Isolation: The 25-point Plan

Current level of isolation?

A. Gilligan’s Island.
B. In orbit on the ISS.
C. It’s the plot of the Martian and you’re Matt Damon.

Mars would be optimal but for the loneliness. The International Space Station has a lovely view. If you live with a Gilligan who’s always screwing everything up for everybody, you’re going to have to tie up your little buddy and spray him with Lysol three times a day.

Okay, cool. We’re stuck. How do you plan to use this time and stay sane?

For many of us, it’s been about a week or so in isolation. 

I write books for a living. My struggle kicked in before the coronavirus arrived on our shores. For the last three months, I’ve been having a hard time getting into my job. I love writing once I start, but, ooh, it can be hard to start. As Stephen King says, “The scariest part is right before you start.”

I have a book about two-thirds written and several other projects that need attention. After publishing Citizen Second Class on Christmas Day, I fell into a kaleidoscope of distractions, working on marketing plans, developing book plots and proposals, goofing off a little, and entertaining a killer funk. Funks are not fun. I need to focus. Maybe you feel it, too? Are the walls closing in? Let’s figure this shit out.

We’re in isolation and creeping dread has set in. What’s next?

After this experience, I hope we all develop more compassion for prisoners, especially those in solitary. If you live alone, you can be quite safe from the coronavirus. However, isolation takes its own toll.

When you go to prison, you can go one of two ways: work out with heavy weights and get huge or sleep sixteen hours a day. As a chronic insomniac, I’ve found it quite easy to sleep lately. I especially enjoy those delicious afternoon naps. Nothing wrong with napping unless it’s a sign of depression stealing into your life. If it’s a retreat you need, I advocate for it. If you’re sleeping so much that it’s messing with your plans and relationships, you might want to reevaluate. I know I am.

Rob’s plan to shake off the funk:

  1. Stay informed, not overwhelmed. Information is good. Tragedy tourism through the internet is harmful.
  2. Structure. What’s the plan for the day? Set alarms. Do the Thing!
  3. I try not to waste time obsessing about the things I can’t control.
  4. My favorite playlist is called Deadly. It’s my “Get up and go beat ’em up workout music.” Better that than yet another podcast that beats me over the head with the same information over and over.
  5. Move more. I don’t want to go near my doctor’s office for the next year if I can help it. Exercise is my new medical appointment and it has to happen daily. 
  6. Stop with the stress eating. More veggies, water, and less processed crap.
  7. Stay connected with the social circle. Humans are social animals. Yes, even most introverts need some human interaction. Talking to yourself and to pets is okay but a little more feedback than an echo off the bare walls is nice.
  8. Dance. Sing. Swear. 
  9. Acknowledge that striving for excellence doesn’t require perfection. Perfectionism is a form of self-loathing. We don’t have to teach our kids quantity surveying and particle physics just because they’re out of school.
  10. We’re at a huge historical milestone. We will all remember this time. Maintain morale whenever possible. Make jokes. Share fun memes of dogs doing fun dog stuff.
  11. Patience.
  12. Kindness.
  13. Distractions can helpful when they don’t fill the entire day. Sure, watch Netflix but don’t scroll through it aimlessly for hours. 
  14. Work on your hobbies, play some games.
  15. Read those books you’ve been meaning to read. (If you’re reading mine and you like them, please review them. Thanks!)
  16. Got clutter? You know what to do. Sure, it’s not necessarily fun but, like exercise, you’ll feel better and lighter afterward. Bonus: You’ll find that thing you thought you lost!
  17. Reach out electronically. Call somebody you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Tell Dad you’re the one who put a dent in his car that time. It’s not like he can come over and take a swing at you. (Or tell him you love him. That’ll freak him out.)
  18. You’re already washing your hands obsessively. Good! Don’t skip showering the rest of you each day, too.
  19. Wash your clothes. You can’t get a haircut, but keep up appearances. 
  20. Helping others will help you.
  21. Acknowledge that it’s okay to feel bad, to stress, to get mad. I will try to stick to these plans, but I will not beat myself up when I fail to hit a home run for every at-bat. Find the balance.
  22. Watch out for binge drinking, binge eating, binge drugging etc. Get those harmful lures out of your home and get help if you need it.
  23. I didn’t realize how much I depended on the routine of writing in a coffee shop until the coffee shop was no longer an option. My appointment with my laptop is every morning at 10 a.m.
  24. Not all suggestions are for everyone all the time. Do what you can with what you have. Stay as safe as you can. 
  25. Check in with anyone you suspect may be at risk of self-harm or harm by others.

