Chapter One of Something New

Hey there, it’s Michael! I had a thought just now, and that thought was that I should share the first chapter of this tale that I’ve been writing these past two months and change. It’s my first full-length foray into prose and away from the confines and safety of poetry. It’s exciting, however, because without the schemes and rules of poetry, there’s a new sense of freedom in how to use words and play with them! I’ve been trying to read as much good fiction as I can, and to study the great writers and learn what made them so effective.

But all this is just a little rambling preface, and I want to share the first draft of the first chapter of this new thing. I hope that it’s a fun teaser of things to come, and that’s all I’ll say about that 🙂

Chapter One: The Comet

The hour was a late one, and the black-and-blue sky was enormous. Stars speckled every measurable inch of the canvas, as if the great painter dipped his brush in pure silver then let it drip across the night. Here and there, a speck of star would twinkle and pulse as though to say, “Here I am! Brighter than my brethren and not for no reason!” Arrogant little stars, there’s no denying it. Wispy, threadbare clouds tugged themselves lazily through the circumference of the sky, doing a poor job veiling the sparkling host behind them. They would have to do better on a night as bright as this one. And amidst all this—the good-for-nothing clouds and the stars of whom some were mightily arrogant—a harvest moon as bold as life acted as the overseer of all these proceedings. The great painter must have taken a second brush, dipped it in a pale-orange, then let it make a big splotch right in the center of his canvas. Artistic license goes to the artist, as they say! And such was the condition of the sky the night that Finnegan and Sylvie sat outside to watch the meteor-shower. 

“I’m bored,” declared Finn, unimpressed by a sky which thus far had yielded little in the way of action. “I thought meteor showers meant big, flaming rocks crashing down into trees! Or, you know, something like that. This is just the sky.”

Finn had turned ten-years-old a week-and-a-half prior, and he had been sure to let everybody and their mailman know it. Had he not been so irritated with the sky for categorically disappointing him, he probably would have told each of the stars as well. 

“I think it’s pretty,” said Sylvie, even more declaratively than her brother. “Look at the moon, Finn! You can see spots on the surface.”

Finn was looking at his unspotted hands. “No flaming rocks. No trees on fire. What’s the point? Mom!” Finn called, “Can I go in and watch something?”

Ellen Stevens, seated in a camp chair some five-feet behind her disparately-enthused children, was a woman so full of light that her equatorial smile could go toe-to-toe with the brightness of even a sky such as this. At present, she was not wearing said equatorial smile.

“Finn, the only reason you aren’t still in bed is because you wanted to watch the meteor shower,” she said. “If you’re ready to go back to bed, that’s fine. If not, do what your sister’s doing—enjoy the sky! These nights don’t come around often.”

“Okay, mom,” said Finn, who returned to inspecting that wondrous piece of nature known as his hands. 

The Stevens’ house was a little square set in a little town which was located in a little state (though not the smallest state, as certain Connecticuters named Finnegan would be the first to tell you). It was two stories, painted a lighted-grey with a red door facing the street, and around the windows were red shutters to match the dark red of the door. A uniform line of red-maple trees dressed for Autumn made a half-circle around the back of the house, almost as if the house were nestled into a maple-alloy horseshoe. Sylvie liked horses, and this picture pleased her. The front yard was more open than the back, with a climbable crab-apple tree square in the middle of the yard and a thickly grown, unclimbable spruce-tree closer to the side of the house.  Ellen, Finnegan, and Sylvie were sitting in the front yard, facing Finch Street and craning their necks up towards the inimitable and expansive heavens. Well, two of them were. 

“Hey guys,” Ellen said, “just a little while longer and then it’s bedtime. I’m gonna go fix your lunch for tomorrow, so behave and don’t go running into the road. Finnegan, watch your sister and yourself, little man. I love you.” 

