Another extract from The Enemy Soulmate – on soulmates

I would dearly love to pretend that I do not have a life outside of my writing. I would love to pretend that the only thing stopping me from getting this story finished and published is the story itself. 
However, that is not true; regrettably, even writers are constrained, to a greater or lesser extent, by the unspeakably tedious and mundane world of reality on planet Earth, no matter how much we would prefer not to be. 2016 and 2017 have been exceptionally difficult for me, with the mundane world wreaking merry havoc on my creativity and peace of mind, and that is why, at the end of October 2017, I am still struggling to publish the two books that I want to publish this year. 
One can only keep slogging onwards, and hope that the door really does hit 2017 on the way out. The year is not yet over; there is still time to defeat its monsters.
In the meantime, please enjoy a second extract from the manuscript of The Enemy Soulmate. (You can read the first extract here.)

––––––

There were stories as to why soulmates and soulmarks existed. Some said that, in another life, human beings had once been powerful creatures that threatened to overwhelm and ruin the earth, so the rocks or the wind or the lightning – the tales varied – had split or torn or burned each creature into two, and in this life each half was born as a separate person, each one seeking the other half of the creature they had previously been. And the soulmarks resembled markings that the single creature had had; markings that reappeared when each half recognised the other. Other stories said that humans had once been stars, who drifted in space, lonely and aloof from each other until angels cut them in half and sent them to earth in order to teach them how to love. Some said that souls were created before bodies were, and before birth each soul split itself in two and each half was born in a separate person; so that no matter how lonely a person felt, they could know that somewhere on the same earth was the other part of them. And as for soulmarks, they were obviously the soul’s way of ensuring that both halves found each other.

While Fedir thought the stories were beautiful, he had always suspected that they were just guesses: soulmates existed, but no one really knew why.

People liked it, though. People loved knowing that somewhere out there in the world was a person who was destined to be their perfect companion, who would love them as no one else ever had or could. Who would complement them, and bring out their best self. Although the stories talked about ‘halves’, in truth every person was complete by theirself: like a piece of wooden furniture: perfectly serviceable, and attractive, without a finish. But add a coat of oil, and rub it thoroughly with wax, and suddenly every grain and vein of the wood could shine out: its own natural patterning and colours now heightened and displayed. So it was with soulmates: soulmates did not complete each other, but finished each other. And if soulmates had to do without each other for half a century or more before they finally met, then so be it: a soulmate was worth any amount of waiting, and it was said that soulmates could only meet when they were both ready for each other.

So Fedir had been told.

––––––

The Enemy Soulmate will (eventually!) be published at Smashwords.com, and from there will be distributed to various other online booksellers.

A preview extract from The Enemy Soulmate

Coming soon (but far later than it should): my next book: The Enemy Soulmate. 
Here's an extract.

––––––

Stooped in a thicket of green leaves, Fedir waited, slowing his breathing, his gaze fixed on the grassy bank opposite, about fifty paces away. His left hand gripped his bow, and the gloved fingers of his right held a nocked arrow in place on the string. His battered old linen satchel, and his slim leather hunting quiver with just four arrows in it, were strapped securely aslant his back. At any moment, his target would move into view, into a gap in the Summer foliage that surrounded Fedir. It was late afternoon, after the greatest heat of the day, and the sky was vivid blue, patched with puffy white clouds, with just a slight breeze: a lovely day to be hunting in the forest. This particular prey, however, was not one that Fedir had been hunting for: this was sheer opportunity.

Fedir took one slow, quiet breath. He could hear his own heart thumping. He had never killed a human before.

Another breath. Any second now.

Another breath.

A slight, black-haired, tawny-skinned youth, apparently near Fedir’s age of eighteen, wearing on his back a large leather backpack, a bagged bow and a leather quiver, walked into view in the gap between the leaves through which Fedir was peering, crossing the bank from right to left. Fifty paces with a clear path between him and the target: not a difficult shot, but Fedir would probably only get one chance at it: if he missed, then, depending on what the arrow hit and how noisy the impact was, the youth may well realise that he was being hunted. Fedir tensed his muscles, lifting the bow and beginning to draw it even as he tracked his target’s progress from right to left across the small gap, all in one arc, moving smoothly but carefully lest he betray himself by making the bushes rustle. He had only a couple of seconds before the youth would be past the gap and out of sight —

The youth sat down. At this shifting of his target from up to down, instead of right to left, Fedir faltered, his aim broken, slacking some of the tension on his bowstring. The youth had parked himself on the near end of a low, mossy, half-mouldered log that lay aslant the bank. He was still in profile to Fedir, but now a smaller target – almost folded in half as he perched on his low seat. However, he was stationary: perfect.

