Point Zero One is in an unspecified category. I prefer to describe it as Educational Fiction.
I am an avid believer that literature, fiction and nonfiction, regardless of genre or subject matter should be affordable by everyone. The soon to be re-released Seven Fires, for example is a combination of Children of the Dawn and Seven Fires, both dramatically rewritten and augmented to total a whopping 138, 061 words arriving at 642 pages...All for $3.00 US. Another soon to be released, Tricksters Trademark with an entire novel never before published sequel to Astray is in excess of 400 pages and for the same low price. If you compare this ofer with the prices my existing (While they last!) paperbacks on Amazon you will agree this price is a generous offer that reflects expressed within the first sentence of this composition. All will be offered with a money back guarantee. See website for details. Thanks for your time.
Lakutawakon (Peace)
Brian S. Goodson
Deborah J. Conklin
Excerpt
This from Seven Fires...Enjoy!
Chapter One-Hundred-Two
It wasn’t what The United States knew that mattered in a world court, it was what they could prove. The fact that someone had somehow manipulated the radar system of The Chinese Government was self-evident, for the missile strikes launched by America at what became the onset of the war had been retaliatory. This fact could be supported by The British, Canadian and Australian Governments, among others. And although these same countries had testified in a world forum held at The Hague, their claims had been countered by The Chinese, Iranian and North Korean Governments who laid claim to the contrary. Motive had been questioned, and then answered by The Chinese who maintained that The United States, once a global financial superpower had lost its financial foothold to China, and had become renegade in a desperate attempt to regain what their complacent citizens had forfeited via trade imbalance. The Chinese, defending their own nation had stated simply that their own citizens had worked harder, were superior in their efforts and earned every bit of the global financial domination they had acquired, further stating that Americans had become overweight, and lacked motivation toward their work ethics. In short, and despite extensive rhetoric the global forum had become a Mexican standoff. In the meantime, the bloody war raged on.
Because of all circumstances considered, Lenning had been elected into a third term, the first man to find himself in this position since Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War Two. There had been minimal debate within the Senate, the lawmakers fast
concluding that a cabinet change amidst this particular war could fast become detrimental to the security of an already encumbered nation.
As if all of this were not enough for President Lenning to bear, things became even more personal when hat in hand General Banks announced that US Air Force One had been shot down, and with The First Lady and President Lenning’s son and daughter on board. There were no survivors. The helicopter was targeted within a mile of Camp David where The President, prompted by The Security Council had sent his family for their ensured safety.
The war had indeed come home.
Chapter Twenty Two
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation-Thoreau
Huddled like a pair of romantic teenagers Jeff and his wife began reading Roman’s journal. In the beginning of the log it was clear that several pages had been removed. The two looked at one another.
“Stuff about me, when I was young?” Jeff asked, pondering the missing pages. His wife considered this.
“Possibly. But wasn’t he in the Special Forces, and in the war overseas?” she asked. They concluded they would ask Mary at a later time, and continued reading.
My beautiful wife Mary has done a wonderful job managing the affairs of the village construction. Alex, a passionate young man whom I recruited from the reservation where he seemed destined for hardship has sent me the plans for the completion of the cavern, working on it in his free time while serving his country as an engineer in the Seabees. He has done a marvelous job both in his design of the safe haven cavern, and taking the reins of his young life that not long ago seemed destined for legal trouble.
They read on.
A member of my team has committed to being head of security upon our return. He goes by the name Podo’be although at first one might wonder how a man would receive the name monster. After witnessing his actions against the enemy there is no doubt his name is appropriate.
“Wow!” Jeff said, grinning. “He is talking about Podo’be. Remember how he caught up with the guy who killed my father. Man, I wanted a piece of that guy, but Roman, I mean my father made us promise to forgive him, the man who assassinated him.” Jeff shook his head, and his wife saw a wave of sadness wash over his face. She kissed him, and drew his gaze.
“Your father was a wise man and had a forgiving heart,” she began. “It was Podo’be who warned us about the Chinese platoon approaching the village, remember? He saved the people from what could have been a deadly ambush.”
“I know,” Jeff said. “He spends nearly all of his time out in the forest, alone on patrol.”
“Well, if it weren’t for his self-imposed exile and his skills as a warrior we may have lost the entire village in the attack that day. Instead, we lost a couple of buildings, and had some repair work to do. But no one died,” she said.
Her husband nodded.
After a moment, Jeff thumbed through some more pages. Apparently, his father enjoyed diving. Among his extensive notes could be found considerable documentation regarding his adventures in the sea. It appeared that Roman had spent some time off the coast of California on Catalina Island. Jeff became impressed with Romans writing skills as he read an excerpt.
Never taking a shot with my spear gun, I board the ski barge feeling alive in a
way that defies and evades description, blood flowing as if amidst the current of the sea, my mind anchored with a wisdom of millennia found within its depths, fluid logic evolving from the knowledge of ages. I understand the sea, its subtle invocations and its insistence, a world of beings looking only to survive to evolve. I sit on the ski barge with nothing to say, basking in the warmth of the sun, alone. Leaning over the port side of the boat I look into the water and see the bottom, a world without markers or borders, without rules and regulations, a world at peace. Jeff and his wife exchanged a surprised glance.
“Pretty good stuff, huh?” Woman Who Walks with Crows declared with a smile.
Jeff nodded, and turned the page finding other fragmented notes bearing no timeline.
I hear the whistle of dolphins and look around for them both beneath and at the surface of the water. Unable to locate them I decide to keep my face pressed into the sea and continue to listen to their whistles, a soothing appealing mystery, a language not at all deciphered that somehow instills a familiar kind of calm. I try to imagine a silent ocean, a sea devoid of mankind’s intrusion, without motors and wonder if such an event would enable me to hear more like this, perhaps countless dolphin and whales. Do we drown the soothing sounds in the sea the same way we squash the serene sounds of the cricket, the night owl? The machination advances with tyrannical insistence, the overwhelming holler of industry, technology and human society devouring all within the extensive range of its frenzy, consuming moments and lives, stealing birthrights and whisking away the rewards of all that is natural. The dolphin’s song soon disappears, as if fed into a meat grinder.
Woman Who Walks with Crows held her hand over her mouth, the motion getting her husband’s attention.
Jeff saw her eyes becoming glassy, as if ready to shed tears.
“That was beautiful!” she said. “He seemed to have such a love for life, for everything, every creature!”
Jeff agreed. It seemed as if his father had seen much many years before, in the days when he had written these words. It was as if wisdom and his pursuit for peace had come only after such extensive hardship that his father had come to find his own means of inner sanctity. His father sought peace not just within his mind, but within his heart and his soul, all the while wishing it upon others. To Roman’s son it seemed the words reflected a man suffering in silence, as if all of life’s hardship rested upon his shoulders alone, one who felt helpless to make others understand. Jeff thought of Thoreau, his well-known writings of their beloved Maine wilderness and how the poet and Roman might have enjoyed an enlightening conversation deep within the forest, talking serenely about the enchanting woods, emotions felt only beneath the trees amidst songbirds.
Holding his wife’s waist Jeff read on.
There is no mystery on this journey to hell. You are witness to the crimes dealing out the death sentences... each justified by one of the seven deadly sins.
Enter a glamorous world controlled by one of San Francisco's ultra-wealthy socialites an
