Stories from A Life of Fiction
At my age, it’s important to write it all down. Especially when you’ve had a life like mine.
So over on Medium.com I’ve begun to post a growing collection of short stories about the people I’ve encountered in my travels, extraordinary people who touched my soul.
Here’s a link: stories from a life of fiction
And here are thumbnails from a few of the stories in the collection, with direct links to the full stories on Medium:
HARRISONG’S FOLLY – time spent with the quiet Beatle
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if we watched the race from up here,” he said. I recognized the voice first, then the face. It was George Harrison. “George, after what you’ve done for me,” I said, “you can work the fucking camera.”
CLIMBING WITH ED – “It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”
“At six feet five he was very tall. At first glance he appeared scrawny, but he was big-boned and very strong. His movement on the mountain was not so much graceful as unshakably assured and direct. He could acclimatize faster than anybody else to the thin air of high altitudes. And above all he was relentlessly driven, bursting with the demonic energy of someone desperate to prove his worth.”
THE BOX – when heroes were heroes
“In war I’m sure there are many such colliding moments, like when the rifle flash and the flash of mutual recognition spark at the very same instant that the deciding, inescapable bullet hurtles off on its deadly mission. No victor, no vanquished, instead a mutual and private tragedy between two combatants, brutal in its clarity.”
MATAI MULIVAI – when you take the bait, they catch you
“He was the village elder, the matai who held sway over disputes, made sure the taro was tended, counted heads in church and decided what to do when the squid boats came prowling in too close in the dead of night.”
Matai Mulivai, South Pacific prince
LA SABIDURÍA DE MI PORTERO – the wisdom of my porter
“Under Franco there was scarcely any work at all out in the Spanish countryside. Once you turned 13 life became very simple; You were expected to leave school and labor in the fields. But working in the barren fields for next to nothing and shooting birds with a catapult was no way to make a living, so Julián decided to risk everything and leave the pueblo he loved.”
MEETING MUHAMMAD – floating like a butterfly
“Muhammad whips it away quickly and then slowly offers it once more.The boy looks up at him warily. He can’t help himself and reaches up for it again. Muhammad tucks the paper into his pocket. Then he puts his dukes up. The little boy puts up his dukes, too.”
FOR THE PRICE OF A FINGER – a life undone by Chinese Red Dragons
“But Yuchen’s quiet beauty and competence was deceiving, for she was badly afflicted with the unconscious arrogance of the rich. She would regularly shout at the workers on the line, for being slow, stupid, hard-of-hearing and if the line ever stopped, all hell broke loose. The decibel-level of her voice would sound like an alarm, shrill and insistent, searing through the plant.”
Hope you enjoy reading the stories of some of the extraordinary people I have met along my way…
BlastofWinter 