Incurable Vanity E-Book

Angel Rupert

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I’d forgotten how lonely this hill could be. So now I guess you just can’t leave. The trees and the hawks and the fish in the pond won’t have it, not to mention this one forlorn soul rattling around in his too quiet cave. In all my hours of solitude, I’ve been steadily retyping the final draft of the novel, incorporating all your careful observations and corrections. If only I’d had your meticulous eye on my previous manuscripts.

Leseprobe

Title Page

Incurable Vanity

Without Consolation

Angel Rupert

Incurable Vanity / 8th of series: Without Consolation / By Angel Rupert

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Uniochlors

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198847178

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

I recall now that I acted the dream, physically performed in response to what my subconscious was telling me.

It started like this: plain sleep slowly filling with imagery—normal dream, harmless. But at some point the play got serious. Somewhere nearby, hidden, there was a message that would save my life. That the message was from you, I was absolutely certain. But how and when it arrived was a mystery. And it was somewhere near—in the apartment, probably in the bedroom, maybe even within reach.

Here my body entered the fray. I know now what I did, remember the acts, but was not conscious of what I was doing at the time. I turned on the lone light, threw back the sheets, and searched the bed. I believe I spoke then, simple questions like “Where?” or “How?” and a plea “Help me.” No response. Then I thought you were somewhere near and frantically searched the rooms. No luck.

I paused to pee, perhaps hoping that act would yank me back to reality. But thirty seconds and a toilet flush later, I was back in the bedroom searching your message. My total ignorance of its contents made my search all the more desperate.

Then I knew—my books. I went to my desk, adjusted the light, and leafed through every page of every book I had there, sure your message was hidden somewhere in those pages. Why the books? And, of course, no message.

I was near full consciousness by then, my waking mind struggling with lingering dream to claim rights to my exhausted body. Neither side won. I switched off the light, returned to bed, finally found dreamless sleep.

Your message remains hidden. Or does it? I spent a frantic half hour in blind and vulnerable search for something I knew you’d given me that had been misplaced—message enough.

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After helping move her bed, dining table and chairs, and sofa into the trailer, Zach stayed on for a spaghetti dinner with Allison and Sue. It was a warm and bright Saturday in early April and the pungent odor of the freshly plowed cornfield across the gravel road drifted through the trailer’s open windows.

“Took me and Sue to find your farm country,” Allison said to Zach.

“Better hope your farmer doesn’t fertilize with manure,” Zach countered.

“Oh, no,” Sue exclaimed.

“Chicken or cow manure, Sue—what’s your preference?” Allison teased, directing a wink toward Zach.

“Or human,” Zach added. “I read where they’re spraying sewage-plant sludge on county fields.”

“Can they do that?”

“Long as it’s not for human food.”

“That’s just great!” Sue said. “Move out in the country to get covered in shit.”

“Joys of country living,” Zach said.

“Makes my cramped apartment in town sound better all the time.”

Allison gave Sue a light hug as she drained the cooked spaghetti in to the sink. “Don’t listen to Zach. He’s just trying to scare you.”

“I’ll bring you both clothespins if it gets too bad.”

“Thanks a lot,” Sue said as she delivered plastic plates of spaghetti topped with store-bought sauce.