A Beginning

One of my resolutions this year was to start writing fiction again. I have done it several times in my past, but I have never let people read it publicly. The only thing that ever came close to public viewing was the several Role Playing Games I have run. Additionally I posted one poem I had written about 5 years ago.

Well, here is my next attempt at fiction. I’ve spent several hundred hours now researching my subject, and I have spent several hundred dollars on books and the transcripts of lectures from experts on the subject matter I wish to cover. I have a written synopsis and an outline, but I don’t think I’m going to post that here just yet. Please give feedback, and be critical if you feel it’s needed.

Chapter 1: A Beginning

“They’re diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.”

“But, they are so small.”

The man was older, with a weathered face and scraggly beard. He saw his granddaughter staring past the brim of his hat and deep into his eyes. He smiled, “Jessie, they are very far away, and not only are they jewels, they burn with a great fire.”

“But if they are on fire, won’t they burn up?”

“Eventually”, he nodded. “But it will take many generations.”

The memories of her grandfather rushed back to her. It was that night, so long ago, when he had first shown her this journal. It was what had made this job so difficult; the memories. It seemed like just yesterday that she was standing at his grave trying to say her final good-byes. But, that had been over six months ago.

The job of organizing his papers and journals had fallen to her. She had been his favorite grandchild, and she had followed him his path through school, but she had been unable to follow his career. There were no uncharted places on the earth anymore. There were no longer any indigenous peoples who needed contacting. Satellites had scoured the face of the planet. Oh, ever so often a group of people were found here or there. But nothing like her grandfather had done so many years ago when he had gone into the jungles and mountains of South and Central America.

The journal in her hand was one of the many that filled the library she was now trying to organize. It had been this very book, so many years ago, that he had opened and read to her about how the stars had been created. She paged through the journals scanning the pages.

“It shall be as we have spoken”

Instantly the figures were made. They looked like men, talked like men, and populated the surface of the earth. They multiplied, had daughters and sons.

And then, they did not remember their Creator or their Maker, they no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and therefore they fell out of favor. They did not have souls, or minds. They walked, aimlessly. At first they spoke, but their face was without expression; their feet and hands had no strength; they had no blood, nor substance, nor moisture, nor flesh; their cheeks were dry, their feet and hands were dry, and their flesh was yellow. Therefore, they no longer thought of their Creator nor their Maker, or of those who made them and cared for them.

These were the first men who existed in great numbers on the face of the earth.

The passage was in her Grandfather’s handwriting. She had never read that exact passage, but she remembered her grandfather telling her the story years ago. It was a passage from the histories. The man her grandfather heard it from claimed to be the last in a long line of “rememberers” that he claimed stretched back to the days when the memories of the “Creator, the Maker, and the Heart of Heaven were still fresh on the minds of men.”

She flipped to the beginning of the story and read the first line.

“It was in the days before the burning gems fill the night sky, when the King and the Queen of all the Earth walked among us still.”

The clock started to chime; putting down the manuscript she looked up and realized that it was way past the time she had planned on going to bed. Tomorrow would be here soon. She needed sleep. The university librarian was going to be here there in less than 8 hours to take several boxes of books her grandfather had left them in his will. Now was not the time to remember the story. Now was the time for sleep.