Kindle Edition
Amazon
Writing From The Blue Ridge Mountains
Category:
Mainstream
Publisher: Gridley Fires Books
Pages: 142
Copyright: March 15, 2014
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
A dystopian story of a world in decay, the U.S. at war with itself. But there's hope if its warring factions can talk and trust.
2090 A.D. — The America nation has collapsed, and its remnants have been at war for a half-century.
Samuel II, mayor of Citadel, a Blue Ridge Mountain enclave, is determined to end the city’s wars with a devolved tribal society called Freedomland. He sends troubled but insightful city archivist Jakob History to a bartering meet-up, hoping an interview with tribal leader Abraham Trapper might help further peaceful relations. Instead, the encounter leads Jakob to reexamine America’s past. Soon, Jonathan, Jakob's mentor, exposes the archivist to a surprising link with Abraham, which seems to set Jakob at odds with Citadel. But when Samuel leads Jakob to a danger-filled glimpse of Abraham’s tribal life, the archivist’s preconceptions of both cultures comes crashing down. Finally, a last, fateful encounter between Jakob and Abraham lays bare human strengths and weaknesses that are at the basis of civilization itself.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
The northbound flap to our two-person tent flew open to the first gray light of that winter solstice morning. Frigid air coursed over me like a pent-up river, the hardened flecks of snow like so many grains of wind-enraged sand. Then a pair of boots crushed a stand of icy stalagmites in the mud a foot from my head.
“Jakob?” A gaunt, child-like face, home to a sparse brown beard, appeared as the little man dropped to his haunches. A high tenor chuckle slipped through the tent flap’s ruffling. “Takira? You tell ‘im he got to pay ‘tention to what I say, Takira. And, hey, this ain’t no time to have your head in his downstairs parts.”
Takira’s kinky, dreadlocked head moved like a tunneling mole beneath the blankets mounded atop our pine straw-stuffed sleeping bags. Then her brown face appeared. She rubbed crust from the corners of her eyes, blinked, and snapped, “Dog!”
I hawked my throat clear and said, “What do you want, Farkle?”
Farkle was the little man’s nickname, a cleverly composed derogatory term. A runt among his Outlier peers, he’d been beaten by those fetid fur-clads regularly enough to force him to defect, fleas, grease, and all, and now he’s a most loyal Citadelian. Takira lifted herself onto one elbow, tugged the top blanket about her, and laughed loudly. I will submit here only an inkling of her charming dialect in transcribing what I remember of her exact words.
“Farkle? What you doing out at this hour, mon? You not crawling about at our mayor’s feet just yet, yah?”
Said Farkle, “I come t’deliver a message.”
I smacked his boot with a fist. He grunted and duck-walked back a foot or so.
“Deliver it,” I said, “and then get on with your business.”
“I ought not,” he said, “you bein’ so harsh an’ all.”
“We were asleep, dog,” said Takira.
“The message, Farkle. Then let us be.”
“Your request been approved by His Excellency. You got a room.”
Takira gasped and grabbed my arm. “Jakob, we got a room!”
“Okay,” I said, as excited as she was. I steeled myself against the wind, worked my way forward, and glanced up to see if this was a joke. Everything about Farkle’s expression seemed earnest, so I said, “We have papers to sign, I think.”
He nodded. “You come right now and sign ‘em. If you don’t by first mealtime, somebody else might get the room. ‘Sides, His Excellency wants a word.”
Takira turned a puzzled look to me. I put a finger to her lips, not wanting her to insult Farkle again. Creepy and obsequious as the little cur could be, he was The Tower’s courier, and his official duties would have him identifying us to our mayor in order to be assigned the room.
“Give us a minute, Farkle. We need to get dressed.”
He craned forward and leered at Takira for a moment, surely thinking he might get a peek at forbidden flesh, so I shoved at his ugly mug, pulled the tent flap shut, and Takira and I tugged on another layer of clothes. A couple of minutes later, we lowcrawled from our tent and stood, pulled on our gloves and sock caps, and trudged along behind Farkle toward The Tower.
|
