I am currently in the editing process of a book called "The Child on the Playground", which explores relationships, emotional healing, and spirituality beyond religious dogma. It is a story of self-discovery.
A brief summary: After almost dying in a car accident, a young man searches for his missing memories, while also grappling with past relationship woes, strange occurrences, and the lack of spirituality in religion. He encounters a ghost-like child in an ominous small town, who he suspects holds the connection between these disparate elements. Excerpts can be found below.
Another writing project of mine (still far from complete) is a science fiction story I call “The State.” In the near-future a group of space-settlers from earth is sent on a one-way journey to colonize the neighboring Proxima Centauri solar system. At their destination, they find more than they bargained for. An excerpt from this story is also below.
ExcerptS from “The Child on The Playground”:
(book cover, draft)
From Chapter One …
~ route 70 ~
Through the windshield of a grey economy-size rental car, I fixate on stark white clouds. They look surreal, as if painted onto a giant canvas over the horizon. The car is slightly older for a rental, signs of wear artfully covered up with touch-up paint and epoxy. Its dashboard centerpiece is a radio with analog knobs that has yet to find a station.
I am driving toward South Florida on Interstate 95. The landscape is unchanging, with repeating patches of scrub oaks, Florida pines, open pastureland, and cypress swamps. I could be going in circles and never know the difference, except that the scarcely bending road leaves little doubt of its direct course. This fact, along with the dull hum of tires rolling on pavement, lulls me into a trance-like state.
A sudden memory jars me from my stupor. It happened last month, though somehow feels like years ago:
I woke up, upside down in my cherry red ’84 Camaro. Emergency vehicles were arriving on the scene. Shattered glass from the windows nicked my head and bare arms. Luckily no cuts were deep, but I was a bloody mess. Pungent smells of gasoline and burnt rubber bombarded me. My head felt like a brick. A faint ringing persisted in my inner ears.
The flashback ends. I have since realized entire blocks of my past are now missing, including the events leading up to the accident.
I squint, shake my head vigorously, then exhale sharply through my nose. These tics have plagued me for most of my life, taking many forms, occurring at random and frequently at inappropriate times, and are especially severe when I’m stressed or thinking of disturbing events. They are always uncomfortable, and at times, self destructive. “Neurological disorder,” the condition had been labeled.
Damn. Why couldn’t my accident have gotten rid of this curse instead of memories?
Though images of the wreck fade, my thoughts persist, scattered, incessant. As miles go by they bounce from unfinished chores like updating my résumé, to racking my brain about what happened before my accident, to philosophical questions I’ve always pondered—why does anything exist? Ironically, not a hint of resolution emerges for any of these queries.
I rake my auburn hair with my fingers, try to clear my mind and embrace the present moment. I cannot. Even the car radio refuses to cooperate. There has been no signal since Daytona, leaving no viable distraction to abate my restlessness. Curiously though, several times while scanning for stations, I was certain I heard “Dan, Dan!” cutting through the static, as if the radio were trying to get my attention by calling my name.
I am heading to Fort Lauderdale—about two hours away—where my mom’s sister Helen lives. She knows a neurologist there and insisted I see him. In the past my aunt had made such recommendations for my condition. Those had all proven fruitless. Nonetheless, in this case, it can’t be a bad idea to at least get checked out.
I have no set day or time to arrive, but will call to let her know I’m on my way. I reach for my cell phone, but decide to try the radio again first. Turning the dial, I hear only static, until a sharp, Southern-sounding voice pierces the white noise:
“Do yew feel like yer life’s fallin’ apart?
Does one thang after another keep goin’ wrong?”
“Sounds like Murphy’s law to me!” I interject, while reaching for the dial again but deciding instead to listen a bit more.
“Are yew lonely? Empty? Angry?”
“Oh boy, you’re talkin’ directly to me! Not to mention about five billion other people,” I add.
“Do yew wan’ta know the one true answer?” The voice asks in a softer tone.
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
After a dramatic pause, the voice continues:
“God! God is tha only answer that’ll fill that void in yer life…”
The signal begins to fade, returning to fuzzy background noise. I turn the volume down until barely audible.
“True enough, but not your fundamentalist version of God!” I muse.
Yep, Florida has its own little Bible Belt. I know, a lot of good people embrace that version, some in my family! Still, that mindset and self-righteousness go hand in hand it seems.
Why?
This question is added to my mental litany.
Despite having become jaded, I have always been spiritual. A profound sense of connection with the divine has been a hallmark of my life. I’ve always asked the big questions regarding purpose and existence. In days of youthful bliss, I recall feeling so connected to God, the universe, a greater purpose, that chills would envelop my entire body. Surely God’s spirit, flowing through me. This happened while experiencing the beautiful and the sublime—basking in a majestic Key West sunset, listening to Seal’s Kiss from a Rose or Pink Floyd’s Division Bell, or watching a soul-touching movie scene. It is one of those things—perhaps the one thing—I’ve tried so desperately to hold on to, through far too many years of innocence lost. Yet over these past few years, I’ve continued to lose my grip on it.
