Back in the Game

A large eagle glided silently over my path as I crossed the bridge, spanning the Arkansas River near Jenks, Oklahoma. It was going to be a good day.

On the third day of August 2017, I rolled out of bed with a different agenda in mind. I had unfinished business. The email I’d received the previous day was sent as a reminder, but I had not forgotten. I was, in fact, looking forward to it.

I backed the BMW from the garage and set a course for Woodward, Oklahoma, not the office as usual. The decision was neither spontaneous nor poorly thought out, though somewhere west of Enid I began to question the integrity of the satellite feeding information to my phone. I halfway expected the face of Rod Serling to appear in my rearview mirror. A signpost just ahead came into view.

Thankfully, the signpost made no mention of the Twilight Zone but indicated instead that Woodward was eighteen miles away. A few months earlier, the Woodward Library System had contacted me and asked me to be a part of their Summer Adult reading program. I am happy that I accepted the request, and thankful that I was able to make the trip. I truly hope all of the wonderful people, who attended the event, enjoyed the experience as much as I did.

Okay, let’s try this again:

About a month ago, I was sitting in a hospital lab, waiting to get… well, you know, stabbed or jabbed in one way or the other. I’ve been doing way too much of that lately.  Thankfully it has been on an outpatient basis. Anyway, I’d showed up two days earlier, like the endocrinologist had instructed me to do, only to be sent home, after having fasted – that means skipping midnight snacks, breakfast, and coffee – to return a few days later. It seems the doctor had requested the test, but had not scheduled it.

Am I missing something here? If a doctor requests a test be done on a certain day, isn’t that technically the same as scheduling it? And I used to think the accounting profession was convoluted.

To cut to the chase, while I was sitting in the waiting room, a young lady dressed in hospital attire came into the room, dragged up a chair, and sat beside the other young lady, who was already behind the desk and also dressed for the occasion. The young lady, who had already been behind the desk, acknowledged the presence of the later arrival with a curt nod, but for a few minutes, neither of them spoke, neither to me nor to each other. Yeah I’m liking neither, nor today. To compound the puzzle, the second young lady did absolutely nothing constructive or otherwise that I could ascertain, but simply sat there, perhaps conducting mind over matter exercises. The silence was finally broken when the later arrival began to complain about her hours. 

From the conversation that I could not help but overhear, I determined that the second young lady was there as some sort of disciplinary action. I didn’t pick up on what she might have done to earn the detainment, but what cruel form of punishment would give you a twenty minute break from work while still being paid for it?

It gets worse. Her complaining amounted to protests for having had to take off an extra half hour for lunch due to her working  a half hour overtime. I’m no Einstein but, relatively speaking, a negative half hour coupled with a positive one equals zero. And I’d be willing to bet she was paid for the overtime. No wonder the cost of medical care is soaring at a rate nearing the speed of light.

Please check out my writing at the link below:

https://www.amazon.com/Bob-Avey/e/B002BM2VJ8

Twisted Perception is now out in audiobook. Please click the link below:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Perception-Detective-Elliot-Mystery/dp/B00XZKFWDM/ref=la_B002BM2VJ8_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502197925&sr=1-3

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This article was written by Bob Avey, author of Twisted Perception, Beneath a Buried House, and Footprints of a Dancer. http://www.bobavey.com

 

 

Twisted Perception - First serialized post.

Chapter One

A car horn interrupted the driver’s thoughts, and he realized his mind had been elsewhere, reliving a despairing moment, an ugly slice of time in which he’d killed a friend. A tear formed in his eye and rolled down his cheek.

 He hoped the night would not hold any more surprises. Enough had already gone wrong. He hesitated, and when he pulled onto the road the reflection of the street lamps off the wet pavement reminded him of a carnival midway, and he fancied being transported to another world where things would not be as they were: life dependent on death.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and cursed the troublesome mist that swirled through the air. He could discern no rain falling, though the moisture seemed to be everywhere, a monsoon of molecular proportions emanating from the fabric of the world it coated. His lack of concentration didn’t surprise him. He didn’t want to be there, driving around town on such a night. The windshield wipers cleared his field of vision, and when he saw the place where he’d found her before, some bar along 31^st Street, he slowed the car and pulled in. His actions were not prescient, or even fantastic. He knew where to look. She frequented such places.

He heard a rattling noise and realized it was his ring clattering against the steering wheel as his hands shook. He wanted to blame it on the wine, but he knew better. The drinking had not intoxicated him to the point of being even remotely prepared for the task ahead of him. Beads of sweat ran down his back at the thought of it. There was no getting around what he had to do. She’d come back. And people ought to stay dead when they’re put that way.

He thought of Papa. Times like this perpetuated his essence, and he imagined his name—though he didn’t speak it, and he did not for a moment pretend to assume his presence. That would be tantamount to disrespect, and disrespecting Papa was not a good idea. He rolled down the car window, letting the cold mist pepper his face as he leaned back in the seat, and waited.