    We are all doing hard time. If you need help, there are still resources available to you. If that’s you, please try to be brave for just one more minute and call a friend or an agency that will offer assistance. Contemplating self-harm? Google “International Suicide Hotline.” Suffering domestic violence? Get help here: https://www.domesticshelters.org/.
    Whatever your mental health issue, make the call. There is an organization filled with good people eager to support you. You are needed. Hold on!

    If you are an essential worker who doesn’t have the option of isolating at home, you get to swear more than the rest of us. Godspeed and feel our love for you because you are a goddamn hero. We all salute and thank you. When we get through this, it will be a big party and you’ll be the guest of honor. Hold on!

    Whoever and wherever you are, hold on.

    (Got a suggestion of your own? Please, add them in the comments.)

 

 

What’s to love about the pandemic?

Two ambulances paid a visit to neighbors in the little cul-de-sac across from my house last night. No cops, no lights, no sirens. I hope it’s not COVID-related, but with 500,000 Ontarians returning from March Break this weekend, I would not be shocked. We had a few fun plans for the break: a college tour for my son, one night away, a movie and sugar bush*. It was nothing involving palm trees and faraway places, but we canceled everything. I’m glad we did.

Canada’s health minister has declared that social distancing is not a “two-week thing.” Many haven’t wrapped their brains around this fact yet. This pandemic will stretch on for a long time and we dare not relax our vigilance. We already knew that, really. I suspect some people would freak out if we admitted the restrictions will continue until we receive the vaccine. That’s well over a year away and there are other negative effects besides the threat of COVID-19: social isolation, domestic abuse, child abuse, depression, anxiety, paranoia, crushing poverty, a dead world economy, etc.,…

The coronavirus has demonstrated conclusively that society and the world economy is a fragile model for civilization. As a writer of apocalyptic tales, I always knew this, but I never wanted to live like this beyond the realm of fiction. Unlike other zombie apocalypse stories, Season One of This Plague of Days details how civilization slowly falls apart before the evolution of the virus. The similarities are a little eerie.

One of the variables that is making the pandemic worse is the number of people who are failing to isolate themselves. The health minister clarified that our civil liberties are at stake. If we can’t isolate ourselves for the good of the whole, the government will impose sanctions. It’s been a long time since Pierre Trudeau imposed the War Measures Act. It will be odd when his son imposes the 2020 equivalent. The Matrix leaves clues, people! 

As for me, I’m sleeping more. For a longtime insomniac, you’d think I’d be glad. Instead, I take it as a sign of depression crawling in. I’m less productive. I play a lot of Boggle and Scrabble. However, my sainted wife (AKA She Who Must Be Obeyed) is taking this opportunity to paint the bathroom. I don’t want any part of that so I do the dishes and, among several book projects, I work on a prequel to This Plague of Days. I also have a separate book proposal and a dialogue going on with a publisher in New York. I’m assuming that’s on hold indefinitely as we all figure this shit out.

This circumstance has elevated workers that society often takes for granted. They’re literally risking their health for others. I hope that esteem for workers in the food delivery chain continues long after the Corona Crisis is over. Doctors, nurses, researchers, scientists, truckers, delivery people, grocery store workers: they’re all on the frontline and we should all be grateful. (When all this is over, I plan to send a gift basket to my doctor’s office.)

Bright spots amid the dark chaos bring light. Today I watched two police cars roll up in a backstreet of Majorca. A bunch of cops poured out of their cruisers and started singing and dancing, playing guitars to elevate people’s spirits. They played as people joined in from their windows above the street. As I witnessed good people working to make the best of a bad situation, I wept.

