Diary of a Heretic

Against the Tide

Scott dove and swam and dove and swam, bellowing, “Charlie! Charlie!” in the glaring air and bubbling out “Charlie! Charlie!” underwater, where the name took shape as a watery roundness, more visible than audible.

The ocean roared in his Scott’s head and drowned out his shouting. His lungs seized up momentarily. He held his head above the surface while he scanned the rippling crests.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

A bird flew overhead and its shadow moved as a fast, fluid semi-darkness between Scott and the horizon. Not fully aware that he was chasing the insubstantial silhouette of overhead flight, not fully aware of anything but Charlie and the ocean, Scott raced with drastic speed toward a barely perceived phantom. The hint of his friend’s strong, black shirt-covered arms whirling in the distance vanished before Scott was conscious of not really seeing them.

After a while, he rested again, to tread and breathe. His head swiveled and his eyes burned to light upon Charlie, near or far. Instead, he saw Emma swimming out, farther than she should. Her feet splashed and her pale arms rotated almost invisibly in the boundless blue world where she did not belong and could not survive.

Emma, Scott could save, just as he could still save himself. With the extraordinary strength only emergencies provide, he propelled himself beside her—it seemed in no time. Out of breath, they stared at each other, struggling to hold their heads above the implacable tide. “Go back!” Scott demanded, afraid to reach out to her, afraid she might slip past his reach.

“Only if you do.”

Scott followed her, still shouting Charlie’s name, still diving under, shouting and searching, until Emma stopped, waiting for him as the waves splashed against her face. She didn’t say anything, but as the ocean rolled in, already crashing toward the shore, he saw: She wouldn’t make it back if he kept up.

He said, “Emma, honey, do you need help?”

She shook her head and swam resolutely toward the shore, arm over arm. Even in his distress and disbelief, Scott regretted asking if she wanted him to help her. But he was not himself. Charlie had an expression; he would say, “Oh shit. Now I’m beside myself.” Scott was beside himself.

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The Infinite Ocean

Scott woke hung over and alone. Emma was teaching her last morning yoga class. Charlie had disappeared. Scott leaned over the upper deck and shook out his sandals, sending a scorpion falling to the ground.

He needed to patch up things with Charlie. Emma wouldn’t trust him until he did. From her perspective, Scott hadn’t defended her by punching out Charlie, whether what he had said insulted her or not. Scott had lost his grip on some grudge. And, he and Emma and Charlie were leaving for Chicago tomorrow.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Scott didn’t understand the dynamics himself. He’d never been in love before and his friends teased him like high school kids. Ha-ha, will you look at that? Thirty-four year old Scott as eager and silly as an overgrown puppy.

When they weren’t laughing at him, his friends said he’d dump Emma tomorrow. A dead-wrong appraisal and they knew it. But if they kept warning Emma about how bad he was, she might believe them. She might run off.

Showered and dressed, he drank water and orange juice. After his concussion, he shouldn’t drink alcohol. Last night he hadn’t drunk much and yet it had proved far too much. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have attacked Charlie. So Emma was right.

At least he knew where to find Charlie. He hurried along paths and called up the huge tree supporting three decks. “Hey, Trevor! All right if I come up?”

Scott yelled twice, before Trevor hollered back, “Shut up!” He was giving Erica a massage, and thanks to the interruption, needed to start over. Scott heard murmuring and could see the marijuana smoke hanging like clouds before he smelled it. He was leaving when a rope ladder tumbled off the lowest deck. Charlie’s face appeared in the branches.  “Are you sorry? Because if you’re not, go away!”

“I’m sorry!” Scott was terribly sorry. But still, a tree house! And here they were accusing him of living a fantasy.

Charlie climbed down the swinging ladder quicker than Scott thought he could. A solid surfer, Charlie nonetheless maintained what a he called “a proud Buddha belly.”

Facing him, Scott winced and said, “I’m really sorry.” Charlie’s lip was split and both eyes were swollen. Scott couldn’t remember why he had refused to play music with Charlie. 

“You’ll go on stage us? You, me, and Emma doing the old songs?”

Scott remembered then; the old songs frustrated him. That was his fault, he told Charlie, and “I’ll get over it.”

Charlie dusted off his baggy shorts and a tight, dark surfer’s shirt. “Trevor lives like an animal.”

They drank coffee in the yoga pavilion and waited for Emma.

