Shadows of Ashland

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Shadows of Ashland Page 22

by Austin,Robin


  She tells me she isn’t like me, that she can’t go it alone. She stresses endlessly that I am homeless and jobless and childless, and she pleads with me to remarry as soon as possible. I give her my blessings to do the same.

  Melissa Palmer finally became the biggest story Matrix Media had ever known. My attorney called one day to tell me that Matrix had dropped the lawsuit against me. Palmer, my attorney explained as though I’d never heard of the tactic, had been taking allurements from special interest groups to run agenda driven pieces.

  He could dress it up all he wanted, but I should have guessed she was taking kickbacks. Maybe I did and that’s why I couldn’t just write the damn human interest story. Maybe, but probably not. Matrix played nice and sent me a more generous check than owed, also known as a bribe to keep me quiet about their former CEO.

  After my life and Rick’s were neatly parted down the seam, I got rid of all the things I once considered ours and put much of the rest in storage. I rented an apartment for six months that overlooked the ocean. Time enough to listen to the crashing waves, make sure my harlot mother didn’t throw herself off a cliff to atone for her sins, and to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I’d decided that journalism, even freelancing, was better served by the young and hungry. I’d long since been neither of those.

  As for the shadows, they are with me still. I suspect they always will be and I’m okay with that– not great with it, but okay. Denying them is yet another lie of my past, one I will not take into my future.

  Normal is overrated. Fitting into society’s carefully crafted mold is an illusion that causes more anxiety than comfort, and the truth is often implied based upon fabricated beliefs. I am not brain damaged as my doctors say, as I once believed. I am fortunate, favored by fate.

  However, shouting about the shadows from the roof tops will never happen, and you will never find me on daytime talk shows describing their forms or attempting to channel their messages. They are mine and mine alone. In the dark, I still fear them. In the light, I choose to see them, to listen to their silence, and to try and understand. I may not yet welcome, but am humbled by their presence.

  When I fell down those stairs, everything changed in an instant. It was my long ago constructed expectations of a future, which I was sure was mine, that took me so long to realize needed a different story. One where even beloved humans are not portrayed as idols. Where false commitments are never professed to be forever after. Where victimization isn’t remedied by vigilante justice, but can be put to eternal rest. And yes, no matter how damn weird, where even the simple act of staring at a wall is a choice that those who must, must be allowed to make.

  Finally, I am at last free to write my story.

  Dedication

  I started writing Shadows of Ashland just before the Orlando nightclub shooting of June 12, 2016, (the chapter on Chris, the gay hitchhiker, was added after this event). In the weeks that followed, police officers in Dallas, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were murdered and wounded, and men, women, and little children in Nice, France, were injured or killed. While these were the “big” stories, hundreds more suffered senselessly due to terrorism and hatred across the globe. To all those whose stories are over, may their shadows find eternal peace.

  About the Author

  I grew up in Southern California watching the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, everything Alfred Hitchcock, and reading Edgar Allan Poe, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Ira Levin, Arthur Hailey, Gore Vidal, Michael Crichton, Jacqueline Susann, Roald Dahl, John Steinbeck, Dr. Seuss, Astrid Lindgren, E.B. White, and so many other wonderful storytellers. Now I live in a suburb of Seattle and spend my time trying to create a little fictional humor, drama, and horror in a world gone mad.

  Visit my website robingaustin.com to download a free book and sign up for emails of new releases, and review copies. Find me on Twitter and Facebook. If you read all this way, maybe you liked the book and want to leave a review right now.

  Other Books

  Strangely Twisted Short Story Collections (RG Austin)

  Volume 1: Dark and Fishy

  Volume 2: Dark and Primal

  Volume 3: Dark and Crazy

  Cozy Mysteries (Robin G. Austin)

  Home Sweet Mulberry (A Sasha and Sebastian Mulberry Mystery 1)

  Red Lady on Ice (A Sasha and Sebastian Mulberry Mystery 2)

  Werewolves of Loquat (A Sasha and Sebastian Mulberry Mystery Novella)

  Creepy Cranberry Christmas (A Sasha and Sebastian Mulberry Mystery Novella)

  Beautiful Cosmic Justice (A Shelby Sutton Mystery)

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

 

 

 


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