Compassion moves me. Heroism moves me. Rising to the occasion inspires me to try to do the same. This is the only thing to love about the pandemic: The virus has shown us our weakness, but through this horror, we will plumb undiscovered strengths. Smart people will find a vaccine. We have to be patient and strive to not become patients.

Stupid people will stand in the way on our road back to health. We must work around them. We must believe there are many more good humans than bad. Good people will get us through this.

Wherever you are, stay as safe as you can, share funny pet videos, help somebody, reach out electronically so no one gets too lonely, read, goof off, goof around, laugh and take care of yourself and your family. Persevere.

Don’t just survive. Live to thrive.

*Some of my readers may be unfamiliar with the term sugar bush. It’s mostly a Canadian thing where you go to a maple plantation to eat too many pancakes, baked beans, slaw and several variations of maple syrup. The gift shop sells maple candy and maple syrup, of course. If the weather’s right, you can take a horse-drawn sleigh into the woods to see how the sap is tapped from maple trees. You can even pour maple syrup on the snow, freeze it, and eat it off a popsicle stick. Afterward, the tradition was to take the kids to check out the farm’s rabbits, pigs, and cows. Maybe by this time next year, it will be safe to do that again. I look forward to the party when all this is over.

 

The Most Chilling Aspect of this Crisis

I just heard a report from New York detailing how hospitals are already slammed. They thought the peak would come in two weeks. It’s hitting harder and sooner than expected. We’re all in for it, aren’t we? Yes, I share your creeping anxiety. I going to give you some real talk because I am not a shiny, happy person today. This is urgent and it’s past time to get real.

I’ve gone back and forth, bingeing bad news one day and trying to avoid information overload the next. Of course, it’s not really information that’s overwhelming. It’s our emotions that can rise beyond reason. COVID-19 is coming and hell’s coming with it. If you doubt me, ask China and Italy. They tried to warn us, but many people did not take them seriously. To get this under control, we must be proactive and take serious measures: isolation and confinement for extended periods.

Given my health history, I feel like I have a target on my lungs. My amygdala is packed full of dread. When even the most reasonable experts lay a heavy on you that sounds like the worst of worst-case scenarios, a trip forward in time to when the vaccine exists feels in order. I’m working on a time machine. It’s hard to do much with assorted screwdrivers, a hammer, a box of nails and precious little understanding of quantum physics.

I’ve written a lot about the apocalypse. Though I never intended to depict the future accurately, I think I got This Plague of Days right in some crucial ways. The apocalypse, contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, is not fun. It’s not easy. Chances are excellent that you don’t have a castle with endless supplies of food, guns, and ammo. If you went a little crazy, the closest you’ve come is to have a nigh-infinite supply of toilet paper. As I predicted, “the apocalypse seemed to come slowly at first. Then it was everywhere, all at once.”

Medical personnel do not have enough masks. The call has been sent: If you can sew, make us masks! If you have a 3D printer, we need face shields! There aren’t enough medicines, medical supplies and ventilators to go around.

Because of the lack of preparedness, we do not have enough PPE (personal protective equipment). We will send doctors and nurses into situations where they cannot protect themselves. These are extraordinary people, but they are also ordinary mortals with families and dreams. Many will become infected and go into quarantine. That will deplete our forces combatting the virus.

Worse, we may even reach a point where hospital staff declares, “If you can’t protect us, we shouldn’t be here.” That’s the most chilling possibility. I heard it for the first time today and I thought, I’m surprised I haven’t heard that before. Should it come to that, those doctors and nurses who elect to retreat will not be wrong. It is not for any of us to determine the depth of someone else’s sacrifice.

I used to be a health care practitioner. My regulatory body came up with a stupid emergency plan after SARS hit Toronto. The powers that be stood up on their hind legs and said that in signing up to be a healthcare practitioner, I automatically got drafted to first-responder status. No one told me that they’d be sending around a truck to take us to work in hospitals. I just wanted to get off the corporate ladder to rehab strained necks and torn shoulders. Even if I were to accept their stupid premise, my family didn’t sign up for this. Glad I retired and left that field of battle. 

However, like it or not, on some level we are all in this war against the virus. If you are non-essential personnel, please self-isolate. You’ve heard it all before, yet there are still selfish people who remain defiant and dumb. They are putting many lives at risk. My life is at risk. It so incredibly frustrating to watch so many unforced errors take us down.