“She cleaned up everything,” Scott said. “Did all the dishes and put them away.”

“Hours of work,” Charlie shook his head. “Hours. Where were you, asleep?”   

Scott shrugged and Charlie said, “She loves you as much as you love her. Soon as we get home, you should buy her a ring.”

The yoga class ended and Emma and everyone else lined up for brunch. Charlie stood behind the counter serving everyone. Emma and Scott ate on a separate bench.

“God, Scott, his face!”

He told her that he and Charlie had pounded each other like that since they were kids. “Stupid relapse,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

Soon Charlie joined them with a tray he rested on the railing: pancakes and eggs, cinnamon bread, flan, pineapple crumble, and two glasses of cocoanut milk. Emma was the one who said, “Pig. Are you afraid you’ll never eat again?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered, mouth full, “is an all-day fast. You know those planes. Not even a snack anymore.”

Scott was the one who wanted to walk back along the beach. They could stop at Nando’s on the way. Folded in Scott’s pocket were papers; he had set up a trust for Nando’s baby girl, accessible when she turned eighteen.

It was before one p.m. The light and heat were so intense that Emma clung to the shade. But Charlie plunged into the ocean and Scott waded in after him, telling him to wait; they would go swimming later.

Underwater, Charlie pulled Scott’s feet out from under him. They rose from the transparent waves and shoved each other. Charlie said, “A few minutes, that’s all.”

Scott reminded him of how sunburned he’d gotten when they were surfing. Charlie slapped at his surfer’s shirt. “And I really slathered on the sunscreen. Trevor’s a freak but there isn’t an oil or cream he doesn’t stock.”

“Two minutes,” Scott said and stepped into the shade with Emma.

He played with her hair and asked if she’d go directly to his place tomorrow night. “We can stop by your parents’ later, and get the rest of your stuff.”

Emma shaded her eyes with her hand. She squinted at the ocean. Suddenly, she grabbed Scott’s hand. “I don’t see him! Do you? I was watching him and now I don’t see him!”

Scott ran to the water’s edge. He yelled Charlie’s name. He ran up and down along the shore, shouting. He didn’t see Charlie, either.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

The Labyrinth

Certain experiences never go away. Extraordinary things can only happen outside ordinary time. Of course, they’re past—over and done. And yet, at unexpected moments, they re-emerge as immediate as ever.

Emma knows what I mean. It happens to her, too. We race through our days, but sometimes, when we stop to look at each other, there it is—this hideous mystery from years ago. We hug each other for protection, staring at what’s still going on right in front of us.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Not everyone, she says, experiences this. Some people cope better than others. They can lock practically every heartbreak securely in the past. Yesteryear’s terrors never come up.

Some people’s minds develop solid mental walls. Internal doors and dead-bolts protect them from the rushing galactic wind that cries with lost names and past voices. It’s not really a choice, Emma says, whether you relive the dire past or store it so that it stays where it belongs.

Maybe we keep getting pulled back because the house in Costa Rica was all floor and roof; no walls except for the bathroom and studio. Otherwise, it was open. The jungle and ocean were always in view. The howler monkeys howled, the insects stung, snakes bit, waves crashed, and the sun burned—nonstop. Life teemed in the hot, heavy air, and rotted quickly. There was no escape, past, present, or future. 

Don’t get me wrong. Emma and I have adapted. We function as well as anyone. Reality consumes us in the here and now, and nowhere else. Like all sane adults, we always know exactly where we are and what we’re doing in this time frame.

But sometimes we grieve in our sleep. Sometimes we simultaneously wake up bereft, just as stunned now as we were then—frantic with disbelief.   

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A Blow to the Head

Since Carlos began ignoring my existence, I’ve been eating almost nothing. But tonight something happened.  One minute I stood downstairs, staring at an Amaretto cheesecake. And the next, quivering from head to toe, I was allowing myself a little sliver .  .  .  which, as it dissolved in my mouth, awakened an overwhelming need to go on allowing myself little slivers until the whole sweet rich thing was gone.

Dazed, almost drugged, I tromped upstairs, demanding he tell me what’s wrong.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

“Wrong?”  Carlos shifted in his chair—my chair.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Well, let’s see.”  Staring at the ceiling, he tapped his temple.  Then he made a frame with his fingers and squinted at me.  “When you ask, what’s wrong?” Carlos said, “are you inquiring about my health?”

About to walk away, I turned back. “You know what I mean.”

