Well, novel to me
anyway. My latest attempt at writing has taken me years to complete. Throw in
life-changing brain surgery, a world wide quarantine, the death of my beloved
father and the usual stew of changes, possibilities and losses and, well, no
wonder it's taken years.
But I'm feeling good. The
book is done (books are never really done) and edited (books are never really
ever edited) and now it's time to share. And, maybe, just maybe to get
published some how, some way! PS- thank you to the Columbia Basin Trust who
awarded me a small grant that supported this undertaking.
WILDOM is a work of speculative
fiction very loosely inspired by my love of the Zombie Apocalypse genre as
well as the classic Hero's Journey. (In this case more of a HERo's journey, get
it?) I'm more of a realistic, introspective literary writer so I wanted to
adapt these genres to my will.
The title WILDOM comes from the
futuristic world the novel is set in. It means "wild domestic" --
that is an animal, plant or human that was once domestic, becoming wild due to
life and experience is the wild. Swap a Nuclear Wipeout for a slow march toward
death for the human race, dystopia for a beautiful rewilding for the recovering
earth and the Zombies for "drifters" - stumbling, dreamy humans
with a disease that I like to call walking dementia or
dementia somnambulism.
The novel is narrated by a
drifter who begins the tale as follows:
The Drifter understood. The Drifter understood everything and nothing, all at once. The immensity of knowledge left her empty, it toppled her. The Drifter knew, but was not particularly interested in, her body crumpled on the cool earth below. Her body: A tether between. Breaking free, fissured, The Drifter floated up, up, up. No one could imagine what it was to drift. Past the bent branches that reached out like arms, past the spiraling conifers toward the clouds. The trees were emerald snowflakes from above, each unique, each different, yet all the same. Thousands of needles rustled and chimed, hollow and delicate. The Drifter heard them all. Each had a message, together their susurration soothed her. The tangy taste of sap. The smell of cut wood and smoke. The Drifter had never imagined such beauty. The Drifter forgot herself, forgot her name, forgot how to speak . . . Forgot. Forgot until she knew everything.
The Drifter’s eyes were thirsty. She wanted nothing; she wanted everything. She saw her body—a broken candle, white tallow body, yellow flame head, heart blue—melting into the damp darkened loam. Snow swirled above, waiting to fall. Moments earlier, the Drifter saw the body fall; a genuflection, not a failure, though it might be conceived as such. Bruised knees. Now the Drifter understood. Under the body, once her body, was a complex rhizomatic network, mycelium curling unseen, pale tentacles. Fine filaments, connecting in an intricate web. The Drifter understood connection.
The Drifter went back, back. A fetus in a large belly. The large belly was black inside and the fetus, swimming in the warm sea of maternal fluid, looked up at constellations, a star studded sky with no moon. Bodies lay around a fire, dreaming. A baby, or perhaps a kitten, cried out, calling for a mother. Its wails awakened the Drifter, before she was a drifter. The Drifter ran toward the cries, of course she did. Because: the mycelium, the web, the wide open net waiting to catch everything and nothing all at once.
The Drifter saw two sisters. The past was now, now was then, the future was obvious looking back. Maybe this is where her story began. The drifter saw two sisters picking through the wreckage of a war-pocked city, looking for treasure in ill fitting clothes.
“There!” The oldest cried, long rust colored hair waving like a flag.
They both lurched forward, but the older sister was faster. “Mine!”
A bag of candy, peppermints, a score. The older sister held the bag aloft so that the younger couldn’t reach. She gave her one. Only one. Smug countenance. Still, love.
The drifter felt the minty flavor explode on her tongue and held the sweetness there. The younger didn’t argue, didn’t pout. She held her failure close to her heart and schemed. Later, the older smiled. “Little thief,” she murmured as she located her missing candies, stuffed under the younger sister’s mattress. This was strength, the Drifter acknowledged. What was weakness but another kind of strength? Now the Drifter understood.
The Drifter saw the land slide away from the mountain, mud splatter the landscape, the fire scare the animals from the woods, the buildings fold into nothing, just tracks, just scraps. Rampikes and rebirth. They had been here long enough. The wildom world. The Drifter bumped through the firmament, her tether taught and thin. She saw mountains piercing the cotton candy clouds, they looked like, they were, teeth, chewing on everything. The roar of a mother bear protecting her young, jaws flung open in fear and fury. It was a lament. The Drifter understood everything and nothing all at once. The Drifter understood.