I would attempt to end this piece on a hopeful note, but that is not how I’m feeling this evening. I will have a different message tomorrow. All I have for you now is, please, self-isolate. If you are in quarantine, I know it sucks but please stay there. Do not be casual about this pandemic just because COVID-19 hasn’t hit you personally yet. In some way, it soon will.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you reason to hope. Tonight, I want us all to stew a little in the juices of personal responsibility. We all have a part to play in this war. Some are bound to fight on the front lines. For the rest of us, our duty is to help each other, self-isolate and stay out of the way of the many dedicated professionals who, as I write this, are trying to save the world. 

 

Writing: What’s to come in 2020

TPOD RED CONTAGION use this one

(Note: Want to hear the first chapter of TPOD: Contagion? Subscribers will receive a link to hear it!)

Here’s a list of books and assorted projects I’m working on for 2020!

  1. A prequel novella to This Plague of Days, set mainly in Dungarvan and Dublin. Currently at 12,000+ words.
  2. Entering three short story contests.
  3. I’m currently taking a Udemy course in audiobook production and narration.
  4. Working on a paranormal trilogy with author and friend Armand Rosamilia. The first book is written and we’re probably about a third through the second.
  5. A big publisher approached me looking for book proposals. One pitch missile has been fired. I’ll keep exploring this.
  6. I plan to take the Dimension War Series wide (i.e. beyond Amazon) but will to revamp it a little first.
  7. Working as a book doctor for another author’s project, waiting on the rewrite of the first draft.
  8. I’d like to get an audiobook or two out this year for Ex Parte Press, probably for Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close first, followed by Amid Mortal Words and The Night Man. At the pace of audiobook production, expect this much later in the year.
  9. I’ve been approached about doing another podcast (producing and possibly co-hosting). I love podcasting. It’s an exciting idea that is in development.
  10. A secret project for one of my pen names. Into the third round of revisions now and it’s killing me.

    Those are the broad strokes for Ex Parte Press for 2020. But wait! There’s more!

    I built a little sound studio (AKA Blanket Fort) in my basement to record and produce future audiobook projects.

    This Plague of Days is my most popular series. As an exclusive for subscribers here, I’ll soon release a reading of the first chapter of This Plague of Days: Contagion.


    Subscribe and stay tuned!

Citizen Second Class: An Excerpt

Here’s the first chapter of Citizen Second Class

The last time my whole family was together, my mother still had both legs and Grammy still remembered we didn’t have a president anymore. The pictures, taken in the soft light of early morning, show my sister and my parents standing together, looking sharp in their uniforms. In our old gray dresses, Grammy and I seem washed out, present but somehow incomplete, diluted. By the time the sun rose to a hard glare, the ones in uniform were on their way to their posts, answering the call of duty. I was left to care for my grandmother.

“They’re off to close the distance between ought and is,” Grammy said. “Good luck to ’em, cuz, good God, that’s a need! All our lives we’re told to make stacks and save wads and now we can’t even make change. Sometimes life feels like we’re set to fight a forest fire with nothing but a water pistol and a box o’ dry crackers, dudn’t it?”

She put her thin stick of an arm around my shoulder and said, “And here you are, stuck in the sticks with an old lady to watch out for, makin’ sure I don’t wander off. Won’t exactly be your halcyon days, huh? You feel left behind? Or left out? You could stick me on an ice floe, maybe.”

“I don’t think there are any ice floes left, Grammy.”

She chuckled. “Looks like you’re stuck, then.”

I didn’t mind. I loved her and I didn’t want to be a part of any battles. However, in the war for the future, we are all drafted.

I thought I was relatively safe growing up in a little town in Georgia. However, the tendrils of conflict wound their way everywhere, even to our tiny part of the world. I had to leave my little town of Campbellford. If we were to survive, we had to take drastic action.

“They say this winter will be the warmest yet.” Grammy fanned herself on her rocking chair on the front porch. She used to rock for hours out there. Grammy didn’t have the energy to rock in her chair anymore. She sat still, listened to the quiet and complained that her nightly concert of frogs and crickets was gone. The marsh had dried up.

