dave

A young mother rubs her daughters back, the girl coos, sighs, coughs again; a tightly wound young man sits nervously, clutching his travel case, reacting to every cough. The young mothers affection does not translate beyond her child, the man is morose, unreceptive. Resenting his place on the train, a bead of sweat has formed on his temple. He looks out his window in an attempt to ease his mind. The sky is palpably dark now, a sapphire clarity spreading upward from the hills to the west. His heart is beating in his ears and hands. Tension is growing, now a pain emerges as his chest tightens, the pain furthers the growing anxiety, the anxiety furthers the tension and pain. A low hum has begun to fill his head, the hum grows to a moan, the moan grows to a roar. White noise, he is deaf, his breath shallows, his veins constrict. A young mother looks beyond her now sleeping daughter, the tightly wound man has collapsed in his seat.

The train moves on.

These 'chapters' that I will be sharing with you are the result of late night restlessness. This writing wanders, satisfies the need to put my mind to sleep, and produces marginally entertaining prose in the process. If you have any questions or quoncerns regarding my decidedly unfocused style please let me know. You will be able to leave comments shortly, and in the meantime you can send emails to dave@quinzy.ca.

Because these stories wander I'm not sure whether they should be called short stories or chapters (as part of a larger work). Although there will be a thread that connects them, it may weaken, or it may strengthen. We'll just have to see.

Also, sometimes I won't have a chapter written so I'll interrupt myself with something completely unrelated. Good... I think I've defined blogs for myself. Ok. Onward.

"Please, sir, relax, let me explain."

The man in the white coat seemed to think he would be able to calm my nerves with words. I needed him to understand that I simply needed a dose of my medicines, and perhaps a good vics salve. I simply had a case of the common cold, likely caught while I travelled home from Old Peoria (Home of my father). The train had been a dreadful mess of snotty children and their doting mothers.

"Sir, I'm not sure how to tell you this. The bed you rest in today is quite different from the one you may remember resting in, in what you may consider to be yesterday."

Excuse me? This man is a preposterous old fool. An absolute turkey of a gentleman taking advantage of a restrained, and apparently drugged man. I still couldn't muster a word. Although I was starting to notice a marked change in surroundings.

"Let me first of all say, you are an extraordinarily lucky young man. You were one of only three people to receive this treatment, and of those three, it seems you are the only one to have 'pulled through'."

Just give me my salve. And why is he being so sarcastic?

"Next, I need to tell you that you have been asleep for the past 65 years."

Apparently, my common cold had turned into something substantially more concerning. Apparently, I had developed a rare form of tuberculosis. So apparently rare that it was the first strain to have developed in a liver before moving to the lungs. Like a tropical storm marinating in a warm gulf, the TB had quietly picked up steam. By the time it hit my lungs, it was a hurricane. I had been kept alive on digitalis purperea, which, strangely enough, had been discovered by my great-great uncle, John Ferriar, nearly 200 years before. It slowed my heart rate, while strengthening the contractions, thereby allowing my lungs to perform at a less than adequate rate without tragic consequences. The rest was to be explained when I had the strength to speak. So now, I had come to realize that while I had lain in this bed, growing nearly enough hair to span the Gulf of Peoria, my love had passed on, my village had turned into a vast sea, and the great white north, a relative unknown in my day, had become the new frontier.

Oooooh.... This looks pretty. Coming soon: A Blog!

David.