Novel Excerpt: Sins of the Father

The following is a brief except from a work-in-progress based on a screenplay I wrote. The book has gone far more in depth than the screenplay, though I'm likely to do a rewrite of the screenplay to better match the book. But a little background into the story is necessary to comprehend it:

John Smith had an out of body experience a few years before this excerpt. In the experience he had visions of the future and of something called a nanosoul, an artificial soul. He had the ability to implant that soul into unborn children, and move his soul into those bodies, and also had the ability to draw a corrupted soul from a body and implant a nanosoul. By corrupted, he finds that a soul has become black, and is being slowly eaten away by 'the darkness', which plays heavily into my song 'Free'.

So the gist of the story to this point is he has installed nanosouls into 18 or so bodies, which his soul can inhabit at any time, and he is 'soul searching' (pun intended) on whether he is doing the right thing, who is guiding him and what he needs to do next. He is currently using the very deep mind of a 5 year old boy to ponder is dilemma.

Who am I? Am I some 66 year old man trapped in a young boy's body? And would that really qualify as trapped? Am I a 6 year old cutie/doctor? A 5 year old psychic lesbian? I've been in all those bodies and more, but who am I? What was I before this all happened, before John even? I know I had to exist prior to this, it just fits too well. Has this been possible before or has technology finally caught up with the soul? I manufactured hundreds, going on thousands of nanosouls, but who or what made mine? Is this a divine purpose? Am I fighting the devil in the form of the darkness? Maybe that's what the devil was all along. And God? Is God the light? The voice spoke to me as if there were others. That would disappoint the Christians and the Jews, let alone the Muslims. I've never been very religious, but I can't simply ignore religions. The families take their children to church or synagogue. Why don't Karen or I? Karen's soul looks like an angel. Is that significant or some manifestation of my imagination? Or hers, for that matter? I just don't know enough.

Let's stick to one topic: Who am I? In John I've always been shy, hard-working, a leader from behind. Do this, don't do that. Never 'Will you do this?' I've been polite, but I know what I want - or I used to. That's the problem: I don't know what I want anymore. I just feel a sense of duty. That's who I am: duty. But to whom? To Karen and the children; all the children. What happens when they grow older? Will I still tell them what to do? Is it fair to them to sacrifice a  normal life? For what? For whom? They have no will. If I give them free will, will they still want to do it? If they did, it would be because of a sense of duty. I hate circular logic.

Let's start again. What do I want? I want... I want to be a writer, to be a doctor, a master of physics, math and music; an inventor of things that will help humanity, bring peace to the world, free us from the daily drugery of life and let us explore the boundaries we've established, conquer the impossible. 

So how do we start that? Silly me, we've already started the process. But the cost worries me. Not the monetary costs. If I had my way... Yeah, I do have my way. The island will be currency free, build by androids. We'll grow our own food, purify our own water, make everything we need. We don't need the outside world, they need us.

The cost still worries me. The cost in taken souls. Can I really be said to have killed anyone? The bodies are still alive. If there's a soul left after the darkness eats it away, I'll rehabilitate it, like Natalie. But if the truth got out... The power hungry will want it, the soulless will want to stop it, and those that don't understand will call me a mass murderer. We need protection. We don't need weapons, just a way to keep them out, keep out their weapons. Jenny can work on that. Think small... think small. 

Where's that damned island?

Pushed By the Wayside Again

Homelessness is a serious problem. I've been homeless now since 2010, off and on. I blame no one but myself for being homeless. I just need help getting out of the rut that I'm in.

And therein lies the problem. People who are not homeless might sympathize with me, but somehow that problem keeps getting pushed aside - literally in the case of Columbia South Carolina, where it is now illegal to be homeless and be downtown at all.

So people would rather ignore the problem of homelessness, or think it's someone else's problem rather than one they could act on. Sure, church groups feed the homeless, but do they offer permanent housing to them? And the simple fact is, if you take all the money spent on 'helping' homeless, like in shelters and soup kitchens and clothing drives and everything else being done for homeless people and concentrate it on housing, training and health care, including mental health, you'd solve the problem in no time flat.

But no, the solutions offered are all stop-gap methods of placating the homeless, not curing their real problems.

If you concentrated on making the homeless self-sufficient, there would be no problems that didn't involve mental illness, which is another whole animal.

How about giving homeless hiring advantages/preferences to city, state and county jobs? Assuming they have the basic qualifications, it would be solving two problems at once.

