Dear Readers,
Today another fragment…
As he lay beneath the old blanket on the hard concrete floor, there was a sense of urgency for him to return to the outside world and move on. He had gotten used to the nights like this, the sweat beading at his brow and the uncontrollable shaking within him. He grabbed the Jack Daniels bottle that rested beside him and took the last few swigs to settle his nerves.
He hadn’t always been like this. Once he lived the finest of lives, dined at the classiest restaurants, lived in a home that many can only dream of, and he was a well-respected author. But, that was before the world came crashing down before the darkness overtook the earth before those damn beetles showed up. Those damn beetles, they were the start of it all, the beginning of the end of the world as he knew it.
As the whiskey started to flush through his system, James slowly drifted back to sleep, only to be delivered into a dream of the past, his past. It was an all too familiar memory, one that though it was only a few years past, seemed like more than a lifetime ago.
It was early spring, and James was cleaning up around his cabin along the New River in southwestern Virginia. He had purchased the place several years before as a writing retreat and often fled here when his next novel’s deadlines were approaching.
It was a run-down old shack, but it had been precisely what he was looking for. It was an old hunting cabin that sat on the bank of the river. When he first arrived, the roof was partially collapsed, the windows had been shattered; generally, it was in need of much repair to make it habitable. Knowing who he was, the real estate agent had tried to show him a myriad of houses with much more exquisite amenities, but that would not do. James wanted something he could make his own; even more so, he wanted something isolated and free from the rest of civilization’s distractions.
Shortly after purchasing it, he spent the remainder of that spring and summer restoring it between sprints of writing his newest novel. The work helped him when he would have moments of writer’s block. Something about manual labor freed his mind from the many distractions that would clog it. After the restoration was completed, he flew his wife and daughter out to stay with him for a few days from San Francisco to celebrate Labor Day.
James had returned to the cabin early in the spring and began the process of cleaning up the surrounding area. At this point, he had published three successful novels and was the talk of the literary community. It also meant that his publisher was up his ass to get another book completed and out to his fans.
Each day, his routine had been to wake up at dawn and cast off a small canoe he had purchased from a farmer a little way upriver. He would then sit back and relax, slowly floating down the river and admiring the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Then about nine in the morning, he would begin paddling against the current back to the cabin. He would then spend the next several hours with his laptop open writing or at least trying to. When the writing became too much, he would go for a few swigs of moonshine that he had gotten from one of the locals.
Once he had gotten into the moonshine, the day started to slip away from him. Each sip took his mind farther and farther away from the harsh deadlines and pressure he had been under.
His night would end with him stumbling around a small firepit he had built, either dumping some river water on it or if the flame was just low enough, pissing the last bit of alcohol in him out to smolder the fire.
Through all he had been through in the last five years those little struggles he once felt insurmountable were moments that he now craved to be the only ones he must ever face again.