The Young Novelist

The Pattern of a Writer’s Life in the Slow Turn of Seasons

In “Brief Delights,” writer Andrea Stephenson at Harvesting Hecate muses on the changing of seasons and beautifully compares the fleetingness of summertime to those lucid, high moments of a writer’s life.

Summer is a season of brief delights. Tiny beings on gossamer wings cloud the air for fleeting moments. Meadows undulate in an abrupt dazzle of colour. Birds swoop in from their long journeys to a frenzy of feasting and breeding. It is a season where things appear like magic, before vanishing as though they were never there. Where do they come from — the flies and the beetles and the butterflies? Where do they go to when their season has ended? They appear and then they fade, leaving behind traces on the air and the memory of wings. Summer’s long, light days can seem tantalisingly slow, and many of us remember treacly summers of our youth that were never-ending. But summer’s delights…

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The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #17 (A part of my novel)

Merry, Toney’s wife, was busy putting up the last of the curtains in the dining room. Humming a tune to herself, her smooth hands worked like that of a surgeon.

Jason, their sixteen year old son, held a stick in one hand and a small dull Swiss knife in the next.

He held the knife firmly in his hand, its handle wrapped with a piece of cloth. The knife, his father had given to him as a present, over five years ago. Occasionally he brought the two together, scraping the blade against the wood and blowing off the dust that gathered on his hands.

The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #16 (A part of my novel)

“I wanted to surprise you and the children.” He said. “They told me that I was getting out today, to start over, anew.”

“I have waited for you. Thanks for returning, this is a family again.”

Deo just held his wife as they both looked outside into the darkness.

About two miles away from the Narine’s family, Toney John had just finished his dinner. He had bread and corn soup. Today he moved into his new home with his family. Dow Island was not going to see them again. The two day boat journey to this island’s port and five hour donkey cart ride to Kiskadee village, was a plan that Toney saw played out in his mind many times.

The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #15 (A part of my novel)

“Sarah, she sleeps with you?” A whisper broke the silence.

Shelly released the grip she had on the kitchen towel, used to dust the bread crumbs into a plate she held at the corner of the table. She straightened her back and turned to him. Just shaking her head at him, then looking down at the work she was doing.

“Sarah, our daughter, Shelly, I don’t know her…twelve years is a long time.” Deo’s eyes glazed as the lamp’s light in the centre of the table beat against his face.

Shelly moved closer to him, as if to hug him, but stopped short. He looked at her, hesitated, but then threw his right hand around her neck, pulling her closer to him. As Shelly cried softly against his chest, he turned his head and looked out through the window and into the dark distance.

The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #14 (A part of my novel)

As Deo sat at the table, Shelly cleared the dishes, removing the children’s, then his. He eased back into his chair, as if to allow her sufficient room to reach his plate, and then, just kept looking at her. Shelly could not remember her husband being this quiet, but under the circumstances, she continued doing the same.

After a few more minutes, Deo sluggishly got up from the chair and made his way to a small wooden window in the kitchen; a window he recalled building just before his incarceration. A gentle smile enveloped his face, as the nights air struck him. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a pack of cigarettes and reached over to a box with matches near the kitchen sink. He shook it, listening to the sticks crashing into each other. He then placed a cigarette to his lips, lighted the match and leaned into it. There was a silence, so much so that he could feel it in the air, heavy. He looked from the corner of his eyes at his wife’s piercing gaze. He recognized that much had changed since he was gone. He blew the match out and crumpled the cigarette in his hand, but the pack he returned to his pants pocket. He chewed on his thumb nail for a few seconds. Deo looked at the thumb, while playing around with a piece of the nail in his mouth. Then spitting it through the window, he scratched against his two day old beard.

The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #13 (A part of my novel)

Now, the house was a wooden ‘L’ shaped structure with three rooms; two ten by twelve bedrooms and a ten by ten kitchen area. The average size of most houses in the area. The toilet and room for bathing was outside. This too was the same for a number of other people in the neighborhood. The community was simply designed, and the people had a view of not having too much bothered them.

***

Since Deo was gone for years and Sarah, at the time was still a baby, she shared the bedroom with her mother up to that point. The other three girls shared the other bedroom. Each night the girls enjoyed staying up late, talking to each other about hair styles, the eligible young men or clothing which they saw in old catalogs swapped with other girls in the village. This night though was to be different. Without the girl’s mother barking at them to go to bed, they willingly left the table for their respective rooms.

The Skies Are Lighted With Lamps #12 (A part of my novel)

He cocked his head to the side, surveying the room. Placing his elbows on the table, he exhaled.

He had always longed for his freedom to be with his family, but now, he felt as though the distance they had was what his family needed. His thoughts raced. Much the same as the night he was taken away. He wanted to get away from them. Thinking, maybe it was a wrong idea to be let go from a secured place. A place he had control over. Perhaps the judge was wrong and that he was not a rehabilitated man. At that moment, he wanted to return to Centenery. To the place where he hid behind stone walls and prayer someone his life will end. But even behind bars, new travelled fast. And without saying a word, it was understood that Deo Narine was to be touched by no one.

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