Dealing with Perpetual Pain

Imagine waking up, if you get to sleep at all, and remembering your vivid nightmares centered around one theme: pain.  When you awaken the pain is not gone, it is still there, dogging your every step and preventing you from enjoying anything.  Simple things you took for granted, like the sunlight or a child’s laughter become instruments of torture.  Music, conversation, and socializing are ordeals you endure rather than look forward to experiencing.  Pain negates every pleasurable visitation of life and penetrates deep into your core, tainting all of the things of beauty you love so much.  You aren’t the only one suffering from your pain.  Family and friends drift away or hide at the sight of your agony.  You find yourself slinking away to spare them the vicarious pain.  Even your pets learn to manage their lives around your torment.

If it were a terminal illness that could end your life at any moment to spare the rest of the world of your presence, then you could endure it, you think sometimes.  However, is not a terminal illness, it is a perpetual acute migraine which remains for years.

This is my world, yet I remain through it all an optimist.  I haunt the night, unable to go outside during the day.  I hobble around due to neurological problems on my right side.  My tremors and seizures occur daily and I am only able to write for at most an hour each day before fatigue forces me to rest.  I am a physical wreck.

However, like I said, I am an optimist because I believe no matter what happens to my body and my mind, God will preserve and protect me.  Am I naive in this world of so much doubt and depression?  No, I have faith.  When I look at the icon of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) and contemplate her life, I realize how much better I have had it.  King Herod wanted to kill her and her child because of a prophecy.  The Sadducees wanted to kill her because they didn’t believe in divine intervention.  Even as a young woman, she knew the cost of agreeing to what the Angel Gabriel asked of her.  All Hebrew girls did.  Still she accepted.  Despite all of the trouble, it caused her, her family, and her community she said yes.

Thus, despite all of the pain I am enduring, many martyrs endured more.  I am not fit to join their ranks.  I will endure and when I can’t God will help me endure.

I’m working on my lastest top-secret project.

Well, maybe it isn’t so top-secret.  I have so many book projects going I have lost track of them thus far.  Nevertheless, I endeavor to stay the course and complete this novel first.  You might ask what makes this project so top-secret.  I haven’t been able to think up a name that describes it well enough to give it that breakout bang.

Let me start from the top.  It has a tree a half-mile tall who is one of the main characters in the book.  The novel has two opposing wizards, one good and the other evil, a fey realm and a kingdom in a far away land.  Amid all of the turmoil, and struggling to survive the attacks of their pursuers are a mother and her two children.  This family is a key component in the Prophesy of the Blue Coin.
 
“Blue coin on red tower totters
    White moon on black sky slung
    Green fury on flowing red waters
    Young hand on white staff hung
    Fey spirit becomes mere mortal
    Mere mortal comes revealed as fey
    Black staff breaks in temple portal
    Red hair sits on throne that day

Blue coin floats in blue pool.”

The problem, as I stated, is developing a name for the book that will attract readers, young and old alike.  The bad wizard is named the Toad Wizard (Treoraí Buaf Glas) and the good wizard is called the Earth Guardian (Treoraí Garda Cré).  I’ve decided to use Gaelic names to add to the fantasy atmosphere.  The book also has a red tower that is central to the entire story, as mentioned in the prophecy.

If anyone has a suggestion for a title and I like it, I would be happy to give them a sneak preview of the first few chapters.

Angels Falling Abyssal

Holding me as close as anyone can try
falling through the abyss
her radiance an inner glory
Not thinking of my yesterdays
nor gnawing on my tomorrows
feeling just the now
knowing only this moment
branching no where, no when, no how

She is a light illuminating my present.
angelic feathers spread about me unseen
She is the tranquility of the moment
calming the frantic chaos of my mind
She is the dweller in a still deep pool
inviting me to wash away the world.

Tight to her I fall through the abyss
spiraling about a singularity in space
stuttering about a moment in time
the radiance from her center
casts shadows passed my darkness
a darkness which gnaws away
an oily blackness in the pit of my heart
hiding every where, when, and how.

I am the bitter seed and core of the past
knuckles dragging on the pavement of sin
lurching from rotten age to age
venting against the pure without sense
raging against the kind, good, and sincere.
inviting the sweet to reprobation.

Held close by her as a sacrifice
falling into the eternal abyss
she gives of herself so others may live
she binds her fate to mine in a final act
an act of obedience and charity
two things I had never know
until her last shining moment
relenting no where, no when, no how

Guardian Angel

At every moment in every day,
There’s someone to watch over you.
When the night is dark and the monsters play,
There’s someone to see you through.

If your heart is sad and your sorrows stain,
A friend will be sent to care,
As you tread the path of human pain,
To lighten the burden you bear.

At every turn on every path,
There’s someone to watch over you.
So quiet your fears and still your wrath,
There’s someone to see you through.

At the end of every time of dark,
There comes a light to shine,
After every winter comes the lark,
To sing of hope divine.