I reach for the radio dial again, but before my hand gets there, my body lunges forward, and I realize the engine suddenly lost power.
“Damn, really?”
I press the gas pedal to the floor several times. Nothing. As I coast toward the emergency lane, power abruptly returns. This draws me back into my seat a little.
“Oh boy, there’s good ‘ol Murphy at work! Least he’s giving me a little break.”
Although, maybe I shouldn’t stay on the highway.
A green sign for Route 70 comes into view. I take the exit to head east. An ominous feeling arises, like I’m entering a different world, or having some odd déjà vu.
As I come to the end of the off-ramp, something catches my eye—something out of place, in my peripheral vision. It’s a young boy with luminous blonde hair. What in the… what’s he doing? I turn my head to get a better look. The child is no longer there. I continue glancing in the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out what I had seen.
Maybe I just thought I saw something. Then again…
I recall experiencing this type of apparition several times before. One occurred when I was fifteen, when my Aunt Lorraine unexpectedly died. After the funeral, as I lay in bed on the precipice of sleep, I could swear I saw her outside my bedroom door. A similar episode happened several years earlier, when a middle-school classmate died in a house fire. The day after his death, for a fleeting but powerful moment, I saw that classmate playing a game at the local arcade. Though I fail to find any rational explanation for these visions, I have always known they are another facet of my spirituality.
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~ the mirror ~
An apparition appears in the center of the playground starting as a bright, silver point of light, and then expanding into a vertical line. Like an old TV turning on, the line begins to unfurl like a scroll. The silver line becomes a flat surface resembling a giant mirror, but without reflection.
I stand, transfixed, unable to move, as this mirror forms an image. The school in the background looks about the same. However, the modern playground equipment has vanished, replaced by a rusted swing set, a merry-go-round with missing rails, and a tattered seesaw. The faded primary reds and blues of these long-forgotten archetypes beckon.
My thoughts race, but I am oddly detached from them. I’ve heard this is a strategy used in some meditation practices. Notice the thoughts, but do not judge or react. I’m glad I can at least accomplish this much, and without even trying. From this neutral state I ponder this uncanny experience.
The child that guided me here appears within the vision, commanding my full attention. He looks around six or seven, has light blond hair and is using one foot to draw in the dirt. More children begin to appear. A familiar scene takes shape—children playing at recess. The boy looks happy as he walks around the outskirts of the designated play area. He gathers some small stones, sits down, and begins placing them next to each other in the sand. A cross between abstract artwork and an imaginary city takes shape. The boy smiles at his creation, looking as if he wishes to take it with him, or perhaps live in it.
Another boy appears, on the other side of the playground. This child has an embittered expression, void of any youthful joy, as if he had long abandoned his childhood. What should be childlike bliss is replaced by emptiness mixed with anger. His hollow but stern eyes embody that anger, and those eyes keep glancing at the first child. I have a sudden, sick feeling in my gut.
The images begin to fade. The mirror-scroll rolls back into a vertical line. The line grows shorter till it is a point again, and then, it is gone. I sense this is not the last I will see of this child playing in the sand, however. But who is he? I wonder. He seems like a ghost, but what does that even mean? Maybe this is how spirits appear. Or maybe they appear differently to different people.
Are these visions some kind of message from this ghost-of-a-child?
I feel a mix of “What the hell is going on?” and something euphoric. This child on the playground provides a sense of adventure and wonder, a notable shift from stale, tasteless ordinary life. The timing works out. I haven’t called my aunt yet, so she’s not expecting me, and at the moment, I have no other immediate responsibilities.
From Chapter 10…
As before, the same pastiche blend of colors and patterns appear. A warm glow permeates the kitchen, from track lighting above the dining table. The father, child, and a man the father calls Skeet, are sitting at the table, playing a game of penny-ante poker. In front of each of them are small piles of change, as well as playing cards strewn about.
Skeet wears a brown flannel shirt that almost matches the color of his shoulder-length hair. His dark blue jeans are stiff, but slightly worn. He and the father sip from glasses of hard liquor; scotch and bourbon, respectively. The child drinks a soda, and shines with elation from being part of the camaraderie.
“Y’all jess got back from the huntin’ trip?” Skeet asks.
“Yep,” the father answers.
“Took ‘ol FTA trail up past Lake Jackson, right?”
“All the way from camp!”
“The little tyke with ya too?” Skeet asks in astonishment.
