Category Archives: ebook

September 30, 2010

New Talents

By Avery
So, Spider and I went out and got totally pissed last night. I mean, so drunk we couldn’t see straight. We’d been doing tequila shots at some hole-in-the-wall bar. You know the kind of place–dark and smelling of filthy mop water, a bar with worn patches in the varnish, and no two bar stools alike. Lining the bar were the usual assortment of ancient skanks in their clown makeup, posing cross-legged, their micro minis and stilettos a tacky contrast to the cellulite dimples and mats of webbed veins in between. It obviously wasn’t the best place for us to hang, but they had a killer special and drinks were dirt cheap. 
We left after last call, and no cabs would stop for us–probably because of Spider. He’s six-foot-five, tattooed everywhere and has an eight-inch mohawk. Then again, I don’t really look the respectable type, either.  So, maybe it was the combination.  We ended up walking through some pretty sketch neighborhoods to get to Spider’s apartment. It’s near the tattoo shop where he works. It took for fucking ever. Spider had his cigarette to keep him entertained and it was the first time I wished I smoked again. It’s weird, but I never got the craving to light up, even in the first days after I quit. I just stopped. Period. But last night, for whatever reason, I kept staring at that plume of smoke coming from his mouth, dying for the wind to whip it up into my nostrils.  He knew it, too.  I could tell by the way he turned away a little to exhale.  I guess he thought he was being a good friend.  I’m not sure about that one.
We finally made it to his place. We went to the wrong floor, first–I did mention we were shitfaced, right?–Spider, who’d lost his keys somewhere, starts banging away on what he thinks is his door. This guy flings open the door, and starts screaming at us in this high-pitched, dog voice. Seriously, you could’ve replaced him with one of those tiny, yappy purse-dogs and no one could’ve told the difference. 
Too drunk to care, we just walked away. Well, that set him off and he followed us up to Spider’s floor, still yelling. At that point the whole damn building was awake.  People were opening their doors and screaming, or yelling through the walls for this asshole to shut up. 
We got upstairs and Stone, Spider’s burner roommate, was the only one in the building who wasn’t woken up by all this. We were finally pounding on the right door, and this guy was still behind us, demanding we turn around and face him. I have to give it to Spider, usually he’d have already beaten the shit out of this guy. But, for some reason, he thought it was funny. Stone finally woke up, opened the door, and let us in. The guy followed, shoving Spider inside.  Spider stumbled, and something in me went off.
I turned around, grabbed the guy’s arm and squeezed. I’ve always been strong, like some sort of pre-Berlin-Wall-falling East German female bodybuilder. But this time, when I squeezed, I just knew I could crush the bones with no effort at all. Stuff inside there–tendons, or bones, I don’t know–started to shift. There was no noise, just a violent reddening on either side of his arm as I cut off the circulation.  The guy screamed, this time in pain. Spider, his face white, pulled me away, and pushed the guy backwards out into the hall.  Stone shut and locked the door. Then, we all just stood there staring at each other. 
I wanted to break that guy’s arm. Not because he pissed me off, not even because he fucked with Spider, but because I could. It wasn’t even like I wanted to see if it was possible, like a kid testing whether or not he could fly. I knew it was possible. I knew I was capable of it. And I wanted to watch myself do it. 
God, I’m screwed up.
Stone wandered off to bed and Spider, standing with me in his filthy, laundry-encrusted studio, asked the question of the day, “What the hell was that?”
I wish I knew.
So, I got home late this afternoon, and Mom’s sitting there, waiting. She flips out on me for the–What?–fifteenth time this week. She threatened to leave me here to fend for myself. And as much as I wanted to say, “Fine. Screw off, have fun in that shitty town,” the words froze in my throat. 
I panicked. 
I said I was sorry. 
I said I’d behave. 
God, I hate this, having this urge to go to Tyne hanging over my head. It’s got me in a headlock and I can’t get out. I have to try and straighten up. Right after this bender, I’ll be good.