Fedir tensed his muscles again, his feet still planted firmly on the leaf litter. He had the luxury of taking his time to aim, now. Anyone from his village could make this shot.

Suddenly Fedir’s left wrist buzzed and throbbed as though it were inflamed. His arm spasmed, almost dropping the weapon. He gasped, crouched, half dropping and half placing the bow and arrow on the ground, unnocking the arrow as he did so, tore off his left glove and fumbled at the straps of his bracer to see what insect was stinging him and how much damage it was doing.

The leather bracer dropped to the leaf litter, and Fedir yanked back his sleeve. There, blooming black on the pale underside of his left wrist, was a shape like a many-pointed star. It looked very like a tattoo. As Fedir watched, wide eyed, its edges became crisper, clearer, until within a few seconds it was clear, every edge and tip of every ray perfect and sharp. There was no swelling of the skin around it, as there would be around a fresh tattoo, but the black had a hint of red to it, like ink mixed with blood.

Oh no.

No. That was impossible.

Fedir rose from his crouch to the gap in the leaves, and positively hurled his glance around the clearing in the forest, looking to the trees on either side, the grass and small bushes in front, the grassy, tree-topped bank beyond, the sky above and the leaf litter at his feet, even over his shoulder into the thicket, hoping against hope that somehow there was someone else nearby, someone he had seen without realising he’d seen them, someone who wasn’t the enemy …

But his brain told him that there was no one else around, and his gut told him that this black-haired boy was it.

His soulmate.

––––––

I had expected this to be a short story, but – as so many of my 'short' stories do – it has crept into novella territory, and a sizeable novella at that.
When this book finally lets me finish it, it will be published at Smashwords.com, and from there will be distributed to various other online booksellers.

A preview extract from Purple Flowers

Coming soon: Purple Flowers; Or, How To Get Your Best Friend To Forgive You.
Here's an extract.

––––––

As she came downstairs, heading for the kitchen, Sophia heard laughter in the front hall. Her younger brother and his best friend had evidently returned from the cinema.

In the kitchen, Sophia filled the electric kettle and switched it on to boil. The guys were still in the hall, laughing hugely. The movie must have been hilarious, Sophia thought to herself. She selected a mug from the kitchen drawer, and then, perplexed by so much laughter, approached the hall, still clutching the mug by its handle.

Her brother Jay, dark haired and blue eyed, was leaning his back against one wall, almost weeping with laughter. Supporting himself with one outstretched hand pressed against the opposite wall, his complexion pink with mirth beneath his light brown hair, was Jonathan, who had been Jay’s best friend for so long that Sophia regarded him as a sort of adoptive cousin.

“Was the movie that good?” she asked them.

“No,” Jonathan told her, catching his breath momentarily; “I mean, it was, but that’s not what we’re laughing about.”

Sophia looked from one to the other. “Well, what was so funny? You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“As we were coming out of the cinema –” Jay began.

“‘Coming out’!” Jonathan giggled.

Jay snorted with fresh laughter, and Sophia had to wait a moment while he recovered.

“As we were exiting the cinema,” he resumed, “we saw this little girl dropping leaves into the gutter, one by one, with this really serious, focussed look on her face, and Jonathan leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘Soon my death-ray will be complete!’” – both boys giggled “– which was a line from the movie, you see, and it was so funny …” Jay took a breath. “So we were standing there, trying not to show that we were laughing, because we didn’t want the little girl to be weirded out by two strangers standing there laughing at her, you see; and there was a lady standing nearby, – about Mum’s age, maybe; and she looked at us strangely –”

“Queerly, even!” Jonathan cackled.

Jay gasped with laughter, sliding his back down the wall until he was sitting on the hallway floor. “Stoppit, you idiot … I’m trying to tell her …”

Sophia raised her eyebrows, with a slight, patient sigh, beginning to smile at the guys’ mirth even before she knew what the joke was.

“And Jay said something about the human race being brought to its knees by the power of the death-dealing deciduous leaf,” Jonathan added, while Jay recovered somewhat.

