Shadows of Ashland
Page 22
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