“Lots of traffic used to come through Campbellford on their way to some damn place, to and fro. By times one or two of those automatic trucks still blows past, just ugly gray boxes they are, all speeding, all dangerous and never stopping around here. Not a single driver in them. That used to be our number one job by population: drivin’ truck and deliverin’ things hither and thither. Now that there’s more trucks barrelin’ up and down the roads and no drivers, I think that’s why we got stuck with all this extreme weather. The air, Kismet! It’s so darn close.”

“Humid, you mean?”

“The air never used to be so close!”

“I know. The humidity makes my hair all frizzy.”

“You have quite a mop on you, more of a hair don’t that a hairdo. Get the scissors, I’ll give you a trim.”

Grammy wasn’t dangerous but I wasn’t about to hand her scissors. Her creeping dementia had already made me elder-proof the house. If she cut my hair, I’d worry she might not stop cutting when she got to my ears.

“I’ll get you your hand fan to keep the heat at bay,” I said.

“I got no energy to be wavin’ that thing at myself all day.”

“Then I’ll fan you.”

“I don’t pay with anything but smiles and a nod. You goin’ out lookin’ for a job tomorrow?”

She said tomorrow like tomorrah. I once asked her where she got her expressions.

“Wasn’t always stuck in a rocking chair in this little town. My family lived on turd stew sometimes but we used to move all over and live all over. I talk same as I did when I was your age. When I was young, so was the world. The world’s as old as me now and lookin’ no better. I don’t care for it.”

“You look lovely, Grammy.”

“My grandmother would have called that statement a bunch of horsefeathers.”

“What would you say?”

“I say, break all the mirrors!”

I ignored her and ducked into the house for a moment. “I can’t find the fan!” I called. “Where’d you put it?”

By the time I returned she’d forgotten what I went searching for. “Ah!  A fan,” she said. “Can’t keep the stink off but maybe we can wave it downwind. Good idea.”

She gave me a smile and a nod as I fanned her. It was payment enough, but where memory failed, habits took over. She didn’t leave her favorite topics alone for long. Whenever she was annoyed, she would bring up my lack of employment. I helped out at the town’s food bank but the work wasn’t steady and paid in tins of fake fish.

“Maybe there are still things to do like changing tires on those robot trucks, huh?”

“I think the robots pretty much take care of the robots,” I replied.

“Incestuous business,” she said. “Or is that … what’s the word?”

“Nepotism?”

The way her eyebrows knitted together, I suspected that was a word that was now lost to her vocabulary.

“All you got is odd jobs, Kismet.”

“All the jobs are odd now. It’s not like when you were young and Jesus was still a carpenter running his own business.”

“Ain’t that so,” she said. “Even his business went bad. Nobody’s paying our savior any attention anymore. Everybody needs Jesus but we’re past the point of no return, aren’t we?”

“It’s not that bad. Not quite yet, anyway.”

“Isn’t it? You only say that because you don’t remember how it was before.”

“Then I guess I’m lucky. When you don’t know how good it was, you can’t miss it.”

I didn’t know how much worse things could get. Not then. We called it the Slow Apocalypse because the troubles had taken so long to mount. The future was a dark and looming cloud, but its shadow had taken over the landscape for so long, we were more fatigued than frightened.

The collapse started slow, like when the swamp and the jobs dried up at the same time. Lots of people’s jobs were going away and who’s really going to miss a swamp? With the frogs dead and the crickets gone to wherever crickets go, the nights were quieter. When the power rationing began, we told ourselves that was just the way it was and, with not a light in sight all the way to Atlanta, the stars seemed brighter.

“No shine from the humankind,” Grammy marveled. “No light to compete with the Milky Way. I haven’t seen the night sky so well since my eyes were good and I was younger than you.”

The cost of chicken was the first thing I really noticed. Grammy used to prepare chicken breasts for me, skin off and baked not fried. It was supposed to be healthier that way, for those who cared, for those who still clung to the idea that a longer life was important.

“I prefer the old way, Southern done, fried up with lots of grease,” Grammy told me, “but we gotta keep you strong and healthy for what’s ahead.”

