Tomorrow Never Knows

Okay, yeah, my bad. I haven't written here for a week. Many apologies. There've been a lot of things that came up this week... However, I have been writing! I promise! And to prove it, at the end of this post I'll throw in the opening of my new short story. So hopefully that will work as an apology for my deep laziness.

Anyway, Paradise Lost is fantastic. Seriously. Read it now, if you haven't already. I fully plan on finishing it in its entirety over Christmas Break, because I can't stand the thought of missing out on the middle four and last three books. Satan is, truthfully, possibly the greatest character in English fiction, and the more developed and the more he resolves to do what he needs to, the more I see that.

The one thing I am unhappy with his God's portrayal; I understand Paradise Lost is allegorical and God represents the King to the anti-Royalist Milton, but I'm a little disappointed. God should be more fun than that, Old Testament or not. Can't he throw us a little Deadpool-style, "I know I'm in a story" action? That'd be pretty awesome.

So, as promised, first page or so single-spaced of my new short story, "Rifling." The title needs work but I'm very pleased with how the story is progressing thus far. (Incidentally, I hate how online posts destroy formatting. I apologize.)



"You know, they say it takes a village to raise a child."
Alex looked at his brother and frowned, running his thumb slowly up and down the wet side of his bottle of Sam Adams. "You're not being helpful," he said, and he looked back out across the town, the lights of houses and streetlamps occasionally flickering on as the sun faded over the hill behind them.
Dean just shrugged and smirked, shaking his head and lifting his own bottle to his lips. "You didn't say you needed help," he said, glancing at Alex, "you said you needed a beer."
"And bringing up the kid really doesn't give me help or a beer, does it?"
"Gives you a reason to drink the beer."
Alex sighed. It was slowly starting to get cold and he wished that he had brought a jacket, even just to protect him from the gentle breeze that was rolling from the hills on the far side of town to the one that he and Dean were seated on. "All you do is joke," he said after a long moment, not sparing Dean a single glance.
"World needs more laughter, midget." Dean leaned back on his elbows, kicking his feet out haphazardly in front of him. "And you need to lighten up some."
"Tell me how."
Dean glanced at Alex and for a moment their eyes met, Dean's hard brown eyes difficult to read in the growing darkness. "If you're looking for a solution to the problem with your kid, I don't have one," Dean said and looked away, out across the town again.
"I can't raise a child right now," Alex said, still looking at Dean, willing him to look back. Dean wouldn't, though. He'd always been the tougher of the two of them, unwilling to yield to much of anything, stubbornly fighting his way through life without any regard for anything that was happening around him.
"Jane and I don't have the money," Alex said, when Dean was silent. "We're not even married. Mom and Dad can't help us out. You're certainly not going to be any help."
"So what?" Dean asked. "You just gonna give up?"
"It's not giving up, Dean, it's being practical."
"It's your child, Alex," Dean said, looking back at him again.
"It's not my anything yet," Alex said, and now that Dean was looking at him he couldn't bring himself to look back, "it's just an embryo. Just a thought. A hypothetical."
"That's not a very fatherly way to look at it."
"I'm not a father," Alex said. He shook his head. He wasn't, he couldn't be. "I'm twenty-two. I'm not a fucking father, I'm not old enough, I dunno what the hell I'm doing..."
"You'd be surprised," Dean said, "because nobody knows what the hell they're doing until they do it. You think anybody has a clue what's going on? Stuff just happens, and they deal with it."
"So you're saying I just need to deal with this?"
"I'm saying you will just deal with it. It's how life works."
Alex stared at him. A streetlamp went on somewhere on the road above them on the hill and threw them both into sharp relief. The top of Dean's head seemed to be shining, but it was just his slicked-forward hair reflecting the light from the lamp. His face was deep in shadow, and Alex couldn't see his brother's expression anymore.
"You don't know a goddamn thing, Dean," Alex said, looking away from him.
"You think Mom and Dad planned us out perfectly?" Dean asked, ignoring Alex's irritation. "You think they had thirty grand saved up before both of us? Think they had a college fund all set up, and clothes picked out, and the perfect jobs to make sure we could eat and have heat in the house and be able to play Little League? Of course they didn't. I was as much of an accident as your kid is. But you know what? They sucked it up and dealt with it."
"Yeah, well, Mom and Dad are better people than me, then."
Dean threw him a sharp look. "Don't be an asshole, little brother. You're as good as them. You just gotta give your own kids the same opportunities that you had."
Alex frowned over at him, losing heart suddenly now that Dean seemed truly angered, and felt startled when Dean stood up. "Thanks for the beer, kid," he said, dropping his bottle in Alex's lap, and stumped his way back up the hill to where his car waited.