“Okay,” Jay resumed, “so we’re standing there, sort of sniggering and whispering together but trying not to look like we’re sniggering –”

“Sniggering in each other’s ears,” Jonathan supplied.

“Right; and this lady was looking at us strangely, and then she leaned in closer and said –” Jay took a deep breath to stop himself subsiding back into laughter – “‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but – are you two “together”?’”

Jonathan giggled anew, holding his abdomen with one hand while the other covered his mouth to keep himself from interrupting Jay’s story.

“And we looked at her blankly, and then we both realised what she meant … She was asking if … she was asking if we were in a gay relationship! And so Jonathan …”

“I put my arm around his neck,” Jonathan said, through his laughter, “and kissed him on the cheek, and said –”

Jay roared with laughter on the hallway floor, knowing what was coming next.
“– ‘Why? Are you jealous?’”

Sophia cackled gleefully.

“And the look on her face … it was just a beautiful moment.” Jay held up his hand, and Jonathan leaned down to high-five it.

“Totally worth being temporarily gay for,” Jonathan agreed.

“What business was it of hers?” Sophia asked rhetorically. 
 “Exactly,” Jonathan agreed. “What kind of question is that to ask a couple of total strangers?”

“But it did give us an awesome story to tell.” Jay wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, almost hiccupping in the aftermath of his mirth.

––––––

Purple Flowers; Or, How To Get Your Best Friend To Forgive You will soon be published on Smashwords, and from there it will be distributed to a variety of other online booksellers.

A preview extract from We Are Both Mammals

Coming soon: We Are Both Mammals, my first science-fiction book. Here's an extract.

–––––––

The next thing I remember with any degree of clarity is that the clock on the wall read five o’clock, and I could tell by the gloom that it was early in the morning. I blinked, feeling more awake than before, and pressed the pad under my hand.

In a moment a pair of nurses arrived, both female, wearing pale blue uniforms, and they seemed vaguely familiar somehow. They put on a dim light, raised the upper part of the bed a little, and helped me to drink. There was a cabinet at my left that held the disposable cup from which I had been drinking.

As one of the nurses, standing at my left, helped me to drink, I realised that the other was on the other side of the large bed, on my right, doing something. As my brain cleared a little more, I looked sluggishly in that direction, and realised that there was another patient in the bed with me: a thurga.

For an instant my drug-addled brain thought it was an animal, as thurga-a do resemble brushtail possums in many ways, though they have longer limbs and are the size of a large domestic cat; and it was mostly covered by the bedclothes, as I was, as it lay on its back over a metre away from me. Its furry, dark brown arms, with their hands like a rat’s forepaws, lay on the sheets that reached to its chest. As the creature’s bright dark eyes looked back at me from its dark-furred face, I recognised it as a thurga: a native of the planet on which I was living and working.

“Daniel,” said the nurse on my left, very gently, “have you met Toro-a-Ba?”

In that instant, a curious and terrifying thing happened. It was as though my brain realised long before I did that something was horribly wrong. Whether it was the nurse’s tones or the puzzling sight of the thurga sharing my hospital bed or something else, I do not know; but a sick chill gripped my heart. I stared stupidly at the thurga, which held my gaze.

“No,” I murmured, not understanding why I felt such trepidation.

“Daniel, you and Toro-a-Ba have undergone the same surgery.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, wondering vaguely why the thurga’s surgery was relevant to mine.

“Hello, Daniel,” the thurga said to me softly, in English, and there was what seemed like great tenderness in its voice, almost as though it knew me well. Something about this seemed very wrong to me, but I could not understand what. Perhaps I was supposed to know this thurga. To a human, many thurga-a look very similar, so perhaps I did know this one and simply didn’t recognise it, or something … My head felt so muzzy and bewildered …

“Hello,” I mumbled blankly in reply, still regarding the thurga.

But I was weary already, just from being awake, so I rolled my head back to its normal position of looking straight ahead, and my eyes closed almost without my command, and drowsiness subsumed me. I barely felt the hospital bed being lowered gently back into its almost-horizontal position beneath me.

And even as I drifted to welcome sleep, something in the back of my mind squirmed uneasily. 

–––––––

We Are Both Mammals will soon be published on Smashwords, where it will be available to download in a variety of formats for a small price. You'll also be able to find it at a number of other online booksellers.