Hello reading world,
“Elmer Left” is out there. It’s fending for itself (until I get on the ball with a bit more marketing). To be honest, I’m a little sick of Elmer. That will happen when you’ve read it through four times back-to-back-to-back-to-back. In the meantime, I’ve been writing again (thank god!) and I am hard at work on “10,000 Lines,” a dystopian novel inspired by the lyrics of Ben Cooper. Specifically, I’m using his self-titled Electric President Album to create a story. Don’t worry…I got his permission.
Here is a snippet from my writing (coming to you in its first, unedited draft)…
The nighttime digger heard the rumblings amongst the Council members; he sensed their trepidation and unease. He knew they didn’t like the idea that had been proposed to them that afternoon. He saw it in their wide eyes and frozen jaws. He heard it in their choking throats as they forced down bits of sweet rolls and crepes. They pushed the food aside. Their appetite for sweet rolls and crepes quickly diminished. They stared at the speaker with disgust, their faces tinged green. Had they heard him correctly? Had he actually suggested what they thought he suggested?
He had. And that was why the nighttime digger was digging.
There weren’t many shovels in Superbia. Not in private households anyway. There were maintenance crews, after all, and they would take care of any garden plot, fence post, or sidewalk damage that needed fixing. They were fast and efficient. Well-trained. They made owning a shovel obsolete. But the nighttime digger had one anyway.
It was an old shovel. It had been passed down through his family, just like the forbidden knowledge had been passed down: fathers to sons, mothers to daughters. Old mouths to young ears. Desperately sharing everything they knew, resuscitating the feeble truth that tenuously clung to life. He was part of that family line: the truth-sayers, the knowledge-passers. And that was why he was digging.
He dug quickly, silently, sweat beading up on his forehead and neck and sliding down his chest and spine. His hands began to blister and chaff, but he dug relentlessly, thrusting the shovel into the hard ground, stomping on its shoulder, heaving the dirt into an ever-growing pile. The sweat slid, the hands chaffed. The digging did not stop.
Whenever the nighttime digger thought about quitting, he closed his eyes and conjured up faces of the people he cared about. Father, mother, grandparents, members of the resistance, her…
When he thought of her, he dug faster, harder. He needed to do this for her. He needed to protect her. Not that she really needed protection. She was fiery and smart and could fare just fine on her own. But he liked to think that she needed him. He liked the idea of doing something for her, of easing her pain a little. He dug. Faster, harder. He dug. Finally, he hit the wires.
The nighttime digger straightened his back; he smiled. The wires lay prone at the bottom of his six-foot pit. They reminded him of food tube spaghetti: dull, lifeless, staring mildly at the human hovering over it. He raised the shovel and brought the blade crashing down on the mute wires. His green eyes flashed with fire; his teeth gritted. Again and again and again he struck until the wires lay in mutilated bits and he was out of breath from his surge of anger. He looked down at the bits of copper and rubber casing and absentmindedly rubbed his forehead with a sleeve.
He breathed in and imagined his lungs filling with good, clean soil and hard work and fresh night air. He breathed out and imagined all the poisons from his body—his pain, his tragic thoughts, his sore muscles—exiting his body and floating into the hole to rest beside the murdered wires. With a shrug, he picked up the shovel again. His blistered hands gripped the handle; he steadied his shoulders. Trying to ignore the sharp pains that shivered down his spine, he hunched, thrust, scooped, and emerged with a shovelful of black dirt. He stared indifferently at the dirt for a moment, taking in its blackness, feeling its weight in the cup of the shovel. He flung it into the hole.
Author: KateBitters
Kate Bitters is a Minneapolis-based author and freelance writer. She is the author of Elmer Left, Ten Thousand Lines, and He Found Me. One of her proudest/nerdiest moments was when Neil Gaiman read one of her short stories on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater.
Awesome. I can't wait to read the rest!