“What’s ahead?” I asked.

“A whole lot less than what’s behind.”

Then Grammy stopped buying chicken. The price climbed too high. “We used to keep chickens in the yard back in Raleigh. We were poor but we never went hungry. Mostly we lived off the eggs but even the eggs are getting up there.” 

“Up where?”

“Up where we don’t belong, with the rich folks.”

The pig fever epidemic had hit hard the first fall that Daddy, Mama and Sissy were away. China slaughtered almost all of them.

“They got a few pigs left in a special zoo underground somewhere,” Grammy said. “Keepin’ ’em around so’s they don’t go extinct, preserving the DNA so they can bring ’em back someday. If that grand resurrection happens, it’ll be long after my day. Too bad. My mother used to make me bacon on grilled cheese when I came home from school each day. I used to love head cheese and trotter stew.”

“Trotter stew?” I made a face and she laughed. Later, when all was quiet and I had some time to think, I wondered if Grammy was trying to turn my stomach on purpose, maybe to make me miss bacon less. The veggie bacon from the food bank wasn’t quite the same.

Then, when the embargoes began, the grocery store changed. There was still stuff on the shelves but nothing was fresh. “Food all tastes the same now,” Grammy complained, “as if it’s the same crap in different molds, processed up the wazoo and bland. Even the packaging is bland now. They don’t even have to bother with making the labels colorful and pretty anymore. You get what you get and you’re told to be grateful. Unless it’s the outhouse, I forget why I walked into a room these days. My memory of better days is still good, though. That’s kind of cruel, isn’t it? Makes you think God got tired of us and wandered away to work on more interesting projects.”

A little weary of her whining, I reminded her there was a war on. 

“Always was, always will be,” Grammy spat. “And when do you think your mother, father and Sissy will get back from it? You listen to the news. How we doin’?”

“They say we’re winning.” Even as I said it, no strength bolstered my words. “Let it alone, Grammy.”

I missed my parents. Rich and Kacy Beatriz were both Army infantry.

“We met while we were on containment duty,” Mama told us. “I looked over and here was this big man with a jaw like a steam shovel and I thought, ‘Now that’s a man.’ Rich looked over at me and our eyes met. We knew right away, like we’d been spending our lives waiting for the other one to show up.”

Mama and Daddy were married by an Army chaplain in a tent on the side of a hill looking out at Alcatraz. They had one night of leave, conceived Sissy and went right back to manning the barriers the next morning.

I loved that story. Despite the demands of their work, my parents saw each other’s best selves. Bad times don’t always build heroes but they met at a time when they could still believe in their mission to protect our country.

“Your daddy and the propapundits say good times are comin’ back,” Grammy said. “They’re taking their damn time and mighta gotten lost along the way. I wonder where they all are right now.”

“Leave it alone, Grammy. They’ll be back when they can come back.”

“You gonna look for a job, Kismet?”

“Leave it alone, Grammy.”

My sister found work following my parents into the service.

“Smart as a whip, that girl,” Grammy told me. “But too good for this place, always had her eye on the horizon. Your sister always wanted to be somewhere else even though all places are pretty much the same.”

Sissy was born Susan. She got her new moniker after I was born. I couldn’t pronounce her name properly at first and Sissy stuck.

She joined the Air Force. She wanted to take the training in New Chicago to be a doctor. They call it New Chicago but they really mean North Chicago. Chicago officially became two cities but they say it was always two cities, anyway.

Late at night when it was too hot to sleep, I’d sit in Grammy’s rocker and watch for meteors. My grandmother could still name all the constellations but, even without light pollution, she couldn’t see the stars very well, anymore. The diabetes got to her eyes.

Grammy’s memory was getting worse and so was her outlook. “Some nights I lay in bed in the heat and I think one of them big rocks will come down from outer space and put us out of our misery, put us down like a dog. But it ain’t all over. You got some livin’ to do yet. Don’t you worry. There’s still time for you.”

She told me the same thing many times. Even though the news was new to her each time, I sensed less and less conviction.