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September 27, 2010

Sightseeing and Feelfeeling

By Avery
Mom and I looked at houses in Tyne this weekend.  It was really strange to be crossing the bay bridge without Dad, like we’d packed for vacation and forgotten him. Mom seemed to feel it, too. She white-knuckled the steering wheel like she was afraid the car would careen off the edge if she relaxed for even a minute–like even the waters of the Chesapeake were trying to pull her down.  I don’t think Mom needs water to help her with that. 
She’s drowning already.
I did my part to help, which meant keeping my mouth firmly shut even when she started trying to pick a fight with me (hoping to deflect her feelings with a tirade on how bad a person Res is, I guess).  I didn’t take the bait, just stared out the window. 
First time for everything.
So, three hours passed in a car that seemed to keep shrinking on us with each mile until I could even feel Mom’s breath on my neck like she sat right behind me, instead of beside me.  I stared out the window as desolate stretches of road peppered with tiny towns rolled by.  With each narrow main street and its half-closed array of businesses we drove through, I prayed that town wouldn’t be the one I’d been sentenced to.  And then we pulled up to the city limits of Tyne. 
I don’t know exactly what to say about Tyne without sounding like the next candidate for shock therapy.  Yeah, it’s small. There are no major malls or strip shopping centers like I’ve grown up around. There’s a downtown area that ends facing a harbor.  There are some stores and restaurants.  Only one bar that I could see.  Outside of the business district are the blocks of housing–lots of them old, with big porches and pointed tops, painted in insanely bright colors. Quaint is the word I guess describes it.  Or lonely.  Or isolated.  Past the small cluster of development there’s only cornfields and chicken farms to the north and south, a monster-sized forest at the western edge, and the river on the eastern side.  It’s like someone dropped a town in the middle of nowhere, and nowhere is desperately trying to reclaim it. 
I really am moving to East Hell.
On our way in we crossed a small drawbridge over the river that feeds the harbor.  On our right was a sign saying, “Welcome to Tyne–we hope you enjoy your stay” (I probably won’t), and one of those bright white, manhood monuments set in a patch of grass. When we passed by that war memorial, or whatever it was, I felt (this is going to sound insane, but I warned you about that, already) like a wave washed over me, covering me in this weblike energy that screamed I’d just entered the one place I’d never been–but always needed to be. 
We drove through the town and I just kept getting this increasingly jittery feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It was like wrongness mixed with rightness. I knew something was off, but at the same time my body kept telling me I was home. It was as of invisible hooks in my stomach have been jerking me this way and that my whole life, pulling me towards this place, and once I finally arrived it didn’t want to let go. Of course, something like that can’t be good, or normal.  So, there comes the feeling of wrongness; I’m not stupid enough to think any sudden, irrational influx of emotion is a healthy one.
The question is, what do I do about it? Mom found a house–a boring, brown thing with latticed windows. It looks like some sort of prehistoric swamp bug. There are more things wrong with it than right, but, she seems to like it, and she’s too worried about money to look for better. 
And I’m stuck. Adding to the already idiotic desire to stay with Mom, I’m now faced with this new wanting to move. Leaving Tyne this morning, that was the worst. The closer we got to that obelisk, the more I wanted to scream at her to hit the brakes. I bit my tongue so hard my mouth filled with blood. And then we passed by that white, upright pencil, and it felt like my skin had been caught on it’s point, and the speeding car ripped it clean from my body.
After three hours distance from Tyne, I feel better.  Only a mild twinge of anxiousness is in my stomach, now.  Was it nerves?  Panic?  Or, something else?  What do I do about it?  Do I stay?  Do I go with Mom, like every cell in my body seems to be pushing me to?  
Do I even have a choice? 

11 Comments | posted in contemporary, ebook, fantasy, kindle, novel, release, Resonance, smashwords, urban

September 23, 2010

A Red Flag to Add to My White One

By Avery

I’ve been thinking about this whole moving thing. The town Mom and I are headed to is called Tyne. I can’t even find the fucking place on a map–which is strange enough, right? Add to that how this whole moving situation came about, and it gets even stranger.

Mom gets a phone call a couple of weeks ago. This nursing home in Tyne needs a RN supervisor and wants to know if my mom wants the job, starting ASAP. Whoever it was said something about getting Mom’s name from a reference, but was totally vague about the source–like they just pulled her name from a magic phone book and didn’t want to admit it.

I’m wondering why her? Don’t they have enough people scrambling for a job as good as that over there? I Why do they need to call hospitals in Montgomery County? And, as far as I know, she’s the only one they approached. It just sounds weird, doesn’t it? I mean, this is a recession and all. I’ve heard of universities luring professors from one school to the other–that’s how my dad got his last job–but nurses? Maybe it does happen and I’m just not aware of it. But, something about this isn’t sitting right with me.

I know. It’s not like it’s a haunted ghost town that’s trying to suck my mother into it because she’s some sort of conduit to the dead, or something. My brain’s not completely rotted from horror movies. I guess I’m just jumpy right now. Since Dad, I’ve been more worried about her than I should be.

Mom would be ever-so-pleased to hear of my concern. That is, if she’d believe it. We don’t really get along, at all. I could’ve scraped her jaw off the floor with a shovel when I said I wanted to move to Tyne with her. Her expression was like someone had just stomped Santa Claus in front of a kindergartener. That alone was almost worth the daily doses of nagging bullshit I’ve had to hear since she said I could come along.

I keep having these dreams about my dad. Someone said that would happen a lot in the first year. I hate that, “The First Year.” Like there’s going to be a Last Year. Like he’s on a business trip or in the military. There’s no Last Year for him–except for last year. The First Year; what a load of crap. Anyway, in these dreams, he keeps calling out to me in a panicked voice. It always wakes me up suddenly, and then I can’t shake the feeling he wants me to do something. Add that to feeling the weird urge to go with Mom and watch over her, and you can see why I’m thinking her new job offer is on the shady side.

I don’t fucking know. I’m just tired, I guess. Does dreaming all night disrupt your sleep patterns? Maybe I’m just having delusions from being clinically exhausted.

