp, intense pain of the headache that seemed to split my skull. I reached the end of the bridge, stepped off and was back in the center where the woman had been. 

I almost ran for my car a third time but didn’t. Instead, I walked toward the other end. My legs grew weak as I walked and I didn’t think it would matter what happened when I reached the other end. I reached it and stepped off the bridge and back onto it in the exact same spot as before. 

Now, I stand here, in the center of the bridge. I can see both ends of the bridge, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t step off of it. But this waiting, this feeling of being trapped here with no way to get help isn’t the worst of it. That’s reserved for the creature standing at the end of the bridge where my car is. It came up in an old style horse and buggy, both of which are black. It stepped away from the buggy. It is not much taller than I am and it wears a hooded robe. In one of its hands—hands that look skeletal—is a long pole with a sharp blade on one end. It’s spoken a couple of times, but I can’t make out what it’s saying. It can’t be anything good. It’s on the bridge now and coming toward me. A darkness spills off of it, like a thick fog rising into the air and going out before it. It’s coming for me. It’s …

I can’t run away. I’ll just return to this spot and it will be waiting for me. But what if … what if I jump over the rail and off the side of the bridge? What if …

AJB

Coming Soon: Five Deaths

Andrew Colson never intended to kill anyone. The dead that haunted his childhood had other plans.

The first ghost to appear to him was Billy Jumper, a four-year-old special needs child murdered by his stepfather in a drunken fit. Billy was followed by Sarah Lockingham and Janie Whiteside, then the one person who he loved most, his father. 

After the death of a close friend, Andrew learns what the ghosts want from him and sets out to fulfill their needs. In doing so, Andrew discovers a devastating truth that may push him beyond setting things right for the dead. It might lead him to revenge.  

Coming to an e-reader in your hands or get your hard copy on September 13th.

Spread the news. It’s coming.

Just A Memory

Memories are funny things. Sometimes they are as crisp and clear as yesterday. Sometimes they are hazy, like a foggy morning in the mountains. I think this one is somewhere in between. (These memories are completely unedited. They are written in one sitting and I feel if I go back and edit them, my mind will tell me something is wrong and want to make changes. )

My grandparents lived in the mill hill in West Columbia, not more than a couple hundred yards from the Congaree River. My brother and I spent a lot of time at the river, more times than not getting soaked because we were either stupid, daring or both. We skipped rocks, broke bottles (yeah, with rocks), and even got in trouble one time when the pretty little girl who lived on Alexander Road stepped on some of the glass we had shattered with a bunch of rocks we couldn’t skip (we caught hell for it and had to go down to her house and apologize for being idiots—that’s what my uncle called us). 

We walked those streets like we owned them, even though we knew if we did something wrong, our grandparents would know before we got back to their house. 

There were few kids in the neighborhood, most of them like us who were only around when they visited their grandparents. There was Wayne and David—popular names back then, apparently, and I knew three sets of brothers with those names. There was another Wayne and David who were not brothers (they were cousins) who visited from time to time. Bryce lived on the corner of Sortwell Street for a while and Susan visited her grandmother from time to time (whew, she was a sight for young boy eyes and the only girl on the street). There were the Burnette Brothers whose names I can’t recall now to save my life—they became the models for the bullies in Cory’s Way. They were the local bullies, mean as hell, ugly as hell. Then there was Tony C., not to be confused with my buddy Tony M., who I often called T. 

Tony C. was not much to look at as far as boys went in the late seventies and eighties. I can’t really say I was either, but I think I grew up and became better looking with age. His face was loaded with freckles, his hair was dark brown, skin fair. He was thin and his voice was kind of higher in pitch. He was a part time friend who always tried to intimidate the rest of us. We tolerated him because sometimes there was no one else around to hang out with. We played marbles in my grandparent’s front yard; played cops and robbers at his grandmother’s house two blocks down. We got in more fights when he was around than when he wasn’t. I don’t think we ever truly became friends. 

There was this one time … I think it was the only time any of us really showed some sort of compassion for each other. I was walking down the street by myself. I don’t recall why my brother wasn’t with me, but he wasn’t. I was, maybe nine, maybe ten—memories don’t always recall time too well. I passed Tony’s grandmother’s house to see him sitting on the porch, his knees pulled up to his chin and his arms wrapped around them. His back was against one of the porch pillars. He was wearing bluejeans—he always wore bluejeans—and a T-shirt that I think was white, but I honestly can’t remember. 

I asked him if he was okay. He looked up. He had a shiner that would get worse before it got better. He had been jumped by the Brothers and the fight didn’t last long. I remember thinking he had probably ran his mouth at them and his face paid the price. Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t matter. I opened the gate and entered his grandmother’s yard. I went up the steps and sat beside him. I have no clue how long I sat beside him, but neither of us spoke for the longest time. His sniffles dwindled and he wiped his nose. 

His grandmother came to the door and said it was time to eat. We looked at each other and stood. I shrugged my bony shoulders as if I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t. He wiped his nose again, then Tony C. went inside and closed the door. 

That was the last time I saw him. 

Fast forward many, many years later and my baby brother and I stopped one day in the parking lot of a Bi-Lo’s. We got out and walked. We talked about life and other stuff, but mostly life. We made our way to my old stomping grounds and I took that stroll down Memory Lane. I pointed out things, like where the German Shepard had chased me and my older brother and where some of my friends lived and where the old park used to be and the house where another pretty, but older girl lived and would wash her car in a bikini during the summer—yeah, us boys spent some quality gawking time at that park during the summer.