After she was down for the night, I’d sit out on the porch and wonder how much time there was left and how I should spend it. Time used to be malleable. It could stretch and compress and play tricks. Now it seemed a short and tired thing. Just like our money, it was limited, easy to spend and almost as dried up as the swamp.

It’s true you don’t miss what you never had but I did remember the noise from the frogs and crickets. It was a wild thrum, call and response, a choir whose church was nature. I liked the quiet but too much silence can get to a person. You think you like something and then you get too much of it.

That was how I felt when I got the encrypted message from my sister. My bracelet lit my face, the only electronic glow for miles. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I read and reread her plea. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time and she’d set the note to be delivered months after it was written. She made it clear I was needed, that I was the only one she could trust for the task she’d set. My instructions were short and precise. I had to leave Grammy behind to answer my own call of duty.

I memorized the message and erased it. Then I walked down the road in the dark and knocked on my closest neighbor’s door. Lisa Gott was at her kitchen table reading by an oil lamp. I told her what I needed, what Grammy needed to know and what she didn’t need to know.

Lisa’s husband Buddy was away, stationed in Vancouver, Washington. She understood and didn’t hesitate to agree to help.

I needed her to say yes but, to be polite, I asked, “You’re sure? The refrigerator isn’t even hooked up anymore but Grammy keeps putting things in it. If she runs out of clothes in her bedroom, sometimes that’s where you’ll find them.”

“Kismet, after what you did for this town, for Buddy and me?”

“I took no pleasure in that — ”

“It was necessary. You came through for all of us. You’ll never hear no from me.”

The next morning, I assured Grammy all would be well in my absence. “Lisa will check in on you. The money from Daddy and Mama will keep coming. You always said the wars will never end so you can depend on the money. If you’re short, Lisa can help out with rations from the food bank.”

“You gonna leave a blind old woman to her own self just like that, huh? Just like Sissy and your father. Like your mother, you’ve got that wanderlust. That’s the trouble.”

“Grammy, I love you, but you keep telling me I need a job. You tell me that every day. It’s time I looked where the jobs are. That means going farther down the road.”

“Well, bless us and bless you,” Grammy said sourly. “You know the difference between a hot clammy night you can’t sleep and a sweaty sultry summer night, Kismet?” Grammy asked. “Your mood and your company. You want to survive in this world, you need an umbrella for your troubles. Go into Atlanta and see if y’all can find the right people to keep you safe.”

As I walked down the dusty road headed south past abandoned farms and empty buildings, ragged yellow ribbons were tied around many of the trees. It seemed everyone from the area had at least one family member in the military.

I pushed that thought away and focused on breathing and walking, just like Mama taught me. I told myself I was on an adventure. Bad times can make heroes. I wanted to believe that. I wanted to make it true.

Citizen Second Class is a dystopian tale set in Atlanta. These strong women resist those who would oppress them.

Read the rest here.

That link will take you to the sales page for Citizen Second Class in your native Amazon store. Thanks for reading and thank you for being a reader. I hope you’ll soon become a fan.

~ Robert Chazz Chute

Novels with secret messages

In writing a novel, my first priority is to weave a compelling story with interesting characters with fun twists and solid jokes amid the action. The theme emerges eventually, it does not come first. Now that I’ve written several apocalyptic books, here’s what came out of the subtext of the following works:This-Plague-of-Days-OMNIBUS-Large-2

This Plague of Days: The right person in the right place at the right time can make all the difference in the world and the two most powerful words are “Begin again.”

Amid Mortal Words - High Resolution

Amid Mortal Words: With great power comes great consequences.

AFTER LIFE INFERNO AFTER Life: Through adversity, we evolve.

Robot Planet: Solutions arrive when we embrace our problems, not when we run from them.

Robot Planet - High Resolution

Haunting Lessons: You don’t know the depth of your capabilities until you are challenged.
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Dream's Dark Flight REVAMP full


Dream’s Dark Flight:

We find our power when we let go of the fears that do not serve us.

 

 

Second-Class-Citizen-COVER-DEC-16

And now, Citizen Second Class: Even when at war against the powerful, peace may be achieved not by strength but by bravery and guile.

Citizen Second Class just released. You can pick up my latest dystopian adventure along with all the others here.