elanya

This is the first bit of my Daniel story. I will try to keep working on it regularly, but I'm not going to promise to stick to any kind of schedule. I don't have a name for it yet that satisfies me. But I have a working title. Comments, criticisms, flames, questions, all of these things would be appreciated :)

Pieces

The sounds of the city drift in through the open window. Music, cars, drunks, doors opening and closing, laughter… cacophony. It’s raining lightly, freshening the air blown in by the low wind. I can hear people around me, in the hotel, as well. Someone at the ice machine, a couple dancing to music videos in the room next to mine, teenagers on a school trip passing through the hall... I sense them, am aware of their minds at a higher level, but I shut them out. I don’t feel like I belong here. I know I don’t, so I chose to stay in this room. It is a simple room – single double bed, framed Monet print, pressboard chair and desk, lamp, two small water glasses, hotel directory. A Gideon Bible in the top drawer of the small nightstand and a mirror on the wall. The bedspread has a pastel floral pattern, and is stained in places. The walls and carpet – also somewhat stained – are neutral beige. The clock radio displays the time as 9:46 PM. It is three minutes slow.

I am wide awake, even after a long day of driving. I am uncertain – a condition from which I have suffered ever since my return. I am uncertain, and I am cynical. It is difficult to believe in anything. I have rejected absolutes and there is nothing to fall back on. The big questions – what is truth? why does it matter? – no longer interest me. I want to be grounded in something less ephemeral. I need roots.

If I know only one thing, it is that I must see Anna. Anna and our son. Everything else is secondary. I need to find them.

I could do this easily. I could online, put in her name (perhaps her maiden name) into any search engine. I would find her. There would be some implausible off-hand reference, at the least, that would allow me to determine where she is. I could go and see her. I could get in the car and drive, until, by chance, I found myself in the same place. She would be there - walking down the street, at a gas station, buying groceries, staying at the same motel. Coincidence. It is tempting. It would be easy, but it seems somehow dishonest. It would be too easy, too simple a route for such an important quest. I need to work for this.

I am here, in Tacoma, Washington, to do that work. Here resides Lori Petersen, a long-time friend of Anna’s. She moved here shortly after Anna and I came to Seattle, seven years ago. She is still here, still unmarried. Her name was in the phone book. Her address is an apartment complex on Alder, near the cemetery. Lori is an artist, a sculptor, but does contract graphic design work as well. I have her number, and I know where she lives. Tomorrow, I will call her.

I have no idea what I will say. Lori never really liked me, because her brother didn’t like me. He was a tradition mage, a reality deviant to my mind then. Because of the ways our lives intersected, we maintained an unofficial non-interference policy. We stood on opposite sides in The War, but the others, the non-combatants, didn’t even know it was being fought. Everything, for those fourteen months we lived in Seattle, was complicated.

As for Lori, even if Matt never explained his dislike, it left an impression on her nonetheless. I know it disappointed Anna that we were never progressed beyond rudimentary civility. I don’t know how she will react to me now. It has been a long time. She may not be able to help me, even if she is willing.

I don’t know how to talk to her. My social skills are atrophied. They are not up to something so delicate, something that would be difficult for the smoothest talker. "Hello. You never liked me. Help me find my wife, who I abandoned six years ago."

Tomorrow, I will do the best I can.