I'll post more next week. To purchase novel visit:

http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Perception-Detective-Mystery-ebook/dp/B004C43H32/ref=ntt_at_ep_edition_2_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Getting Personal

Welcome to my new blog and to what could be called the first real blog post of my career. I say this because I did have a blog once, a publication – and I use the term loosely being that publication means to Make Public and I have no knowledge of anyone ever actually having read the work – that I’ve long since abandoned because it turned out to be nothing more than a rehash of my newsletters, a lighthearted account of life on the road for an author. I can promise you with utmost sincerity that this blog will not follow in the footsteps of its predecessor. As to which path it might take, I am certain only that it will not be the most likely, the most traveled. I desire to learn about, and to explore that which is unusual. I hope you will join me on the journey.

Let me explain the twofold impetus behind this new endeavor. The joy of reading bloomed inside of me at an early age. However, the book, which captivated my imagination, causing me not only to want to read but to write as well, was a book of fantasy, titled A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeleine L’Engle. After that, if the book didn’t have an element of fantasy about it, or something extraordinary, it just couldn’t hold my attention. Not surprisingly, the genre heavily influenced my early writing efforts. My reading preferences still lean in that direction. However, my two published novels, Twisted Perception and Beneath a Buried House, while no one has described either as being ordinary, contain no elements of fantasy. With my third book, I hope to change that.

As indicated, the inspiration for change involves more than getting back to my literary roots. The balance of the formula is better demonstrated through the relation of a personal experience. This should also reveal what I hope to be an important component of the blog, the sharing of personal stories and experiences.
When I was young, around the age of nine or ten, I dreamed of being in a forest where a comforting, golden hue enveloped the landscape, including the sky and the trees and everything that could be seen. The peace and contentment that I felt there, something that escapes description, convinced me, even as a child that I was caught up in something, which was on a deeper level than an ordinary dream. But it didn’t end there. Soon, I emerged from the forest where I began walking along a roadway. I was completely alone on the roadway, but as I continued the journey I encountered pockets of people, whom I recognized as friends and family. Each group seemed to be having a good time and without exception they called to me, trying to convince me to join them. I knew that I should not do that. My mission was to stay on the road, and that’s what I did. The last group of people included my mom and dad. They, too, tried to convince me to step off of the roadway. I found this very disturbing, and it was at this point that I woke up.

Please keep in mind that I did not come from a religious family. We went to church maybe three or four times during my entire childhood. Sadly, this unfortunate condition was also the norm for my aunts and uncles on both sides. I had a few friends who went to church, but none talked of it. In short, At least in my young mind, I had no one to turn to. I carried the dream around with me for a few weeks, and when I finally decided that I had to tell someone, I settled on my sister. After listening to my experience, she stared at me for a few seconds and then said, “You’re going to die.”

My sister is a story in herself, but I won’t go into that. She wasn’t being silly or sarcastic. Looking back, I’m pretty sure that hearing such words come from her little brother’s mouth probably caused her a few sleepless nights.
I finally decided to pray about it. I don’t recommend making demands of the Lord, but remember I was just a child. In the prayer, I asked God if He was trying to speak to me and that if He was to please give me a sign. I even gave Him the sign to use. You see, there was this girl who rode the same school bus as I. I was deeply in love with her, but I knew she hadn’t a clue that I even existed. I asked God to make her my girlfriend because I knew that only a miracle could do that.

The next day, I’d actually forgotten about it, so I bounded onto the bus as usual. However, when she called out to me and asked me to sit beside her, the smile that stretched across my face could have reached into the next county. Here’s the kicker: That girl had never spoken to me before that day, and she never spoke to me again afterward. The next day was business as usual, like nothing had ever happened.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. For me, it was pretty rock-solid. As fate would have it, though, as I grew older and life called out to me, I stepped off that roadway. I will forever regret taking those wayward steps, but all is not lost. It never is. Recently, life’s journey has caused me to rethink my position. I’ve asked Jesus to come back into my life.

Well there you have it. Before this, only a handful of people had ever heard that story. Now back to my fiction. What I hope to do with it from this point forward is to season the plot with thoughtful fantasy and weave into the fabric the power of faith. I hope I can successfully pull it off.
Most importantly, I hope that reader participation will become an important part of this blog. Please feel free to leave a comment, send an email, or forward a guest blog post. I want to hear your stories. I’m intrigued by stories of faith, but all things interest me, especially the unusual, the unexplained and the bizarre.

Next week I’ll touch on The Southern Death Cult of the Spiro Mounds, some of the inspiration behind, Footprints of a Dancer, the third book in the Detective Elliot series.

Please check out the link: http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Buried-House-Detective-ebook/dp/B003SE7J6I/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2