ran 4.2 miles
I’m going to introduce something new to this blog today. To add some variety to the weekly topics and a different perspective on current events I am going to begin posting a chapter each week from a novel I have been working on. This novel has been collecting dust for nearly two years and all it needs is an ending. Posting the chapters each week will bring me closer to where I left off and push me to finish. And I can share it with you and others, who I am extremely grateful to have following this blog, as a piece of fiction to break away from the curious and contradicting current events of the day.
I’m not going to say anything about this novel except that it is a book of fiction and all names, characters, places and incidents that bear any resemblance to actual events or locations or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The name of this unfinished book is “I am Erica”.
by michael dimiterchik
a tale of one of many possible outcomes,
a love story punched in the stomach,
and a man who chose to choose.
prologue
They were many and he was one. They mattered and he did not. They were a machine and he was a gear. They were a sum and he was a number. They had an answer for every question and he had a question for every answer. They were ruthless with what they aimed to achieve and he was patient with what he chose to find. They wanted everything and demanded to be followed. He wanted nothing and refused to be led.
He walked stolidly up a broken street in a nameless city in a forgotten country. Like a monk lighting himself on fire, he showed no emotion for the burns he felt. Steadily, he refused to look back and ignored what was in front of him.
Stolidly, he wanted to throw a rock through the glass ball of night that surrounded him.
He went in through her bedroom window long after her parents had fallen asleep. She had not been expecting him. She greeted him with a tired smile, eyes matted shut with sleep, and asked him what was wrong.
“I’m leaving,” he whispered. “I wanted to tell you goodbye.”
Unable to respond she shook off the residual sleep from her numb body. Her senses slowly crept to attention as a final yawn escaped her.
“I don’t know where I am going and I don’t know where I will end up. What I do know is that my actions will be my own and that I will be free for the first time in my life.”
She was not shocked at his words nearly as much as she was frightened by the severity of the moment, which she had seen coming for so long. She knew his spirit was arrested. His fierce soul paced madly inside a prison of bone and skin.
“You are the only person I am saying goodbye to and the only one who knows I am leaving. You are the only one who understands why I have to do this. I am not sure what I am trying to accomplish but until I remove myself from this…this silence, this destructive quiet, I am certain I will achieve nothing.”
She made every argument she could think of to convince him not to leave. None of it had mattered, though. His mind had broken out of its cell and had found its freedom.
“I will see you again.”
He said this as he stepped outside through the window frame and into his new wilderness. He took a step forward and a look back smiling with certainty that he had made the first right decision of his life.
“Goodbye, Carmen.”
“Goodbye, Jonas.”
1,490.6 miles to go.
I’m going to introduce something new to this blog today. To add some variety to the weekly topics and a different perspective on current events I am going to begin posting a chapter each week from a novel I have been working on. This novel has been collecting dust for nearly two years and all it needs is an ending. Posting the chapters each week will bring me closer to where I left off and push me to finish. And I can share it with you and others, who I am extremely grateful to have following this blog, as a piece of fiction to break away from the curious and contradicting current events of the day.
I’m not going to say anything about this novel except that it is a book of fiction and all names, characters, places and incidents that bear any resemblance to actual events or locations or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The name of this unfinished book is “I am Erica”.
i am erica
by michael dimiterchik
a tale of one of many possible outcomes,
a love story punched in the stomach,
and a man who chose to choose.
prologue
They were many and he was one. They mattered and he did not. They were a machine and he was a gear. They were a sum and he was a number. They had an answer for every question and he had a question for every answer. They were ruthless with what they aimed to achieve and he was patient with what he chose to find. They wanted everything and demanded to be followed. He wanted nothing and refused to be led.
He walked stolidly up a broken street in a nameless city in a forgotten country. Like a monk lighting himself on fire, he showed no emotion for the burns he felt. Steadily, he refused to look back and ignored what was in front of him.
Stolidly, he wanted to throw a rock through the glass ball of night that surrounded him.
He went in through her bedroom window long after her parents had fallen asleep. She had not been expecting him. She greeted him with a tired smile, eyes matted shut with sleep, and asked him what was wrong.
“I’m leaving,” he whispered. “I wanted to tell you goodbye.”
Unable to respond she shook off the residual sleep from her numb body. Her senses slowly crept to attention as a final yawn escaped her.
“I don’t know where I am going and I don’t know where I will end up. What I do know is that my actions will be my own and that I will be free for the first time in my life.”
She was not shocked at his words nearly as much as she was frightened by the severity of the moment, which she had seen coming for so long. She knew his spirit was arrested. His fierce soul paced madly inside a prison of bone and skin.
“You are the only person I am saying goodbye to and the only one who knows I am leaving. You are the only one who understands why I have to do this. I am not sure what I am trying to accomplish but until I remove myself from this…this silence, this destructive quiet, I am certain I will achieve nothing.”
She made every argument she could think of to convince him not to leave. None of it had mattered, though. His mind had broken out of its cell and had found its freedom.
“I will see you again.”
He said this as he stepped outside through the window frame and into his new wilderness. He took a step forward and a look back smiling with certainty that he had made the first right decision of his life.
“Goodbye, Carmen.”
“Goodbye, Jonas.”
1,490.6 miles to go.
