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- Herausgeber: Bentockiz
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
But life has no use for such remorse and time dissolves those visions of doom, lightening sky prying entrance around drawn shades, enough light to show this: me on my back, you half on your side, your head resting on my chest, us both asleep but waking gradually to find ourselves together, safe at last. It is a moment no one can ever take from us. It is the only meaning offered by that night that will survive time’s erosion.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Title Page
Until the Despair
Without Consolation
Angel Rupert
Until the Despair / 3rd of series: Without Consolation / By Angel Rupert
Published 2023 by Bentockiz
e-book Imprint: Uniochlors
e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden
e-book ISBN: 9789198847123
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
Zach drove Barton to the airport in Barton’s gold Mercedes on the afternoon of the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Barton was flying to San Francisco for a two-week vacation in the Bay area. He’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks, a reward for completing the first draft of his latest novel earlier in the fall and his first extended time away from Shefford since starting that novel two years before.
The only small cloud (and it really wasn’t all that small) shadowing his enthusiasm and optimism on this bright day (no clouds in the real sky unfurled above them) was concern for Zach’s emotional state and stability in the wake of his recent separation. He worried that Zach needed him close at hand, ready to offer a listening ear or timely advice, during this ongoing transition. Almost as much as Zach’s needs (and he understood, in his brutal honesty and self-analysis, that this was pure selfishness), he worried about leaving his house and his car and his keys—in effect, virtually all his worldly possessions—in the care and control of this student in the midst of a personal life crisis. He’d shown Zach how to arm and disarm the house’s alarm, and given him virtual carte blanche permission to use the house and car as he saw fit. Limits on such use—no strangers in the house, no driving the car after drinking, no reading of his private correspondence—were clearly implied but never explicitly stated. This understanding, built on months of close contact and sharing and trust, had seemed adequate to Barton. But now, just minutes from turning his whole life over to this tall guardian driving along the thinly travelled highway as if he didn’t have a care in the world, he wasn’t so sure.
“You remember about the alarm?” he asked.
Zach laughed. “If I didn’t get it on the first practice run, I sure did by the time we finished our fifth!”
“And you’ll collect the mail, both on campus and at the end of the drive? The detective says that’s one of the first things thieves look for.”
“Got it covered.” Zach glanced at him with a placid gaze of unfaltering reassurance, born of the blind and reckless assumption that he could guard Barton against any harm, at least as regarded his property and possessions. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.”
“And no wild parties?” Barton asked, then added with a laugh, “At least none resulting in the summoning of the law?” Zach’s glance had worked. His doubts and anxieties were fast fading, steadily replaced by thoughts of San Francisco and some of the old friends he hoped to see there.
“My only wild parties these days are played out in my head.”
“Safe enough, I guess.” Barton directed a sly grin to the side of Zach’s face. “But make sure to wash the guestroom sheets when you’re done.”
“Don’t worry. Those fantasies only get played out in the familiar confines of my apartment.”
The exit to the airport loomed ahead. A massive departing jet roared low overhead. They waited for the roar to subside.
“How will you spend Thanksgiving?” Barton asked.
“Larry and Celine have invited me. You?”
“With Max and Dora, but I don’t know if we’ll go out or stay in. You’ve got their number, right?”
“On your kitchen counter, and also on my scratch pad at the apartment.”
“Don’t hesitate to call, using my phone card, if anything comes up.”
“Check,” Zach said. They were nearing the low and modest brick building that was the terminal for the airport. There was a bustle of activity out front but still plenty of places to park and unload.
“Or if you just want to talk,” Barton added as they pulled alongside the curb.
Zach stopped the car and put it in park. He turned to Barton and smiled warmly. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll be fine. Have a great time in San Francisco.”
Barton nodded. “I plan to do exactly that.”
Zach sat in his usual seat by the window in the lecture room on South Campus. He tried hard to keep his attention directed toward the world-renowned scholar as he guided the class of some fifty students through the economic forces and political intrigues that shaped the drafting of the Constitution. Zach cared about his education, wanted to learn. He tried hard to pay attention to the famous lecturer; he truly tried.
But his attention kept getting pulled toward the tall, divided-lite, arch-topped window to his left, and the beautiful, warm, sunny mid-fall afternoon stretched out beyond that window. From the second-floor classroom, Zach could see across the near lawn, so lush and green despite the season, to the tennis courts beyond, and the recreation fields beyond that. Students populated the scene—lying on blankets and towels on the lawn, playing tennis, tossing Frisbees and footballs on the rec fields. The scene beyond the divided panes defined an idyll of late-twentieth century coed campus life in America.
