Kindle Edition
Amazon
Amazon
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
ISBN-10: 0990338924
Type: Fiction
Pages: 381
Copyright: May 24, 2014
ISBN-13: 9780990338925
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
In the tradition of Asimov, Heinlein, H.G. Wells, and Lewis Carroll; Elgon Williams has created a universe where imagination rules and reality is not what it seems.
Leave your world behind and enter an adventure forever lost but never forgotten. Where only magic is real, and anything is possible.
When Brent Woods, a middle-aged computer technician delivers a new computer system to an eccentric woman who lives in a strange house with no windows, she offers to reconnect him with his childhood dreams and fantastic imagination. Alongside his best friend Lucy, Brent explores the seemingly infinite possibilities of the “Inworld” where she lives, a place where everything about anything can change with a thought. Nevertheless, in the process of remembering his past as Carlos, Lord of Bartoul in the Interrealm, Brent exposes a dark potential that threatens his family and his life as he knows it.
When his youngest daughter is attacked in her dreams by the same forces that took away his kingdom, and Lucy’s. Brent seeks answers that lie somewhere in the truth of what happened in his past, and how he lost his connection to the Interrealm. He must find a way to correct his mistakes and solve the puzzle of his best friend’s life.
Fried Windows: In a Light White Sauce is an unforgettable journey into imagination—a feast of delightful characters whose perspective of their worlds will change the way you think about yours—forever.
Excerpt
Mrs. Fields’ twisted directions were just that—twisted. I couldn’t figure them out. There was a computer system to deliver, and the schedule was tight. There was nothing new about that. My frustration and sense of urgency rose as none of the directions on the paper made sense. The street names were real but how could reality be bent to fit these convoluted directions?
Three days before, Mrs. Fields popped in to the computer store where I worked looking for a computer system. There was no salesperson available to help her, so she went to the tech shop where I worked in the store and asked me. Fine. She said she needed delivery and set up and since that would likely be me anyway I figured I could take a little break from what I was doing.
She was a chunky, elderly lady about five-foot nothing with short cropped hair that sort of looked silver and sort of looked white depending on how the light hit it. At six-foot two I towered over her.
After spending an hour showing her systems and asking her questions I determined she wasn’t at all savvy and mostly incapable of talking coherently. That became very clear when giving me directions to her house. She didn’t know her exact address. “You can’t possibly miss it, dearie,” she assured me as she jotted down the directions. “It’s the only place out that way.” So, I let it go. I thought I’d find the road she lived on and it would be the only house, just like she said.
After scrabbling with those directions for nearly an hour and still being lost, my options narrowed to one. Driving to an area that I thought was at least close, I looked for a letter carrier. One was parked at the side of the street, just before the edge of downtown, enjoying his lunch. I wished I had time to enjoy lunch. I had lost ten pounds in the two weeks of non-stop deliveries during a special promotion. Being built mostly like a scarecrow it wasn’t like I had the weight to spare. Anyway, I apologized for interrupting the man’s lunch. Then I asked for help deciphering the cryptic directions.
“Oh…oh, yes, Mrs. Fields,” he said. This was good; I was making headway. Apparently he recognized not only the name, but also seemed to know the lady as well. I was sure I’d be receiving precise directions any moment now.
“Am I getting close at least?”
“No closer than you were to begin with. You see, if you’re here; you’re still lost. I used to deliver mail to her,” he explained. I listened patiently even though panic was starting to seep in. At least he knew where she lived, so I kept listening.
The letter carrier fancied himself a storyteller, though, and finally, I had to interrupt him. “I’m sorry, but I have a lot of things to do today. All I need is to point me in the right direction. What’s confusing is that she told me to drive to the edge of downtown and then up the hill. This is the only hill I know of. I mean, I’ve only lived here for a few years but I haven’t seen any other hills around, not in this part of Florida, anyway.”
“This is the only hill in town,” he confirmed.
“And the directions say just before I reached the hilltop, make a U-turn and look for a street on the right. When I find it, turn left, not the first left but the second left and take the more crooked road of the two.”
“Yes, and you drive straight down that road,” he said with a laugh. “She’s telling you exactly how she gets there, obviously. That’s how she drives.”
“Straight down a crooked road?”
“Yes, precisely,” he confirmed. “She was giving you the right directions. The second road is crooked but it is the most direct way to get to her house. I think that’s what she meant by ‘straight’.”
“Okay.” Glancing down at the directions, I tried for a little more clarity. “She says to look for a farmhouse where there is no barn. It has a large front door and a small front porch but no windows.”
“Yep, that’s her place. That’s it to a ‘T’.”
“She lives in a house with no windows?”
“Well, as I understand it, there was a tough season a while back. The crops were not up to expectations and money was hard to come by.”
“What does that have to do with why there are no windows in the house? Did she have to sell them?”
“No, according to her, she actually ate ‘em.”
Did I misunderstand? “She ate the windows?”
“Fried ‘em up and served them in a light white sauce,” he said and then laughed. “That’s what she told me, anyway.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Before you pass judgment, get to know Mrs. Fields. She’s a gem. She has a story to tell everyone and anyone, but the story she tells is always intended just for you.”
“I really don’t have the time to--”
“You should make the time, Brent,” he said, stealing my name with a brief glance at my name badge. “It’d be well worth the effort. Just have an open mind - a wide-open mind. She has a rare gift but you really gotta wanna receive it.”
“And she eats windows?”
“Well, I don’t know that for a fact. It’s what she told me, though. Maybe she wanted to make me laugh. Her sense of humor is a little bizarre. Still, the fact remains that her house has no windows. Once you get to know her, none of that will bother you as much as it does now. Trust me on that. You’ll never look at the world in the same way.”
“If that’s intended as a sales pitch, it’s not working.”
“Hey, you make your own decisions, guy,” he said. “Do you think you can find it now?”
“I’ll give it a shot, I guess.” My confidence was at an all time low.
“When you feel like you’re lost you’re probably getting close. Drive until the glare of the afternoon sun is so bad that it blinds you. Pull over to the side of the road and look through the haze and you’ll be there.”
“You’re as crazy as she is.”
He laughed. “Like you’re not?”
“Well, I have my doubts some times. Everyone does.”
“You think everyone’s crazy. In fact, mostly we are. We differ by degrees, I suppose. But this is truth, my friend. If you want to learn something different, you can’t keep looking in the same place and expect to find anything but what you already know. If you think about it, being crazy isn’t such a bad place to start when you need some novelty in your life.”
“I have enough trouble dealing with the things the way they are. I’m certain I don’t want to learn anything from a lady who eats windows and gives strange directions to her house.”
“Look, others don’t measure up to your expectations and they probably never will. But that’s okay because you don’t measure up to their standards either. So why judge anybody? Once you get past judging others, amazing things can happen,” he said with a wink.
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