“Yea, this one’s tougher than he looks!” the father declares, winking at the child, beaming with admiration as he brags to his friend. “Hiked over ten miles that day. Not even one complaint from ‘im!” Skeet glances at the boy, with a contrived smile. The boy briefly responds with his own counterfeit smile. “And smart too! In the truck, he rattled off the entire anatomy of an ant, scientific terms and all. I had no idea them little critters had so many parts.”
Taking advantage of a brief pause, with blissful glee, the child begins reciting his entomological knowledge: “Thorax, abdomen, petiole…”
“Ha! Pretty soon, you’ll be studyin’ another kinda T & A… & P too!” Skeet cuts in with hearty laughter. The child looks up at Skeet, confused. “Unless you’re a little funny. Y’ain’t a little funny are ya?”
“I don’t know, I can be funny sometimes,” the boy cautiously replies.
“Now, he don’t know about any-a that yet,” the father intervenes, with muffled laughter. The child’s face reveals he senses something is awry, but can’t quite figure out what it is.
Skeet gathers the cards and begins dealing to the three of them, one-at-a-time. “Now I’m pretty sure there oughta be an age limit,” he begins, looking at the father but pointing to the child. “But we’ll keep lettin’ ‘er slide for now,” he continues, now looking at the boy. “Five card draw ag’in.” he adds.
“Don’t forget the ante!” the child blurts out, smiling large and pushing a nickel to the middle of the table.
“We ain’t fergittin’ ta take’s much-a yer money as we can!” Skeet responds with a snide grin.
Bets are made after cards have been dealt and examined. Each player exchanges cards, attempting to improve their hand. The boy asks for one.
“Sure you don’t want all five?” the father slowly and deviously asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Nope!”
“Drawing to that inside flush, eh?”
“There’s no such thing as an inside flush!” the child says, with a half-smile, as he takes the card.
After the second wave of bets, Skeet raises fifty cents.
“I fold. Too rich for my blood!” the father jokes, laying his cards face down on the table.
“Looks like it’s jess you ’n me, little tyke, lest yer gonna fold too,” Skeet taunts, making it sound as if folding is the only real option.
The child confidently moves two quarters from his pile, to the center of the table.
With a huge grin, sure of victory, Skeet lays down a full house. The child follows suit, placing his cards face-up in front of him.
“Ya gots three threes and a Jack! Don’t beat a full house.” Skeet casually reaches for the money, with a look of satisfaction.
“The one-eyed Jack is wild, though!” the child protests.
“You gotta be shittin’ me… lemme see that!”
“Watch the language now,” the father half-heartedly tells Skeet.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this’n were cheatin’! ’Specially since he keeps gettin’ them wild cards! How many more one-eye Jacks ya got stuffed in yer shirt there?” Skeet sounds almost serious, and almost angry. He has perfected this ambiguous tone of voice.
“All right now,” the father butts in, “he won fair and square.”
Just as the scene had come, it fades away, disintegrating into nothingness. The empty, stale house is now all that remains, as the sun begins to disappear below the horizon.
Excerpt from “THE STATE”:
Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening
Within the stasis chamber, Aaron’s dreamless sleep was interrupted. Violent shaking reverberated through his bones. His consciousness slowly returned, starting in a dream, or nightmare as it were: In the form of a fiery ball, he plummeted toward the ground—a vast desert terrain. The terror of impending death permeated his being.
The chambers were designed to wake their occupants if anything went wrong. Yet, if even part of Aaron’s ominous dream proved true, everything had gone wrong. He struggled within his dream-state to regain consciousness. After what seemed too long a moment, his eyes began to open. In almost perfect unison, the bulky door to the compartment that had encased him in a state of controlled hibernation for nearly a decade, lifted with an ominous hiss.
His mental faculties returned quickly enough, but he knew the physical would take longer. Hopefully not too long! Hopefully not… before it’s too late to deal with whatever’s going on! He thought.
He moved his eyes to see the outside monitors, which lined the angled areas between the ceiling and walls. They revealed a scene as dire as his nightmare. Patches of thick amber clouds raced by, much too fast. He was indeed plummeting toward the surface of some unknown planet. Deceleration and landing systems had not engaged. Another set of cameras pointed to the ship’s underbelly, directly below Aaron’s location. They displayed a number of missing heat-absorption panels. The metal beneath was glowing red. He now became aware of the heat rising from the floor.
Though well aware of the eminent danger, Aaron remained far too weak to exit the chamber, or even to speak. Like a dream where one’s feet are stuck in the mud, he felt helpless. Precious seconds were lost that could otherwise be used to try and mitigate the situation—to at least attempt avoiding certain death. Within those few seconds, memories rushed back—of leading an approximately ten-thousand-person group, on a potentially one-way journey to the neighboring Proxima Centauri solar system.
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** If you're interested in "The Child on the Playground", and would like more info, you can send an email via the CONTACT link below.