Clinical exhaustion. That excuse sounds so much better coming from the mouths of publicists for coked-out celebrities.

7 Comments | posted in contemporary, ebook, fantasy, kindle, novel, release, Resonance, smashwords, urban

September 20, 2010

First Journal Post of Resonance Murphy

By Avery
My friend, Avery, says I should put something better as the title.  But, I don’t know what to put.  I mean, you guys don’t know who I am, or why I’m here.  You might think it’s just Avery doing this, or something.  She thinks you’ll get it.  But, for all I know you could be riders of the slow bus.  We haven’t exactly met, have we?  So, I figured I’d put you all on a low curve and spell it out for you.  If you handle it alright, next time I’ll give it a better title.  
If there is a next time.  
I don’t know about this journal thing.  Seems like a waste of time.  Avery seems to think having some sort of outlet for my feelings (the exact word she used was “rage”) will do me good.  She said it’s not magic, though, and not to expect typing a few sentences here and there to screw my head on right.  Just for that, I’m letting HER field all the comments left here.  That’s what she gets for shooting off at the mouth.  
So, anyway, I’m Resonance Murphy.  I’m twenty-two.  And, yeah, I still live with my mother.  I don’t like school, jobs, or society in general.  If it turns out I like you, you can call me Res.  If I don’t, well…  I guess that’s not the best way to welcome you to Avery’s old blog.  She might get pissed if I drive you all away in the first day.
Speaking of getting pissed, I need to.  Badly.  See, I’m standing in the middle of a road and one of those wheel loader things has been scraping up all of the life garbage behind me and pushing it forward.  Until now I’d managed to move ahead just enough so that mess piling up behind me never touched me, but the road has suddenly dead-ended.  And I’m standing up to my neck in shit.  If that’s not reason enough to get shitfaced, well, I don’t know what is.
A few months ago, life was good.  Well, it was fine.  Decent.  No big complaints.  Now, everything’s screwed up.  I’ll spare you the soap opera-y details, but, the short version is I’ll soon be moving away from D.C. to the Delmarva Peninsula (that’s that weird tongue flapping off the side of Maryland and Delaware).  It’s totally backwoods.  No more clubs, no more hanging out with my best friend, Spider, no more salons, decent places to eat, no more life as I know it.  Yeah, you’re probably thinking being twenty minutes from the beach is hardly an exile. Well, maybe for you. I couldn’t care less about oceans or sand. I don’t surf. I don’t sunbathe. In fact, I don’t venture into fresh air until the sun has set–and then only if every surrounding square inch is covered in concrete.
My mom’s already on my ass to change my look so I can find a job in overall-land.  She thinks blue dreadlocks are going to get me unwanted attention, give people the wrong impression.  I’m thinking it will give them just the right one.  Besides, who the hell cares what color my hair is when all there’ll be for me to do is de-beak chickens or shuck corn?
I could stay. I think about it. Hell, I daydream about it.  It’s the one thought that lets me get up in the morning.  Even so, I know I’ll leave in the end.  Something is making me want to go with my Mom.  And it’s not just about Dad, or the cash-cow leaving me high and dry (but, if we’re being honest, it is a factor). Mostly, though, it’s something else.  I keep having these dreams, and the other day, when we first visited Tyne–
Nah.  I told you I’d spare you the drama, didn’t I? 
Enough bullshit already. Moving to oblivion. Finding a crappy job. And that’s the end of it.
East Hell, here I come.

4 Comments | posted in contemporary, ebook, fantasy, kindle, novel, release, Resonance, smashwords, urban

January 24, 2005

RESONANCE now available on Nook

By Avery

Hey, it’s Res, again with more news from the Avery camp.  Seems the book about me is now available at Barnes and Noble’s Nook store.  Here’s the link she gave me to toss up here:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Resonance/Avery-DeBow/e/2940012175632/?itm=1&USRI=resonance

She says Apple’s iBookstore is still pending, and she’s trying to get something together for Google so you Sony people can read it, too.

You know when you’re talking and have no idea what you’re saying?  Yeah, that’s what’s going on with me right now.  I’m writing this shit and can’t even tell you what it means. “Sony people,” “iBookstore”–it’s all just letters senselessly blurring together.  I’m not big on reading.  Well, I wasn’t until lately.  But, my foray back into the literary world didn’t quite cover the topics Avery seems to want me to spout off on here.  I don’t know jack about them.  

Of course, I could change that with one good look at a webpage or book on this junk.  Having–uh–skills–is pretty cool sometimes.  Other times, not so much, but I don’t feel like thinking about that right now.  My head would probably explode.

Right now, I’m just happy there’s enough left of me to still be me, you know?

No, you probably don’t.

If you read the damn book about me you would.

Yeah, that’s a hint.

Dontcha wanna know what I’ve been going on about these past couple months?

 

7 Comments | posted in amazon, apple, bad lib fantasy friday, barnes and noble, contemporary fantasy, dark fantasy, demon, ebook, iBook, kindle, nook, novel, Resonance