Frankly, I'm tired of playing the game. I'm supposed to go one place to get food stamps, another to get lunch for free. I'm supposed to be mobile enough to look for work, but the number of bus passes available is extremely limited and walking is so severely limiting in how far away I can go, and bad for the health of a diabetic.

And I know that there are a lot of important things going on right now. I read the news. I know there's a lot on people's minds. But please don't push aside this problem, because it will come right back. As long as nothing is done about it, it's like a slinky going down the stairs. It may seem like it's going away, but until a permanent solution that does not involve shooing us out of town is found, we'll come right back. We are a NATIONAL problem, not local. There should be a NATIONAL solution, not local, and limiting stays in shelters is not the solution. Finding permanent homes is the solution. Please get to work on that, and leave the other politics for another time.

Even in my case, with a Section 8 voucher in hand, I am having difficulties finding an affordable apartment that has openings. Think how bad it is for those that do not have a voucher. Please concentrate. This is important. It will only get worse. And then it will cost more money.

Addendum: I'm not sure I got my point across yesterday. So here goes again. Homelessness is an important issue, and I think some people agree with that, but something seems to always be more important than someone else being homeless, unless that someone is you. I understand that things happen in life that take precedence and I'm not saying we're more important that life-threatening emergencies, but as Frank Lawrence, the director at the shelter says, (paraphrasing) we, the homeless, have to treat the shelter as an emergency, and not as a permanent solution. That said, I'm not altogether sure the shelter is abiding by that, because they simply don't help enough. And if the shelter staff don't help enough, how can anyone expect the rest of the country to treat it as the emergency that it is. I'm panicking because I'm running out of time myself. And I have a means of getting out. But no one else sees that. That is the real problem. No one sees it as an emergency and most people really hope it will go away on its own. That kind of thinking really needs to stop.

The Birds and the Bees

As I waited for the bus today, I noticed several bumblebees visiting flowers around the bus stop. I was pleased because they chose to do things the old-fashioned way instead of visiting the garbage cans at Moore Square like I've seen hundreds of bees do. I saw an article in The Independent Magazine about honey and how bees in different counties make different color honey depending on the local flora. I wondered what color trash-borne honey is.

As part of my ritual lately, I've been buying a morning sandwich from a local convenience store with my meager Food Stamp money ($200/month, which doesn't go far when you buy $3.00 sandwiches), which may be in danger of not being filled this month because of glitches in the Food Stamp software North Carolina uses.

Part of the ritual with the sandwiches is I share the crust with the birds that gather at Moore Square. I do this partly because I've had half my teeth removed and the other half will be removed shortly. Vocation Rehab came through on that necessity. Anyway, getting back to the birds: They know who I am, and they've been watching for me. Often one or several will see me and fly down in anticipation. This is fine when I have crust to share, but when they see me in the afternoon, I don't have such gifts. I feel so bad for them.

Yesterday, there was literally a whole flock of them waiting for me. It was a bright morning and their shadows against a wall made it seem like there were twice as many there. They had quite a battle for my crusts.

It occurred to me then, that the homeless men I see all the time aren't so different. They're waiting for a handout, and when they get it, they battle for position and possession. I've seen food brought out into the cafeteria, some extra food donated by one group or another, and a seemingly empty cafeteria will suddenly fill, and the food will be gone in seconds - literally.

Even for the regular scheduled meal times, people will jockey for position as they wait for the food to be served. The usual method of waiting is to sit on the bench leading to the door to the kitchen. People will not just sit on the bench, but around the bench too, rather than stand in line with the other, more patient people. I have to say, that irks me. In all the time I've been coming to SWSC, they've never run out of food during feeding time, even if the food sucks. What difference does it make if you get in the front or not? If they try to stand in front of me, they get an earful.

But in the end, we all get fed, and I do my share to feed the birds and bees too. But I have to say I'm really looking forward to leaving the shelter, hopefully for the last time.

An End To Homelessness For Me?

Yesterday I went to a meeting where I received my Section 8 Voucher for finding an apartment. I'll be working with the shelter to get help paying the application fee and security deposit for the shelter. But all in all, it looks like my 2 and a half year struggle with homelessness is about to come to an end. I am, needless to say, delighted, but I figure the shelter staff is probably happier. They were going to throw me out on August 31 anyway.

