miyako73
01-08-2013, 12:50 AM
It has been said that the first two pages of a novel are the most important. The first page is to make its reader curious and excited. If that does not happen, the second page is its writer's last chance in case the reader will give the book a second look.
Will you continue reading after these first two pages? Thanks a bunch!
I
She dialed international on the payphone, and all the brass coins jingling in her hand, the leftovers of her last one hundred-peso bill, were just enough for that brief talk. From our house to the phone booth was a struggle. She wore her gold-on-black Hermes scarf, a frayed square of silk she wrapped and tied around her head to cover her face from dust, belched smoke diffusing the smell of gasoline, and shame. Her black Jackie O sunglasses could not hide her sullen looks and scowl. She clasped her vintage Italian-made tote in case bag snatchers would think she had money because of her damish coiffured hair and fair skin still without spots and wrinkles.
She had never felt so alone as if she and her mid-morning shadow were the only ones plodding down the potholed street. Like those beggars, mumbling crazies, drunks, and homeless bums hanging out in the area, she stood on the sidewalk lost in the chaotic dirt and noise of the city I left when I was sixteen, right after high school.
She pined for the things she used to have and was upset that she would never have those things again. She despaired, with the solitude of the humid air mute inside the graffiti-ridden booth. She had never been so broke that she had to go to the street corner to make a phone call. She lost face literally, feeling as though her powdered epidermis melted inch by inch and fell off like a mask of liquefied flesh—shame was physiological to her.
When my mother called me that night, around nine o’clock Eastern Standard Time, I celebrated my father’s birthday and the end of my four years of toil in a foreign university with a small dinner for two. Even before picking up the phone, even before hearing her voice, even before knowing why she called, I felt everything was about to change.
I knew I would never be the same.
I was never a clairvoyant, nor was I ever a believer of one, but I could tell when something bad was about to happen. Fear manifested as a tingle from my head down to my spine. Sadness, in a slow progression, boiled in my belly and bubbled in my chest. Anxiety nagged more than a gangrenous wound. I could sense the foreboding like a subway train looming from the dark and from afar.
Leaning my back against the angle of the two walls that squeezed my body, I sat on the floor with my elbows resting on my bended knees. My skin thickened and pushed out the hair it concealed. My hands unleashed a tremor they could not hold still and contain. My toes, scared and cold, curled inwards, struggling to take comfort from my soles. I could foresee the ominous like a brewing flu in the New England spring.
Then I mumbled the prayer for the dead: Deus veniae largitor et humanae salutis amator, quaesumus clementiam tuam: ut nostrae congregationis fratres, propinquos, et benefactores, qui ex hoc saeculo transierunt, beata Maria semper virgine intercedente cum omnibus sanctis tuis, ad perpetuae beatitudinis consortium pervenire concedas.
When I was in that state of consciousness, my thoughts ran wild, asking if everyone was okay, wondering who it would be this time, deciphering signs and symbols that deprived and disguised meanings, trying to make sense of what I saw in my head that played frame by frame like a strip of negative film raised towards a glare of light to reveal traces of ghostly images. Then my mind suddenly went blank, denying, dismissing, and refusing to believe before yielding to the unavoidable and eventual. I noticed this torment would come when I was at my happiest. It seemed extreme joy preceded tragedy. Always.
Will you continue reading after these first two pages? Thanks a bunch!
I
She dialed international on the payphone, and all the brass coins jingling in her hand, the leftovers of her last one hundred-peso bill, were just enough for that brief talk. From our house to the phone booth was a struggle. She wore her gold-on-black Hermes scarf, a frayed square of silk she wrapped and tied around her head to cover her face from dust, belched smoke diffusing the smell of gasoline, and shame. Her black Jackie O sunglasses could not hide her sullen looks and scowl. She clasped her vintage Italian-made tote in case bag snatchers would think she had money because of her damish coiffured hair and fair skin still without spots and wrinkles.
She had never felt so alone as if she and her mid-morning shadow were the only ones plodding down the potholed street. Like those beggars, mumbling crazies, drunks, and homeless bums hanging out in the area, she stood on the sidewalk lost in the chaotic dirt and noise of the city I left when I was sixteen, right after high school.
She pined for the things she used to have and was upset that she would never have those things again. She despaired, with the solitude of the humid air mute inside the graffiti-ridden booth. She had never been so broke that she had to go to the street corner to make a phone call. She lost face literally, feeling as though her powdered epidermis melted inch by inch and fell off like a mask of liquefied flesh—shame was physiological to her.
When my mother called me that night, around nine o’clock Eastern Standard Time, I celebrated my father’s birthday and the end of my four years of toil in a foreign university with a small dinner for two. Even before picking up the phone, even before hearing her voice, even before knowing why she called, I felt everything was about to change.
I knew I would never be the same.
I was never a clairvoyant, nor was I ever a believer of one, but I could tell when something bad was about to happen. Fear manifested as a tingle from my head down to my spine. Sadness, in a slow progression, boiled in my belly and bubbled in my chest. Anxiety nagged more than a gangrenous wound. I could sense the foreboding like a subway train looming from the dark and from afar.
Leaning my back against the angle of the two walls that squeezed my body, I sat on the floor with my elbows resting on my bended knees. My skin thickened and pushed out the hair it concealed. My hands unleashed a tremor they could not hold still and contain. My toes, scared and cold, curled inwards, struggling to take comfort from my soles. I could foresee the ominous like a brewing flu in the New England spring.
Then I mumbled the prayer for the dead: Deus veniae largitor et humanae salutis amator, quaesumus clementiam tuam: ut nostrae congregationis fratres, propinquos, et benefactores, qui ex hoc saeculo transierunt, beata Maria semper virgine intercedente cum omnibus sanctis tuis, ad perpetuae beatitudinis consortium pervenire concedas.
When I was in that state of consciousness, my thoughts ran wild, asking if everyone was okay, wondering who it would be this time, deciphering signs and symbols that deprived and disguised meanings, trying to make sense of what I saw in my head that played frame by frame like a strip of negative film raised towards a glare of light to reveal traces of ghostly images. Then my mind suddenly went blank, denying, dismissing, and refusing to believe before yielding to the unavoidable and eventual. I noticed this torment would come when I was at my happiest. It seemed extreme joy preceded tragedy. Always.