“Or why I’m sitting here unable to read because the light’s burned out?”

I retreated to the kitchen, but Carlos followed me.  I put water on for tea. Carlos flashed me a loathsome smirk.  Before long I gave in to the unremitting fury and said, “Okay, Carlos.  Why, once you become my lover, do you hate me?”

And then his face went blank. A shadow passed and he stood silent. I turned off the stove, about to walk away, when he jumped in front and shoved me against the wall. In a grotesque  voice, he parroted me: “How come? But why? What’s the reason?”

I ducked past him but he grabbed my arm, which he twisted behind my back.  When I struggled, he butted my head against the wall. The blow sounded a dull thud and produced an awful squish. The pain was shocking. Carlos let go; there was a string of stars; the hall light bulb swung from the ceiling. He was shaking his finger at me. “You—you deserved that!  Nothing but whining and sniveling.  When I’ve always done all the work, and you’ve socked away all the profits.” Then he whirled back at me. “But the thing I really can’t stand is that wheezy, sniffly sound you make when you breathe.” Tendons throbbed from his neck. A vein pulsed on his forehead. “The sound of you chewing and glugging.  The way you mewl around, with your fat fucking tongue hanging out of your fat fucking face.” 

This last had been punctuated by steps on the stairwell, which I hadn’t noticed until Carlos shut up. We heard the knock-knock. Instantly in control, he raised his eyebrows to indicate, Was I going to answer that or what?

Woozy with pain, I opened the door to Maggie, who tapped me brightly on the chest with the fliers she had rolled up in her hand. Wrinkling her forehead, she said, “Oh, did I come at a bad time?”

The three of us shifted to the front room.  Maggie said everywhere she went people were talking about Religion Without Rules.  On campus, in town, everywhere.  But the big news was, she’d found the perfect space for us, a defunct bowling alley, about ten miles west.  At which point, I nodded and claimed I was going to bed.

Night Descends on the Baffled Prophet.  Forsaken in his Room, He Awaits Another Dawn. The Walls Close In.

I could, it just occurred to me, take the money and run.  With my three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in savings, I could go to California and join one of those Revelation/Apocalypse groups.  I could travel the world, start a new business, whatever.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Baptism by Humiliation

Baptism by Humiliation.  Enlightenment through Remorse.

A honey-soaked voice-over follows me around, testifying to all that I endure.

The Prophet Rises Before Dawn, Cleanses and Girds Himself.  In Perpetual Hunger, He Imbibes a Scalding Elixir, Waits on Customers, Calls on Suppliers.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

To get through the day I imagine myself playing an exalted role of the insanely exalted role Carlos was fattening me for.

In a Shaft of Light The Prophet Concentrates on Everyone’s Pain and Suffering, Everywhere.

Extremely juvenile, I know, but the game comforts me.

Carlos acts as if as if I’m no longer present.  He makes donuts, cakes and pies early and phones realtors later, looking to buy a space that would combine living quarters for seven, hold activities for two hundred, and show off a glorious, new bakery. Meaning whenever the subject of mortgages comes up, lo! the scales fall from his eyes.

He can see me again!

“How much have you got?”  He means in addition to the business and the building.  “No shit.”  He’s squeezing my shoulders, basking in my presence.  The mere mention of my 350 thou in savings—the result of my never having gone anywhere or done anything but work in this shop—earns me a few hot moments of adulation.

He gives me a maddening, lingering caress.  I still want him desperately, but unless we’re talking down payments, Carlos is totally indifferent to me.

(Click here to read the next episode...And if you enjoyed this excerpt, please visit Amazon.com, where Diary of a Heretic, the novel, has been selected as a Semi-Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. If you download the free excerpt and write a mini-review, it will help me get to the Finalist stage.)

Overheated

Give me the slimmest hope that Emma might allow me to steal her away and upstairs, and that’s where we’d be—by ourselves.  But she’s so beautifully dressed and so obviously eager to enjoy Charlie and his farewell dinner.

Whenever she moves, her iridescent dress casts a mirage, making my eyes shut. Meaning, I can’t look at her and maintain.

We sit at the table, sip our drinks and pass around an array of olives and small plates of bright sauces smeared on little breads or crackers. Charlie says, “Just a minute,” and returns with another plate, decorated with freshly grilled mushroom caps.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

“What do you think, Scott?” Emma squeezes my leg under the table. “Isn’t this amazing?”