“Okay, Mom,” Finn said, as Ellen got up from her chair, made her way through the carport and went back into their house. The clock had just ticked its merry way into midnight, and Tuesday had handed the seven-man-relay baton off to Wednesday. It was early Autumn, and both Finnegan and his sister would have school in the morning. The weather in Connecticut hadn’t turned particularly cold yet, but Ellen had given blankets to both of her children all the same. Sylvie was bundled up in her green blanket like a snug little pea cocooned within its pod, and Finnegan the brave had boldly strewn his blanket to the wayside. That is, until a breeze with just the right amount of teeth came and sent a shiver down the back of his neck, at which point Finn joined the ranks of the snug little peas. 

Side-by-side the children sat in their folding chairs, while mom was just inside stacking turkey and cheese on top of white bread. Now that the initial thrill of the night’s proceedings had begun to wear off, both Finn and Sylvie could feel creeping tiredness starting to wear against their eyelids, as if the sandman had floated in to sprinkle drowsy golden dust upon his unsuspecting targets. It was within this short window of time when normalcy was told to pack its bags. 

“Hey Finn, did you see that?” asked Sylvie, trying to get her brother’s attention and pointing at the sky. “That one was really bright!” 

“No it wasn’t, Sylvie,” he said.

“You didn’t even look! Wow, there’s another one. Mom! Hey mom, come look!”

Ellen was too far away to hear her daughter’s impassioned plea, but this burst of life amidst a sleepy period was enough to get Finn to really stop and pay attention to the sky one more time. And one more time was all it took. Silvery tears were streaming down the night’s cheek, withholding no amount of the awe both children had preconceived in their imaginations. 

“Look Sylvie!” said Finn. “Wow, there’s so many. Maybe heaven is sad.”

It was raining in space, and neither Finn or Sylvie could hide the wonder-born smiles from their sun-bright faces. This alone would have made the night unforgettable, and neither child had any clue that this part of the shower was a subtle herald for what was coming next. From the furthest corner of the canvas, a great spot of light came streaming into view with what looked like a ring of small stars orbiting it. The color of the comet was a molten-orange fringed with green, as if a fire broke out in a moss-covered pastel factory. As to where it was going, neither child had so much as the foggiest of senses, and frankly they didn’t care. It was beautiful. As beautiful as an Arizona sunset seen from a great rocky height; as beautiful as the seamless and preternatural circles great schools of fish swim in with their perfect uniform fluidity; as beautiful as their mother was in their eyes. 

“Quick, Sylvie, make a wish!” cried Finn, who was thinking as hard as he could about what to wish for himself. 

“Good idea, Finn!” 

The comet streaked by the cascading white blips, and when it approached the moon it seemed as if a mighty crash would result. But the comet passed by the moon without so much as a tremble, and very soon passed out of the children’s sight. Then all was still, and the sky resumed its regular pattern of things generally staying put. Maybe one or two minutes after the calm had fallen, Ellen came back outside to retrieve her aptly-phrased ‘star-struck’ kids. 

“Mommy, mommy, mommy!” said Finnegan, who couldn’t say the word fast enough or enough times. “There was a giant meteor! Like twenty-times bigger than all the other ones, and it was red and green and—and—it was awesome!”

  “Yeah!” said Sylvie, “It was sooo pretty. I wish you could have seen it, mom! I wonder if it will come back?”

Ellen, the artful sandwich crafter, thought for the umpteenth time just how much she loved her children’s vivid imaginations. They amazed her on a daily basis, and this time they seemed to be in cahoots. “That sounds so cool, you guys! Did you each make a wish?”

“Of course,” said Finn.

“What did you wish for?”

“I can’t tell you, Mom!” protested Finn, “Then it wouldn’t come true!”

“Oh, okay,” said Ellen, “We wouldn’t want that. Did you make a wish, Sylvie?”

“Yeah! It’s a big wish, too.”

“That’s awesome, I’m really happy you had fun! And now it’s bedtime, okay? You each have school in the morning.” 

“Okay, Mom,” they said in disappointed unison, and began the arduous trek back inside and upstairs. It didn’t take long for either Finn or Sylvie to fall fast asleep, but the pictures which played in each of their heads were carbon-copies of that same comet which had streaked through the sky. That resplendent nova now took up permanent residence in their imaginations, and it would stand to reason that that would be the end of it. It would stand to reason. This, however, is not the sort of tale to hold firmly onto silly little things like reason, and that would not be the end of it. Not even close.