Abandoned: Excerpt from Novel In Progress by Jennifer McAuley

Abandoned Places (excerpt from a work-in-progress) by Jennifer McAuley

We all think of the west coast as the land of perpetual grey. Swollen clouds and weeping skies, puddles you can fall into and sink so deep you end up in an alternate dimension. I think when you grow up there, when you’re a child, you take it all with a grain of salt. I don’t remember my formative years as particularly wet, in fact I think, maybe because the drip, drip, dripping becomes a sort of soothing metronome drumming out the beats of time, it becomes as normal and reassuring as a heart beat. It’s the blood softly circulating in your veins, you take the rain for granted.

In 93, David Duchovny was probably hanging out at the Orange, watching strippers, between shooting scenes for the Xfiles and Robert Pickton was dropping body parts in the wetlands across the highway from the Ruskin gas station. I’m sure it rained a lot, like it always does, but I remember that year as warm and sunny. That was the year I fell in love with Aaron. If there was rain it was drowned out by the pounding in my chest as we practiced being together for the rest of our lives, though we didn’t have a clue and didn’t bother worrying about forever because we were so young.

Aaron wasn’t the kind of guy I usually noticed. He was quiet, at least until you took the time to get to know him. He dressed and moved and spoke in a way that made him invisible, nondescript. There are people like that in high school, when you think back. They don’t stand out, they blend in. There is a magic and an art to this trick, to this blending. Not everyone can do it. The bullies and opposite sex miss them completely, it’s as though they lack some vital pheromone that alerts predators.  When you finally do notice them, when they reach out, a hand slipping between the folds on their invisibility cloak to touch you, it’s doubly shocking. Not only because of the shiver of electric energy ripping down your body, but because all of sudden you become aware of your own festering myopia. 

It was like that with Aaron. When I finally looked at him, really looked at him, it was a revelation. He was blinding and beautiful. He was the sun. And when you grow up on the West Coast you get a punch drunk on sun, let’s be honest. On sunny days you skip school to wipe the water from the neglected park benches and bask lizard-like in the sun. Out of the 354 days each year you see it, what, maybe 90? Most of the time we were curled up like embryos listening to precipitative heartbeat of the mother ship but on sunny days we were born, again and again. Maybe that’s why I remember my childhood as mostly sunny. 

Scratch an Inch: An Emerging Writer's Blog

An Emerging Writer's Blog: Free Fiction

Writings by Emerging Canadian Author Jennifer McAuley

It's just me and you, dear reader. This blog is an open door inviting you inside. Let's sit by the fire, be it a camp fire under a starry sky or a comforting glow at the hearth, and I will tell you everything. I am here, in my rustic cabin nestled among mountains, surrounded by wandering Elk, flanked by serpentine lakes. My windows look out like blinking eyes across a thin ribbon of valley where the weather blows through in spastic breaths: snow, fog, rain, sun. Depending on the season, there is the percussion of rain drops, the booming of thunder or the soft papery sound of the breeze through the Aspens. At least I think they are Aspens. . .I better brush up on my trees.

Who was it that said that if you want facts read nonfiction, if you want the truth, read fiction? I embrace that notion . . . If you are tired of reading the newspaper and need a moment away from those scientific journals then maybe this is the door you enter, this is the threshold you cross. There is no harm, no bodily risk, you can depart through the same door from which you entered whenever you please. 

So, welcome to my humble little blog about absolutely nothing and absolutely everything simultaneously. Where everything is fiction and everything is true. A writing blog but not a "how to write blog". Melt in the mouth bites of write. A "I'm looking for a story or a poem or a reader-reading a writer-writing moment" blog. No promises that my writing will be witty or beautiful or sensuous or wise. However, I will try! Definitely (and defiantly!) no promises that my grammar will be impeccable or my spelling pristine. Again, I'll do my best. I'll do my best to be entertaining, thoughtful, and (gulp) to write regularly.

Why is it called The Prickling Pen, you ask? Good question! I hoped you would ask that. I had a list of possible blog names but many were spoken for. No, I won't tell you them, they are tucked in my back pocket for a rainy day. After an informal text-poll and a process of elimination I settled on The Prickling Pen. Here is  my line of reasoning.

For a traveler it's itchy feet

For an artist it's a restless brush

For a reader it's an open book

For a writer it's a prickling pen

I admit it, I'm scratching an itch. I hope it feels as good for you as it does for me.