I nod. “You’re an amazing cook, Charlie.”

Emma bites into a brown cracker smeared with orange. “Mmm, yummy,” she says. “Let me guess. Baby carrot, cinnamon, coriander, mango, and, um, black pepper.”

Charlie winks, “Right on,” and passes a plate with avocado, sweet onion, cilantro, and lime juice.

Emma places crackers topped with roasted peppers and capers on her plate and mine. She reaches for a tomato bread stick and her bare arm brushes against mine. 

The room spins and I say, “Excuse me.”

“How long did all this take you?” Emma waves a bread stick.

I hold up a bottle of water from the kitchen. “Anyone else?”

Emma and Charlie are laughing about something else, but Emma at least looks up and shakes her head. “No thanks.”

The meal lasts hours. Little salads, sautéed prawns, Spanish rice. Charlie opens a bottle of chardonnay he got from Trixie who owns the restaurant next to the airport. Talbott 2003. But I can’t drink anymore. My head’s swimming.

Charlie keeps talking about the band we’ll put together in Chicago and I keep saying, “I’m past that, Charlie.”

And, “You gotta count me out.” 

“Scott’s so spoiled,” he tells Emma, “that he won’t play anything unless the song comes straight from him. His inspiration, his genius, or forget it.”

“I’m tired of playing the same old shit, that’s all. I’m ready to do other things.”

“Like what?” Charlie’s chair scrapes back and he brings in ginger custard.

“I don’t know yet. But so what? Why do I have to be in your band, Charlie?”

He pours coffee. “Because we’re family.”

“But we aren’t family.”

“We’re brothers.” 

“No, we’re not. And even if we were, brothers grow up. They establish separate lives or else remain kids.”

“I make my own way, Scott. So, if you don’t want to perform, fine. We’ll play in a studio a few times a week. See what happens.”

“I don’t think so, Charlie. How many times do you need to hear, no?”

Emma carries her bowl and mine into the kitchen. “Why don’t you guys decide later?”

Charlie’s sniffing coke off his hand. “Later? Honey, let me tell you about later.” I jump up. He throws his head back and pinches his nostrils. “Later, Emma, you won’t exist. You’re a super deluxe baby now but he’s gonna trade you in…’’

My fist slams into his face and I keep whaling on him. Emma’s screaming and when she grabs my waist, I turn around. Stroke her cheek and whisper, “Don’t listen to him. He’s like a rabid dog.”

“Well, he’s gone now,” she says. I look around and it’s true. She sinks into a chair. “He didn’t say anything I haven’t already heard. From, like, everyone.”

“That’s no excuse.”

After I’ve calmed down; after the sex I was dying for, we’re lying in bed. Counting stars.

“Promise me,” Emma’s mouth fills my ear, “you’ll make it up with him. If you don’t forgive him, Scott, I’ll never forgive you. Or me.”

(Click here to read the next episode)

   

Intimacy Issues

After the beach, Emma and I shower and she hurries to the upper deck, telling me to wait. Charlie’s listening to his iPod, singing “Get Up, Stand Up,” off-key, while spooning garlicky stuff into mushrooms.

Charlie claps my back, lights a joint, and hands it to me. “Borrowed a blender from Pascal. Mondo piña coladas before the tapas.”

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

The kitchen opens from a half-wall (for electricity) letting in a garden overlooking the bay. So Charlie and I lean against a counter covered with carefully arranged food, sharing   a smoke and staring at the horizon. 

“Emma,” I call up to her, “what’re you doing?” That’s how uncomfortable Charlie makes me. Especially with all this effort going into his special dinner. Without Emma deflecting his energy, I edge away.

“Give me five minutes,” she calls down.

Holding in the smoke, I turn away. Exhaling, I close my eyes. Maybe if I get high enough, impending negotiations will lose traction. 

“Gotta congratulate you.” Charlie passes me the joint sooner than usual. “Staying so solid with Emma. Extraordinary as she is, the fact that you recognize it — that’s new for you.” 

“You think so?” I’m starting to sweat. And raise my ragged voice. “Emma, what’s taking so long? We’re ready to eat.”

She calls down, “Let’s see you put on eye make-up in a rush!”

“Eye make-up?”

Charlie nods. “Tonight’s an occasion. Since we’re leaving here in forty-eight hours.” He snorts a bump off the back of his hand. “You?” He offers me the miniature baggie.

