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- Herausgeber: Bentockiz
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
The game played out in its normal order and the bleacher fans meandered about and acted out their requisite sideshow of boos and cheers. It was late in the game, when some guy with a crewcut and a tan uniform made what he would later claim was a compliment regarding the shapely breasts encased in the scanty halter top of a woman seated amidst a group of long-haired, scraggly bearded, bare-shouldered men in black leather vests.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Title Page
Calm and Understanding
Unjustified Changes
Angel Rupert
Calm and Understanding / 7th of series: Unjustified Changes / By Angel Rupert
Published 2023 by Bentockiz
e-book Imprint: Uniochlors
e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden
e-book ISBN: 9789198847062
e-book editing: Athens, Greece
Cover Images created via AI art generators
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Introduction
Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.
It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.
This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.
This may be the start of something amazing.
Chapter One
Allison stopped by Ian’s office on Monday afternoon. “We missed you at Jimmy’s Friday night.”
“Good. I didn’t miss you.”
“Zach really missed you.”
“I’m sure you kept him entertained.”
“Not really. It was just me and Mary, and we were fighting.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know—something foolish.”
“Not confession, was it?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. I don’t know.”
“Sounds like a great argument.”
“Did you know Matt’s mother died over the holidays?”
“Yes. How’d you find out?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He wasn’t telling anyone so I didn’t either. How’d you find out?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“While we were having lunch in The Gardens on Friday. It was such a beautiful day.”
“He told Mary too?”
“No, it was just me and Matt.”
“Allison, what the hell are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Having a romantic little picnic in The Gardens. Letting him tell you about his mom.”
“It wasn’t a romantic little picnic. It was just a spur of the moment decision to have lunch outdoors on a pretty day. And I didn’t ‘let him’ tell me about his mom. He didn’t ask my permission. He just told me—his choice, not mine.”
“And you think it’s just coincidence that you were the first one from work he told, and he just happened to tell you while you were alone together on a picnic?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. I have no idea why he decided to tell me first. I’m honored and I’m touched and I feel real sorry for him. I don’t see any harm in that. I don’t think it’s bad for a friend to share something that’s bothering him. I think it’s a good thing. That’s what friends are for.”
“Allison, knock it off. You might snow everybody else with this ‘it’s all innocent’ crap. You might even snow yourself. But you won’t snow me. You’re playing games with something that shouldn’t be played with. The only guy whose burdens you should be sharing is Zach. He’s your husband. Let Matt get all sappy and emotional with some girl that isn’t already spoken for.”
Allison bore the full brunt of this without flinching. When he’d finished, she actually smiled, though thinly. “Next time, don’t sugarcoat it. Just tell me straight.”
Ian would have none of it. “You don’t want me to tell you straight.”
“Who appointed you judge over my life?”
“That’s what real friends are for—to tell you when you’re screwing up. And you’re screwing up big time. Now I know why Mary was mad at you.”
She had to marvel at Ian’s uncanny insight. How could one so cool and removed be so observant? “She got trashed. We both did. Zach had to ride with her to make sure she got home safe.”
“That’s a laugh—the blind leading the blind.”
“No, you’re wrong. Zach quit drinking, at least for one weekend. He was sober as a judge and took good care of us both.”
“What brought that on?”
She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. He doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Maybe he will, if you quit too.”
“What—drinking?”
“Cheating.”
She stared at him for the longest time, then turned and left the office.
Long nights later Jase was again alone in his car by the gutted factory. He had waited many nights after the others had left, needing to wait but ashamed of his need, and disappointed by its futility.
He was sober (only a few beers downed early) and wide awake, but it was late and he’d already waited over an hour. He reached for the key, resigned to another night of fitful sleep and vivid dreams of confinement (different scenes but always the same ending—locked doors, bare and unyielding walls).
But he stopped, his hand on the unturned key. There was a full moon, bright glow through summer’s humid haze. He knew he wouldn’t sleep for a while, so he got out of the car and walked. No reason or destination, just movement beneath the moon, temporary release from the burden of sleep.
There were woods behind the building. He knew them well, the trees having harbored his earliest drinking sprees—undiluted whiskey from his parents’ cabinet. He found the path which wound for miles through the woods. He had never followed it to its end (maybe never ended, for all he knew). It was a clear path and he would follow it until he got tired.
It was dark beneath the trees, brush thick on both sides, summer’s full leaves overhead. The moon threw a rare shaft of silver light on the path and guided him with a diffuse glow, but he could see only a few feet ahead and hardly at all to either side. He heard water flowing to his right and an overgrown path branching off in that direction. He remembered the narrow stream, had fished it for brook trout years ago. He knew this path led to a cluster of rocks beside the stream. He turned and followed the new path, soon coming upon the rocks and the water. There was a break in the canopy and moonlight shined brightly, glowing on the fast-moving water, bathing the rocks in a silver haze. He watched the water flow past into the dark of the trees and the brush. His mind was empty and tired now. He thought of returning to the car.
“God’s chosen path.”
The words were a whisper but struck with quiet force against his back. At first he thought they were imagined, born of the night and the gurgling stream. Then he knew they were real, realized he’d expected them, had waited long years for their arrival.
He turned, surprised by his calm, and looked across the rocks to the woods beyond. At the edge of the clearing, sitting on a fallen trunk, was the girl who had sat in his car weeks past. She sat with her face to the moon. And him. He smiled but didn’t move. He finally spoke. “Woods nymph.”
“Pretty but false. Just another human waiting.”
He thought, You and me both, but saved that for later. “Where have you been?”
“Most everywhere.”
“I mean these past weeks, when I’ve waited in the car most every night.” He flushed, embarrassed.
