Probability Angels: Part 8

Probability Angels: Part 8

Probability Angels

Part 8: Osmosis

By

Joseph Devon

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(Please note: This story is the eigth part of a series of stories beginning with, “Probability Angels: Part 1,” and while it is designed to stand alone it does draw heavily on the foundation of characters and events that were created in “Probability Angels: Part 1,” and continued through Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Basically, I have to highly recommend that you start at “Probability Angels: Part 1” and continue on in order. You can find them labeled and all in a row over in the categories section on the side of your screen.

Or you can go here and buy the book or go here and view the book in its entirety.)

Matthew pinched the cigar between his fingers, feeling the tacky give of the outer leaves. Bringing it to his face he breathed in through his nose and let the earthy bitterness of the tobacco fill his head, the smell always making him feel at ease and somehow calling up memories of childhood games of football in the backyard when the leaves covered the ground and winter barely hung in the air.

There was a sound, a hard thump and then the rattle of stones.

He turned and walked up the mountain.

There was a group of testers up on a rise, a lantern sat in the center of them warding off the dead of night. Matthew joined the circle, placing the cigar in his mouth, drawing air through it with a few laborious puffs before the tip burst into flames. He put his hands in his pockets and turned his attention to Mary.

She was standing in front of a dry-erase board. Her outfit consisted of a light sundress and a loose knit sweater. The wind affected her and she frequently and automatically readjusted the sweater as the gusts roaring over the mountaintop pulled it back, but she didn’t seem aware of the cold. One bare arm was crooked at her side, a hand perched on her hip while the other flicked up and tugged a thick blond curl up over her ear and out of her face. Then her hand went down and her short frame became motionless again, staring at the dry-erase board.

“It’s been almost twelve hours,” the tester standing next to Matthew said. Read more

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I’m enjoying this one

Okay. For starters, it’s absolutely pouring outside. And five minutes ago it was sunny and clear. Very interesting.

I’m having fun with this story. First of all, a complete draft is finished, which is always a nice feeling. Secondly, the ending of the Matthew and Epp story is, sort of, kind of, coming into focus. Maybe. And that’s helpful. It’s pretty stressful hurtling head on through a story with no clear idea of how it’s going to end.

Mostly though, the enjoyment of this story is coming from the fact that once this is done I get to just keep thinking about Matthew and Epp. I don’t have to switch gears and make up two entirely different stories, then come back to them. I’m not real sure how I wound up in that pattern to begin with, and it seemed to work out so I shouldn’t bad mouth it too much, but those clunky gear shifts are rough.

What I’m noticing too is that I’m not very hung up anymore on making these sections into self contained stories. The previous sections were designed to stand alone pretty well. I’m not kidding myself, mind you. I know that you couldn’t exactly read Part 7 and nothing else and get a whole lot out of it. But still, there’s less of a short-storyish feel going on now and more of a chapterish feel. These final chunks will still be self contained, I’m not going to leave off mid-sentence or anything, but I feel much freer (is that a word?) to introduce some things here and there that I know won’t be resolved, or even explained, until the next section.

So that’s nice.

Really, though, I’m just excited to have my weekends back a month from now.

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The joys of Matthew and Epp

Writing these stories always provides a baffling array of problems. For instance, this time around I have a web page open with a world clock on it and another web page open that can calculate distances between major cities. I’m constantly clicking between the two trying to keep tabs on my characters. These stories present the odd problem of characters who don’t exactly sleep and who can change times zones instantly. So if I throw a sunset into a scene as a backdrop, I suddenly find myself scrambling four scenes later to try and make sure the time six countries away matches up with that sunset.

Considering how this type of logistical stuff doesn’t compute in my head, and considering the number of times I’ll, without realizing it, peg a scene to a certain time just for mood enhancement, this starts to get very tricky.

And that’s just for starters.

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Oh, to hell with it

I’m nowhere and I’m completely locked up so I’m bolting.  No more thinking about Matthew and Epp for awhile.  I’m going to go out, see some friends, drink beer, have some laughs and hope that things will work out over the weekend…which they will.

This seems a wiser choice than sitting here and typing about how I have nothing to type about.

Have a good Memorial Day Weekend, all.

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Tick, tick, tick, tick

Okay.  I’m honestly getting pretty nervous.  I have to end this freakhog thing, in three stories no less.  Or maybe less.  It’s more likely that it won’t be less.  Huh?

Seriously, though, I’m a little frozen up.  I’ve got a lot of things up in the air and now every step I take with any character or situation has to begin to push those things towards their ending…which I don’t know.  I’m pretty sure I should just dive in and write an opening scene, but I’m not doing that.  I’m too nervous.

Also I don’t know my opening scene yet.  There are like five that I’m thinking of using.

So I’m sort of in limbo here with no real notion of whether I should proceed or keep toying or what.  Toying is so much more fun.  It just doesn’t finish books is all.

So nervous.

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“Liquid Calling” gets picked up

A publication called “People’s Art and Literature to Go” has asked for permission to publish “Liquid Calling.” They’re a new magazine in the San Fransisco area that’s going to have its first publication out in August. This is interesting. Obviously it’s great that they want one of my stories and all that, but this is the first time one of these stories has jumped from the web to traditional publishing.

It’ll be interesting to see how this goes.

There’s also the fact that “Liquid Calling” was the first story in this project…and here we are with only three stories left to go. Sniff. It’s kind of making me all nostalgic.

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Repetitive babble

I know I keep saying this but I still don’t quite know how this Matthew and Epp thing is going to end.  It’s very strange.  I’m fairly certain that by this time next month it will all be worked out, yet right now I’m completely clueless.  And where it really gets weird is, a month from now, I’ll be looking back and have no recollection of when things came together.  The choices that I’ll have made will seem so obvious to me that it will seem like they were there all along.

I hadn’t even met Kyo until the third story, but at this point it seems like I had planned to have him in there all the while.  Gregor was also a no show until the third story, yet he somehow became a huge character in all of this.  Not to mention when their names and looks and personalities came together.  This is such a weird process.

So very weird.

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We’re changing things up a bit

So there are three stories left.  And I have a Matthew and Epp story up next.

Now, I have no idea how Matthew and Epp ends.  Nor do I have a real clear idea of how much story is left for Matthew and Epp.  So here’s the deal.

From here on our it is all going to be Matthew and Epp.  All M&E all the time.  Nothing but sweet sweet testing craziness and deep resonant philosophical statements…and probably some kung fu thrown in as well.

I’m not sure I’ll need three stories to finish this up, but this way I can be sure I’ll have the space I need to find my ending and I won’t feel compelled to slap a finishing point in where there isn’t one.   Hopefully with this much leeway things will be able to run their natural course.

Hopefully.

God, I have no idea how this ends….

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I’ve honestly lost count

As I sat in my desk chair earlier this evening eating the remains of a week old bag of potato chips, waiting for my chain-restaurant burrito to be delivered and watching some horrible movie on Comedy Central, something occurred to me.   I really need to think of better ways to spend my nights off.

In my WordPress dashboard that I use to manage this site it says there are 22 entries in the Stories category.   I’m almost entirely certain that this last one was story number 23, though, so I’m confused.  As far as I know I have three stories left and the next one is going to be a Matthew and Epp one.

That’s as far as I know, mind you, which is not very far (that doesn’t make sense).  Anyway.

Go tell some friends about me. Clearly nothing interesting will be happening here.  I’ll resume being witty on Monday.

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