“No, thanks. Saving my appetite.”

“Good, good. After dessert then.” He refuses the joint, which I pinch out, half-smoked. “Thing is, now that you’ve found her, I get the feeling you want to dump me.”

I groan inwardly, except some of it escapes; like, fuck you, Charlie. “Dump you?” I shake my head. “That’s plain weird.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “It is weird.”

“For real, then: You’re worried I won’t answer your calls.”

“Maybe.” He’s tossing pineapple and coconut chunks and a little crushed ice into the blender. “It’s always used to be your pattern with women,” he talks over the noise, “but now you’re phasing me out, instead.” Lots of rum into tall glasses. “Admit it,” Charlie stirs three piña coladas with his finger. “You’re the king of intimacy issues, Scott. Plus, all this anxiety out of nowhere. Even when we were surfing in Pavones.” 

“I almost drowned, Charlie; another near-death experience right after the snake bite, when you weren’t here. So what the fuck do you think you’re talking about?  And, intimacy issues? You’re talking like we’re not real friends; we just play them on TV.”

“Ha-ha. Is that your final answer?” He hands me a piña colada that smells so lush, I swallow half of it in a gulp. He does likewise. 

Je-sus! Emma! He’s handing her a piña colada as if he’s not shocked by how spectacular she looks. She sips her drink, her eyes darting from me to Charlie, back to me, and I lose my mind. She’s wearing a little silk dress, a matching headband, and glass bead earrings that dangle the length of her neck. She looks so incredible that I forget who and where I am. My hands slide all over her and while she’s holding her drink, I kiss her, kinda desperately.

“Scott, hey, come on.” She pushes me away and stumbles back in high-heel sandals I’ve never seen before. Some of her piña colada sloshes onto the floor, but she giggles, swiping at the soft silk. “At least, it didn’t land on my dress.”

“That’s good.” Charlie hands me another drink and another for himself. “Cheers.”   

We clink our drinks.

Emma drapes an arm around me and whispers, “Don’t worry, sweetheart.”

And I whisper back, “I won’t.” And right now, I can’t. I’m so far out my depth, so far past worrying, I’m weightless.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Never Jealous

Our last week here Emma’s teaching only one yoga class. Mia’s training another teacher to take her place in the late afternoons. After brunch we go back to bed, same as always. At four or five, we put on some clothes and, now that she’s not teaching, just hang out—her and me.

Charlie makes dinner. Emma enjoyed learning to cook from Pascal but Charlie said he wanted to learn, too. Now that he has, he’s convinced Emma to let him do it. He needs the practice.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

“Practice for what, Charlie?” I have to ask. “You’re not opening a restaurant.” No need to say, Guaranteed disaster. His focus shines wide and innocent, and then slightly insulted.

“I’m not,” Charlie tips back his head, sniffing hard, “opening a restaurant, Scott. I hate restaurants. I want to cook for my family.”

“What family is that?”

“All right,” he says, “let’s say friends. Like you and Emma.”

He registers a rise in my continual exasperation, and asks, “What’s so terrible?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s terrible.”

So tonight, while Charlie makes dinner, Emma and I go swimming.

Ever since he arrived this year, everything about him annoys me. But not because he’s changed. If anything, he’s the same and everyone at the yoga farm loves him more than before. After all, Charlie equals party time. And, he intuits perfectly who might be interested and who might be offended.

The day the policeman stopped by, Charlie was doling out the goods to anyone who felt like getting happy. That’s why those girls stripped on the beach in the first place. The B-12 injections freaked me out, but that’s Trevor’s thing. I just hadn’t seen it happening before. What pissed me off more was Charlie sitting down with the cop and telling him jokes in Spanglish, which he learned from my housekeeper.

Of course, buddying up to the cop was smart. And Charlie was funny with his adulterated Spanish. They laughed about that. I noticed the cop pronouncing words and Charlie repeating them. Since Mia’s business depends on her friendly standing with local officials, once the cop left, waving, “Pura Vida,” all around, Mia grabbed Charlie and kissed his head. “Leave it to you, baby.” 

He’s making a special dinner tonight, in honor of some great idea he’s saving for dessert. Emma sort of knows, but won’t drop hints. 

“How is he bugging you so much?” Emma asks.

“This family shit of his,” I’m stroking the nape of her neck. “We’re not brothers.” 

