you have always put your real real name on the title pages of finished books and tales IIRC
Yeah, thought that came across as taking myself too seriously. Like, it's hard to explain, but I want it to be good, like "as good as an official published novel" good, but hell, it's just fan fiction, just a way to amuse myself & hopefully a couple more people.
Speaking of which, it's pretty much done--although no doubt so riddled with spelling errors Daryk will be rolling his eyes--but I'm away a few days this week so I'll start posting it when I get back.
I'll start a separate thread when I do, but as a teaser here's the prologue.
***
PROLOGUE
Park Place, June 3015The patient showed an aversion to open flames, and to bodies of water. The first was understandable. The doctors had worked valiantly and saved the arm. He would retain full use of both the arm and the hand, as well as the fingers, though they would remain scarred, a mottled pink and purple burn like the tattoo of a snake, coiled about the left arm.
The fear of water was more mystifying, but perhaps a lesser worry, compared to other cases in the hospital.
There had been a distressing number of suicides. The nature of the war had cut at something vulnerable inside many people. Paranoia was common, often a persecution complex, the belief everyone was out to get you. Another patient had described it as being sure everyone around you was an actor, every building a two-dimensional backdrop, a thin layer over the Real world beneath.
Next to that, the desire to stay away from lakes, rivers or fountains seemed almost harmless.
The patient himself offered no explanation. Like many of the wounded, he was withdrawn and uncommunicative, and although not catatonic like some of the worse cases, he spoke only when necessary, and even then in monosyllables.
He’d been brought in without identification on the night of the final battle, just over five months ago. That suggested he had been a soldier, though on which side was anybody’s guess. He might just as easily have been a fireman, a policeman, even an athlete. He gave no name, never talked about himself or his past. There were no signs of cranial trauma, so the doctors ruled out amnesia. Maybe, he simply wished to forget.
Well, no hurry, said the doctors. The war was over now, and the authorities would slowly work their way through the war’s orphans, walking wounded and lost souls. They would get to the patient in time.
Once they’d moved him out of the room facing the courtyard fountain, he’d been perfectly calm and cooperative. He spent the days helping about the grounds, planting flowers, raking leaves, sawing branches, or else exercising. In his free time, he sat on the small balcony of his second-floor room, overlooking the gardens he helped tend, and spent the evenings reading.
He never smiled, but never grew angry, either. He ignored the Treason Trials now being broadcast in the common room. He’d watched impassively as Gerald Marik, the Captain General’s second son, had been condemned to death. They’d only seen him cry, once, during a cheesy military holodrama. Silent tears, quickly knuckled away. The nurses and orderlies whispered nervously. They’d been worried he was having a breakdown—the silent ones sometimes did, some odd trigger would unleash all the bottled up emotion in a sudden storm—but he was back to usual the next day.
Someone did get to the patient, in time. A woman appeared at the reception, dressed in a long dark blue coat popular among Regulan nobles, asking for a man who matched his description. She’d had a holo, too, of the patient beside Joshua Wolf, a tentative smile on his face.
The doctor led her to the elevator, down the silent, slightly antiseptic cream and beige corridor, and had been about to knock on his door. She reached out and touched two fingers to his wrist, and put a finger to her lips. Then waved her fingertips up and down, in a mini-goodbye. The doctor took the hint, bowed in respect to her title, and padded off down the hallway.
Once she was sure he was gone, she silently cracked open the door.
The patient was sitting out on the balcony, his back to the door. Dressed in a simple, loose white linen shirt, the right sleeve rolled up to the elbow, the left one hanging down to his wrist. There were two chairs, simple canvas slung across wooden frames, a small round table, an old-fashioned printed book trapped under a cup of coffee.
Sunset was just gathering speed, the orange-yellow glow accelerating towards the horizon, eagerly throwing itself off the edge of the world. A flight of honking birds arrowed across the sun in elegant, effortless silhouettes.
She lowered herself into the seat beside his, and only then did he look up. And froze. They held each other’s eyes a stretching, eternal moment. She reached out for his left hand. He flinched. She pulled her hand back.
‘Peaceful here,’ she said quietly. ‘Almost unreal. Like a dream.’
He nodded, slowly. Sighed. ‘Time to wake up?’ His voice was hoarse from disuse.
She reached out again, for his cheek this time, cupped it gently and he closed his eyes. ‘Time to wake up,’ she echoed.