Update: Over the last couple of days I've perused various sites and booklets looking for an apartment that takes Section 8 but is within the $526/month limit I have to work with. Nothing so far, and that is somewhat frustrating, because many of the apartments on the list RHA gave me are for elderly (i.e. 62+) and I don't qualify for them. I know there are apartments that I can use, but I have to dig deeper than I'd hoped. I'll have to get recommendations from others.

Amazon Studios and my Project 'A Matter of Survival'

During the month of May. I started getting an idea for a screenplay. Now most of my writing has usually been in book form or done for my proposed TV series, 'The Timmons Chronicles.' But this idea gelled so fast in my head in May that I decided to turn it into a screenplay. I wrote the first draft over one weekend, hand-written, no less, because well, my computer was stolen, and over the next weekend I wrote a second draft. Then over the next two weeks I used the library computers at Wake Tech to enter my script using Scripped.com. (url: http://scripped.com/script/view/187217/mlgLRW7RC9ezjLQd7Vbkiz3yD15yYZpSTA2aOqZ15ljwjE7fgU)
Then I spent some proofing it.
Then a little more time.
Then I liked what I had written so far so much that I went to Amazon Studios and submitted it to see if they would option it.
Then I waited.
And Waited.
Then after two weeks, I checked the status of the script and found that they weren't even considering it. At first I wondered why, then I found that there was a screenplay with the same title in their listings. It was originally titled 'Soul Survivor.' So I changed the title and resubmitted it. This time I followed the status of the script a little closer. It went from 'received' to 'reading' and now it is in the 'Deciding' part of the process.
This is the hardest part for any writer: the waiting to see if someone in charge likes what you've written. Now, I haven't been idle all this time. I've been working on a new draft of the script. But every time I submitted a new draft, it would have given Amazon Studios another 45 days to look at the script to see if they wanted to option it. What I originally submitted has every important aspect of the script. If they like the concept enough to option it, I shouldn't have to submit changes to get their attention.

So now the waiting continues.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

'Free' By Michael Harrison Fox

Life Update: Writing, Teething, and Computering, Oh My!

It's been a while since I posted any kind of update on what's going on in my life, so here goes:

I recently finished the START Hospitality course at Wake Tech. That course included getting certificates in ServSafe (passed), National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) Gold in all three specialties. (Still trying to determine who actually pays attention to that), TIPS Certification (Training for Intervention Something something... to help someone in the Food and Beverage industry determine when someone has had enough to drink), certification in the OPERA Property Management System used by Holiday Inn and other facilities. Used at the Front Desk. And finally the actual certificate for completing the program. I'm ideally looking for Front Desk or Night Auditor. I have had no luck so far. They claim 70% of the graduates get jobs, but I think most of those start out in the banquet or Food Service part and work their way up. However with my injuries, I can't handle banquets and other Food Service jobs, so I'll stick with what I can do.

And speaking of injuries, no real change in my shoulder or knee has occurred in months. They are both mildly disabling. I can't life things reliably. I can't run, therefore I can't move quickly enough for Food Service. I can walk easily enough most of the time, but every now and then my knee let's me know something is wrong, and I limp.

I have been in touch with Vocational Rehab and they have moved at a snail's pace, claiming they didn't get the information they needed. They have agreed to do two things: Get my teeth yanked (though I don't know when) and to pay for certification courses that will mean I'm qualified for a Network Administrator position. Entry level, if such a thing exists. But I will get A+ certified, Network+ and hopefully Security+ and Cisco certified. We'll see how well that goes.

I started writing a screenplay based on idea that's been prowling through my head for the last few weeks. The first draft took me 3 days. It's hand-written, and certainly needs work, but it was nice to finish something for a change. I also started on a novel form of the story. It's a techno/sci fi/thriller. It creeps me out and I'm the one who wrote it. It's called 'Soul Survivor.' I'll post more on that as I get it put into a computer. I'm quite happy with the plot, it just needs to be fleshed out a little.

The last bit of news has to do with the computer that was stolen from me in January. I heard rumors that a certain person might have it back in February, but it wasn't enough to take to the police. In March, a friend came to me and told me he knew who had it, and the guy was willing to sell it back to me for $80. It took me a while to raise $80, but when I did, the guy then said he left it at his girlfriend's place and they're not talking any more. I gave him a week to get his stuff together, and haven't heard back from him. So yesterday I filed a new report with the Raleigh PD, telling them what I know and suspect, including the guy's phone number. I'm keeping my $80. If the guy gets arrested for it, and his girl too, well, he brought it on himself. He had ample opportunity to return it to me.