We passed by Tony’s grandmother’s house and a man was out in the yard. I stopped and asked about the lady who lived there once upon a time. I also asked about Tony. Turned out, he was Tony’s cousin. 

“How’s he doing?” I asked.

“Tony’s dead,” he said. 

I was stunned at this matter of fact statement. The story went like this: Tony had been in all sorts of legal troubles during his life. He had spent time in prison, and as was his life, he got into some more trouble. Instead of going back to prison—which he surely would have, even though his cousin said Tony didn’t do anything wrong—he committed suicide. We talked a little while longer, then said our ‘goodbyes.’

I often think about Tony C., and our tolerating relationship. I also think about the last time I saw him. It was an unspoken understanding we had that day. He needed comfort and I provided it, though I didn’t realize it then. I’ve often wondered if I would have done something different, said something, tried to make him feel better, something other than just sitting there with my elbows on my knees looking out at the street in front of us. I don’t think I would have. I think that understanding: ‘I know you’re hurt and I won’t say anything,’ from me and a simple, ‘Thanks for that,’ from him was the only thing we ever shared that wasn’t argumentative or spiteful. I think it’s the only good way to have ended a friendship that never really was. 

The Down Side Up and Other Things

Before I get started today, I want to state two things. This post will have a LOT of pictures. Second, if you are a long time (or even first time) reader of Type AJ Negative, hit the like button at the end of this post and leave a comment. Give me some feedback, especially about the last part of this post. 

Let’s dive in.

I realize I haven’t been around as much as a couple months ago, but if you have followed me any length of time, then you know I go in spurts. Sometimes I post two or three times a week, then don’t post another thing for a month. I try to go for quality over quantity. I hope that means my absence makes your hearts grow fonder. If not then …

So, where have I been pretty much since the beginning of the year? After not really going anywhere in the year of the Covid, 2020, Cate and I have spent nearly every Saturday of 2021 driving around, visiting parts of our state, going to state parks and spending a lot of time together. Rain or shine, cold or warm, we have been out and about, determined not to spend every waking moment cooped up in our house. 

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That’s not the only thing going on. We have purchased a school bus. No, not a little school bus, but a regular sized bus. It’s huge. We’re in the process of renovating it and turning it into a tiny cabin. We call it The Get Away Bus. We got it in January and have spent at least one day every weekend (except for Valentine’s weekend) working on it. 

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Cate has also begun pursuing her art. Back in September of 2020, I turned my shop into a studio for her so she would have a place to paint and explore different styles of art. She has done some amazing artwork. (Yes, her artwork is for sale, so you can check out her Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/Cates-Chaotic-Creations-113445590484536

But wait, there is more. 

I’ve gotten back into the Remote Control Car hobby. I’ve spent a lot of time researching things I didn’t know, and learning some of the ins and outs. I’ve rebuilt two of my RCs and fixed two others, including one that hasn’t worked in over ten years. For the first time since first dabbling in the hobby, I’m enjoying it. 

We’ve also restarted the Gettin’ Caffeinated Coffee Tour blog. 

To say Cate and I have kind of thrown ourselves into 2021 is an understatement. 

There is one more thing. This is a big thing. I’ve taken a step back from traditional publishing. It’s something I have thought about quite often in the last couple of years. If I’m thinking about it that much, maybe I should actually do it. This does not mean I will not be writing and putting out work. It just means I’m under no pressure to do so. 

A few years ago, I was told in order to stay relevant I had to constantly put out work to keep my name on the tongues of the readers. With that in mind, I constantly posted on blogs and social media, I sent out booklets to people, I released books and tried to engage people in person and online. I wrote a lot of stories, many of which felt forced and I didn’t like (and which have never been published). I put so much pressure on myself to be relevant that I stopped enjoying the thing I loved doing: writing. 

Here’s an honest moment I hope everyone understands (though I’m sure some will disagree, maybe even vehemently): I feel the publishing model is broken. I feel there is so much wrong with how things are done in publishing, from some of the way authors are treated by publishers and editors to the way some publishers steal ideas from others, to the way royalties are divided, to the way some (dare I say, many) authors no longer care about putting out good work, to how crappy Amazon is for writers and how people view authors whose work is not on Amazon, to writing organizations taking their fees but not really doing much for the writers, to those same organizations frowning on those who choose not to join them. It’s a crappy model and I have no clue how to go about fixing it. 

So, here is what I am doing: I’m creating a Patreon page for my writing. If you don’t know about Patreon, it is a subscription-based system that allows artists to have control of their art and for fans to show their support for those artists by purchasing subscriptions. The page is called The Down Side Up and will be going live sometime in the next eight weeks. It will have exclusive content you can’t get here at Type AJ Negative (or anywhere). Content includes serialized stories never published (quite possibly including my love story I wrote in 2020), an article titled One Step Forward, which is about my journey in the writing world, both the ups and downs. It’s somewhat autobiographical. There will be discounts for books, and we’re debating on video content as well.

I’ve never done anything like this. I have no clue how it will work. I have no clue if anyone will actually want to pay a subscription for my stories and my thoughts. I may get one subscriber. I may get twenty. I may get none. But I’ll never know unless I give it a try. I may go back to traditional publishing at some point, and yes, I will still put out physical books and do events, and yes, Type AJ Negative will still be here. For now, I feel it is time to go in another direction.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blogs, my stories and my thoughts. As a person, it means a lot to me. Don’t forget to like this post, share it with your friends and leave a comment below.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.