Chapter 1 “Anticipation” of The Last and Furious Hownan: The Doors of Veselago Book: 2

The worst thing about living with old Gerqui was how cranky he was most of the time. The hateful man spent most of his days cussing at the girl, and the other half complaining about the food. Kaletta despised him as much as anyone else did, but they had to live in the same rundown shack and thus a truce of sorts developed between them. He would keep his filthy mitts off her, and she wouldn’t stick a fish knife between his ribs while he was taking one of his long and undeserved naps. He abided by their agreement, mostly. The one time he slipped up, bought him a nasty scar across his chest and the loss of his pinky finger. She kept the dried out finger on a string around her neck as a reminder to him. So while he was more respectful of her person, he still insulted her at every opportunity. If she could leave the randy old goat, she would, but the situation was painfully inflexible – for the moment.

Gerqui owned Kaletta. Her parents had sold her to him during the last famine and had promised to buy her back when the harvest came in. It didn’t and her parents and younger siblings had all perished. The last member of the great Hownan Clan lay on a lice infested cot as property of a tax collector. Kaletta wasn’t the sort to moon about her circumstances, in fact she wasn’t unhappy in the slightest, because she had a secret which all of her Clan kept and the nasty Gerqui and his equally nasty friends were about to find out. She counted the days to the next full moon in anticipation. Kaletta left her cot when she decided it was getting too hard to sleep in the vermin filled straw, took up the entire bedroll, and tossed it out into the rain. Fetching up a fresh bedroll filled with new straw, Kaletta had just finished when she heard Gerqui trip over her soggy bedroll, and land with a splash in the large mud puddle in front of the door. She chuckled when she heard him cussing and waited for him to come into the shack.

“What is this mess by the door? I’m not gone an hour, and you are already tearing up the place. If it wasn’t for the law, you would already be out on your skinny little butt, especially after you maimed me.”

She gave him her most fearsome glower, and went back to preparing her bed. He was all talk and no action theses days, but not out of choice.

“You’d better not look at me that way! The law works in my favor too, you witch! If you disobey me, I am allowed to give you the whip once a day,” said Gerqui. He was wheezing because he was allergic to something in the hay.

“If you lay a hand on me Gerqui, you had better sleep with one eye open, because my little necklace needs another finger.” She waved his desiccated finger in his direction with a smile. Nobody threatened a member of the mighty Hownan Clan, even if she was the last and a slave as well. The law protected slaves from abusive owners, and required them to live under the same roof. If Gerqui threw her out, the social repercussions could cost him his position with the outpost commander. The only way she could leave would be if he freed her voluntarily or one of her kin came to buy out the deed against her flesh. The outpost commander had not punished Kaletta, for her attack on her owner, primarily because he was not exactly sure if all of the Hownan Clan were gone. The villagers, for their part, avoided her when she went to buy food at the market, or bathed in the nearby river. The men and boys didn’t even try to spy on her during her ablutions, because they were under the impression they would be cursed by merely looking on the naked body of a Hownan woman.

“Woman?” she chuckled to herself. She was not yet in the blood, so technically she wasn’t a woman at all, but if it meant a small bit of privacy in this smelly and crowded place, Kaletta was grateful. She counted the beads on her bracelet which told her how many years she’d been a slave. Thirty one years. For thirty-one years Kaletta had served this greasy and unworthy worm, long enough to see Gerqui transformed into the bitter old man he was today. Thirty-one years was long enough to see the Lutho Clan rise to prominence. She knew there were no other Hownan men alive, because she could feel it. With every full moon, her hormones surged a little higher, and during those times, she felt a world devoid of her kin. The villagers all felt the Hownan were witches or some other eldritch creature meant to blight mortal men, and only appeared to be human, but there was no denying the fearsome nature of an angry Hownan. Gerqui had done very well to go these thirty-one years with only the loss of a finger.

The rain outside intensified and the wind picked up in the manner of those autumn storms as Kaletta lay on her bedroll trying hard to remember the face of her mother. It had been so long ago when she had seen her face, thus Kaletta had to spend longer, and longer each year straining to recall every minute detail of her appearance. Mother wore her golden hair in long braids, plaited in intricate knots, which were enough to make a noble woman’s coiffure look tawdry. Her eyes were an almond yellow with round lids, which differed greatly from the squinting Lutho. When Mother entered a room, people usually made way without hesitation. If they failed to give way, Mother was quick to place her hand, with long pointed nails, on their shivering chest and force obedience. Soon, these Lutho and their sniveling minions will pay for what they have done! One more moon and I will show them true fear!

Hello everyone and welcome!

Welcome to my weblog on wordpress.com.  I already have one on BlogSpot.com, where I discuss my experiences as a writer.  This blog will exclusively provide a service to my fans.  From time to time, I’ll post first chapters and excerpts.  Please comment if you wish, though if you are abusive or just plain stupid you’ll find your post in the bit-bucket.  Now, I’d like to introduce myself.

I am a returning writer who enjoys the act of creation.  For years, I have yearned to create works, which would interest, inspire — and if necessary — haunt the reader.  I have three small boys and live in the Pocono Mountains where every season is beautiful.  My wife is an editor and illustrator of children’s books, and is artistically talented.  I have recently finished a novel titled “Haley Cork and the Blue Door” – a haunting story of a girl who is rapidly stripped of her humanity by an ancient and powerful device.

I am working on a number of books, but fatigue brought about by chronic illness makes things very slow for me. I can write at most an hour a day if I am lucky, so if I don’t immediately respond to your emails, you’ll know why.

If you wish to contact me, do so through my publisher’s email address at Honesdale.Eagle@gmail.com

That’s all there is to it!  I write because I have to, want to, and love to.