Jake's Hand - Prologue. Prologue

I wrote 1969 – Stirrings in 1982 during a particularly lonely and unhappy time in my life, shortly after my divorce from my wife of 12 years. The story was posted on a bulletin board at that time, and then I lost any track of it. In fact, I even lost my original file in one of my many computer upgrades or less-frequent hard-disk crashes.

I wrote the story primarily for my own consumption—to address conflicts in my mind on issues of sexuality and love—but I guess I got the writer’s bug and decided, after drinking a lot of wine one night, to post it on a bulletin board for others to see. It was the result of too much of a mixture of vanity and alcohol, I guess. I wrote it also because I wanted to recognize how some people can enter one’s life briefly then, after departing physically, remain in the background of one’s thoughts, never actually leaving the mind, like an ember in a campfire that might suddenly turn back to life. Jake Cantwell was just such a person.

For reasons that will become apparent, 1969 – Stirrings became the first part of a longer story that follows. I subsequently found a copy of the original story, which I reprint below, except that I have had to change the names used in 1969 – Stirrings to make them conform to those in the follow-on story.