The oldest of three boys, Charlie moved in with me when we were in ninth grade. His overwhelmed mother had told him to leave because he was using drugs. She worked two jobs and he was supposed to babysit, not pass on his bad habits. His dad had moved to Atlanta when Charlie’s youngest brother was three. Kinda like my mother moving to Florida.

My dad liked (if not loved) Charlie and chuckled when asked if Charlie could live with us. “Honestly,” he said, “what could be better, Scott? You’ll never be lonely again.”

“Why didn’t I know this?” Emma acts like I’ve kept all this from her on purpose. “Are you jealous of him, because, like you keep saying, everybody loves him?”

“No. I’m not jealous. I’ve always loved Charlie as much as anyone.”

“You know he’s never touched me, Scott. Never even looked at me.”

“I know.” Charlie’s never looked at any woman. Whatever he’s after, it’s not that. Emma’s inching closer to me and I wish I hadn’t mentioned anything about Charlie being like my brother. I never cry but hell if I want her to see me upset. So I swoop her up, “Enough ancient history,” and toss her into the water.” She comes up laughing and we start playing like dolphins.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Religion Without Rules

After the crowd filed out in an excited hush, Maggie and Stephanie and Carlos and I stood still for a while in the suddenly quiet, suddenly empty shop. Maggie swept the floor. Stephanie aligned the tables. Carlos locked the doors. I shut off the lights. We drifted upstairs, drank wine and listened to Tibetan bowl music.

Stephanie, as usual, couldn’t stand to ignore the obvious. She wriggled big wads of bills out of her apron pockets. "Here," she said, "let’s talk about this." Swearing to stick a needle in her eye, she said "my followers" had taken it upon themselves to press money on her.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

"We need to put the money into a special account," Carlos said. "I know you don’t want to call it a religion, Malcolm. But it needs a name. For the bank. For the I.R.S."

"What do you have in mind, Carlos?"

"It’s your call, Malcolm. You’re the prophet."

"I’m supposed to pull it out of a hat?"

"Nothing elaborate. But come up with something now."

"Like what? Jehovah’s Heretics? Malcolm’s Meek Seekers?"

"For the I.R.S.," Carlos said. "Make it believable. Nothing cute."

"What do you say," Maggie asked, "Why not ‘Religion Without Rules’?"

Carlos said, "That’s good. RWR. That should do."

Why not? Religion Without Rules sort of disavows real religion. No rules, no hierarchy, even if I’m the mouthpiece. That’s that—no worries.

Still, Carlos satisfied looked even more nefarious than Carlos plotting. Between Stephanie, Maggie, and Carlos, there were three bundles of money, three canvas pouches. And despite my exultation, I couldn’t look at Carlos without suspecting him of arranging special folds of fabric inside his vest. Any second I expected the scene in front of my eyes to change into a million little birds fluttering off in a million directions at once.

(Click here to read the next episode...And if you enjoyed this excerpt, please visit Amazon.com, where Diary of a Heretic, the novel, has been selected as a Semi-Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. If you download the free excerpt and write a mini-review, it will help me get to the Finalist stage.)

Spellbound

A hundred times a day I pat my pockets for credentials that don’t exist. The ground beneath me rushes up. The audience: Wait a minute! Can you believe I’m now calling them the audience?  The whole point was that each person—not just me but each person—was supposed to go to the mike and say what it is that matters most.  Remember? That was the primary goal!

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

But two minutes into my spiel, the audience became my followers. And in less than no time, I succumbed to their applause. I looked out on what seemed like an ocean of people swaying to the sound of my voice and waving their arms. In my mind, lavender-colored fog swirled at my feet; a profusion of lighters illuminated the darkness.  And miracle never ending, tomorrow night (we’ve decided to go for Wednesdays and Saturdays) I’m scheduled to give—and to get—more of the same!

Which is not to say I’ve forgotten the original idea. It’s just that, if I believe Stephanie, a hundred-some people were so spellbound that with no prompting, they tucked tens and twenties into her hands as she squeezed through the haphazard aisles of chairs. Whether they saw this as the unasked-for price of admission or a contribution to the cause, no one knows, but they did press upon her sixteen hundred and forty-five dollars!

(Click here to read the next episode...And if you enjoyed this excerpt, please visit Amazon.com, where Diary of a Heretic, the novel, has been selected as a Semi-Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. If you download the free excerpt and write a mini-review, it will help me get to the Finalist stage.)