Absolute Conviction
Photo Credit: Greg Rakozy
“Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.” – Paulo Coelho
Today I’m sharing a short fiction I wrote for my first homework assignment in the course I’m enrolled in at McNally Robinson classroom, Enhance Your Storytelling. The workshops, assignments, and opportunity to be in community with other writers injected me with a creative energy boost and I’m grateful. This scene is inspired by characters from my current manuscript-in-progress, which is a historical fiction, a love story, and a testimony of faith.
At eleven years of age, Jacob Hammond discovered he was a manifester. To be truthful, he’d had inklings of such insights before, going back as early as when he’d dreamt of his baby sister lying in a sink full of water, her eyes wide with fear as the fluid filled her tiny lungs. He’d only just turned three. He was too young then to realize it had been a premonition. This time, he knew with absolute conviction and a knowing rooted in his soul.
It was mid-August when Jacob, in amongst the multitude of anxiety dreams of who his teacher would be and what trouble Edward might get himself into, had a pleasant vision of a boy he’d never met. It was strange for the sleeping Jacob to sense he knew the boy, despite not having any recognition of his features. The boy was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, with creamy white skin so translucent and perfect it felt like perhaps he wasn’t a boy at all, but an angel. The angel boy had smiled at him in the dream and held out his hand for him to take hold. When he’d grasped the boy’s hand in his own it had felt like putting on an old favourite sweater. Yet even as he’d felt the comforting, warm sensations flood over him, the feeling shifted into an ethereal memory of his mother, on the day of her funeral. The same peacefulness mixed with sorrow swelled up inside him and he awoke from the dream with a vibrancy in his spirit, excited to begin a new day.
Several weeks had transpired without incident; no chance meeting with the dreamy angel boy. Then, on the Saturday of the September long weekend, Jacob’s father made an announcement over breakfast.
“A new family just moved into the village,” Walton said after swallowing back the last drop of coffee from his mug and setting it on the table. “There’s a boy, the same age as you two,” Walton continued, with a nod of his head towards Jacob and his twin brother, Edward. “He’ll be arriving here later this morning, and I expect you boys to make the newcomer feel welcome.”
Jacob felt an unexpected quickening in his heart at the news, which he quickly dismissed when Edward kicked him in the shin beneath the kitchen table, followed by a swift elbow in the ribs.
“If this boy is a pain in the neck, you’ll be the one to entertain him,” Edward announced in a whisper only Jacob could hear.
“What if he’s a great inventor, like Patrick, or an adventurer, like our Evan?” Jacob countered. “I suppose you’ll kick me to the sidelines then?”
Edward only grunted and rose from the table with his empty porridge bowl, which he tossed rather brusquely into the kitchen sink for Victoria to clean up after him. Jacob wondered for the thousandth time how it was they were identical in their looks when their personalities were so opposite.
Later, he and Edward were sitting on the front porch building an intricate new township with their wooden Lincoln logs when an old beaten-down Chevy Malibu drove up the lane to their cottage, a cloud of dust and gravel in its wake. The car stopped about twenty feet away and their father, who had been raking leaves in the front yard, set his rake against the side of the house, wiped his hands down the front of his coveralls, and approached the driver’s side.
Jacob was watching with fascination, Edward engrossed in balancing one log atop another, when the passenger door opened, and a figure emerged. The boy came around the front of the car and stopped in front of Walton, reaching out his hand in greeting. Jacob’s eyes almost popped right out of his head as he realized with stunning clarity that this was the real-life incarnation of the angel boy in his dream.
COMING UP…
Books & Projects:
· All four of my books are available online at Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, and Barnes & Noble. You can also find them at select Chapters-Indigo and El Hombre de la Mancha bookstores.
· I am pursuing representation from a traditional publisher for my fifth literary fiction, a psychological drama that explores the complexities of mental illness and trauma. Stay in touch by signing up for my blog or following me on social media to find out when it will be published.
Reviews & Interviews:
· You can read, listen, or watch a large selection of reviews and interviews on my website.
Events:
· There are no events currently scheduled in my calendar.
YouTube Channel:
· Watch The Rogue Scorpion trailer.
· Watch The Holding trailer.
Watch The Healing trailer.