andy cannon
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Everything posted by andy cannon
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For several moments neither of them spoke. The wind moved across the harbour, carrying the smell of salt and seaweed from the dark water below. Somewhere farther along the promenade, a gull cried out. The sound seemed strangely distant. Christopher stood with his hands shoved into his coat pockets, watching Marco hesitate. That, more than anything else, had become intolerable. Every answer led to another question. Every explanation dissolved into implication and half-finished warnings. "No.
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That word "convincing" is rather ominous, LOL! I believe a gauntlet has been tossed.
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That's good! I am finding it tough to address a somewhat complicated plot from the point of view of a character who is largely in the dark without leaving the reader in a similarly confused state or revealing too much too early.
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The memory followed him everywhere. Christopher tried, at first, to explain it away. A concussion, perhaps. Shock. A panic attack brought on by stress and too little sleep. The mind was capable of extraordinary distortions. He knew that much. There were books full of documented cases. False memories. Dissociative episodes. The brain filling gaps with stories it found easier to bear. The explanation sounded sensible each morning, but by evening it felt absurd. Every time he closed his eyes h
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Christopher spent most of Wednesday attempting to concentrate on work. The approaching birthday lingered stubbornly at the edge of his thoughts. Ordinarily he paid little attention to it. Twenty-eighth birthdays carried no particular significance. They arrived and departed much like any other day. This one felt different, from the tidal event through the records stretching back through centuries to Adrien Vale's fear. The coincidence sat uneasily in his mind no matter how oft
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It's tough enough to have scary dreams and abrupt time dislocations, but it is a little excessive to have one's own Greek chorus commenting, "We know what's going on but we won't tell you because it's really bad and don't want to alarm you,"
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Perceptive questions!
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It would be so unsettling, I think. Most people who recount their past lives experience them them as memories without the sensory overload that Christopher is undergoing.
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Christopher spent the following days trying to return to a life that could pass as normal. Classes continued. Essays required marking. Meetings occupied their allotted places in the timetable. The ordinary machinery of life moved forward with complete indifference to whatever had happened upon the tor. Christopher followed along as best he could. The visions had not returned with the same violence. That should have brought relief. Instead it left him with too much time to think. T
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Christopher spent the next several days attempting to restore some semblance of normality to his life. The effort failed. Whenever his thoughts strayed towards the cemetery, he forced them elsewhere. Whenever he remembered Marco standing beneath the yew tree with rain running from his hair and grief hidden behind his eyes, he reminded himself that archaeologists were often eccentric. Whenever he recalled the strange certainty in Marco's voice, he dismissed it as another carefully craft
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The role of Vale will be explained soon, but you are all on the right track.
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We are on the cusp of the acceleration of the revelations of the issue, but you ma be onto something here.
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Christopher spent most of the morning pretending he was not distracted. The pretence convinced nobody. His first class began badly and deteriorated from there. Twice he lost his place in his notes. On one occasion he answered a question that nobody had actually asked. Several students exchanged glances. One of them eventually raised a hand and asked, "Sir, are you alright?" Christopher assured them he was. The reassurance sounded unconvincing even to him. The dream lingered s
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Saturday arrived bright and cold beneath a sky washed pale blue by the night's rain. Christopher left the flat shortly after ten with a canvas shopping bag folded beneath one arm and a short list of errands in his coat pocket. Mrs Patel had asked him to collect a replacement order of coffee beans from one of the suppliers on the far side of town. The task carried him through the centre of Penmere and into the weekly market that occupied the square every weekend throughout the autumn.
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Thank you!
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In my efforts to wrestle my disjointed thoughts into a readable manuscript I usually forget that the readers are not privy to every crazy idea that pops into my head, and as a result, sequences that seem perfectly logical to me actually lack about 40% of the background structure and make about as much sense as a random page from Finnegan's Wake translated into Navajo.
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Very astute observation. There is almost as much material that was relegated to the cutting room floor as actually made its way into this draft, including a couple of scenes with Christopher whining to Jamie about the unsettling man who is intruding in his life. I felt like those conversations reiterated what he had said in his internal monologues, so they were extraneous. I apologize that this pruning may have cut back some needed branches!
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Thank you for the kind words!
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Discovering that reality might not be all it's cracked up to be must be a terrifying moment.
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### Chapter Six ####################################################################################################################################################### The lantern festival transformed the harbour every autumn. Strings of coloured lanterns hung between buildings and across the harbour road, their reflections trembling in the darkening water below. Food stalls lined the promenade beneath canvas awnings striped with rainwater and light. The smell of frying fish drifted
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Right? It's a tough life with all the rain, but adding in ghostly cavalry could keep a guy awake at night.
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Christopher is taking this much better than I would!
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### Chapter Five ### Rain pressed softly against the corridor windows while Christopher crossed the upper floor carrying a stack of Year Eleven essays balanced against one hip and a takeaway cup of coffee in his other hand. The school had not fully woken yet. A few classroom lights glowed beneath closed doors farther along the corridor, and somewhere downstairs a photocopier whined into life. His shoes squeaked faintly against the polished floor. At first he barely noticed
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Another perceptive question! This one is explained further on, so I will allow that to unfold in a timely manner.
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That is a perceptive question that raises an issue I did not fully work out. My thought is that one of the unusually-oriented burial sites is Celyn's, and the Maelor arranged that so he could watch the Marcus Aemilianus depart from Britannia forever as a final "and the horse you rose in on". I would love to hear other theories!
