BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology Volume 2

BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology: Volume Two

  Copyright © 2011 BestsellerBound.com/Darcia Helle

  All rights to this anthology are reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors. This book contains works of fiction. The characters and situations are products of each author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Rights to the individual works contained in this anthology are owned by the submitting authors and/or publishers and each has permitted the story's use in this collection. Individual copyright information is listed with each work. All rights to each work are reserved by the authors.

  Contents:

  What Was Lost by James Sophi

  The Art of Breathing by Jaime McDougall

  Soul Windows by Jaleta Clegg

  I Didn't Know His Name by Darcia Helle

  Red Route by James Everington

  Make A Wish by Susan Helene Gottfried

  The Last Chance Motel and Mausoleum by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick

  Isolation by Maria Savva

  Beyond The Green Hills by Tom Gahan

  From Joy We Come, Unto Joy We Return by Ami Blackwelder

  What Was Lost

  by James Sophi

  © Copyright James Sophi

  The sound never came. I knew the gun had been fired. Somehow I knew. There was no pain, only a strange sensation, as if the ground beneath me had fallen away and I was being suspended in mid-air, frozen in a borderless void. A fogginess engulfed my mind and in the blackness the memory of these most recent events began to blur until they were just a vague collection of distorted images, as if someone else had lived them and I was merely remembering a tale told.

  The camp. The sky. The barbed-wire walls. The guards, their faces bare and expressionless. The journey from my cell to the muddy yard in my brown uniform, whereon watched my brothers, fellow captives. The executioner stood behind me, and in that all-too-brief moment before the cloth was pulled over my eyes, I looked up and saw Isaac. The firm, brave expression on his young face emboldened me, and as the deep scarlet skies were blotted out with the darkness of my blindfold, I stopped shaking. My heartbeat slowed, and my mind went to the Almighty. My prayer was silent, but was shouted inside me. Remember me, Father. Forgive me and strengthen me. Remember me.

  Then the darkness was complete. My legs gave way, my posture relaxed, the aches and bruises that covered me seemed to fade to nothing. I was falling forward for what seemed like an eternally long time. I was expecting the earth to come rushing up to meet me, to fill my mouth with the filthy mush of the camp floor. But I hit no ground. I was just there, present, prevailing. Some emptiness had taken me. Lazily, I became aware of my thoughts. I was thinking. Thinking. Did dead men think? I saw in reflection the shadow of what had happened, which now seemed such an insignificant thing. I was subsisting. For what, I was not sure.

  Was I truly still alive? Was this what it was like to die slowly? There was nothing, for a time, to ground me as still human. No arms or legs or face or fingers. No emotion or concern or desire. Mind and body, I was at peace. I was rested, relaxed. Liberated. I was waking from a slumber that had lasted eons.

  After a time, a very long while, there was coolness on where my face once was, as if a breeze was kissing me. The kiss reached my limbs. My skin prickled and I shivered. I inhaled weakly and could taste sweet air, the sweet breath of life, filling my lungs. I had feeling again. A pulsing rushed through to the tips of my fingers and toes. My lips curled into a smile as I drew another long breath, deeply and with determination, as if it had been a lifetime since I had air to breathe. I felt powerful, recharged, spirited. I felt the ground, not against my face where it should have been, but under me, behind me. I was lying on my back. I curled my fingers and dug them deep into the dirt, feeling the soil, the texture of it, the dampness. It wasn’t mud.

  A glow flourished against my closed eyes, reddening my lids. It grew brighter until I was forced to shield myself from the light. I casually, cautiously, opened my eyes and looked up. My vision was unfocused. A tree loomed over me, blocking out the force of the sun. The radiance twinkled through branches swaying slightly in the breeze.

  My mind was flooded with imaginings. Somehow, amidst the enigma, I knew where I was. It was a promise He gave me. A reliable and trustworthy vow. I shivered at the thought. Was I the first? Was this my own body? How long had I been gone? What happened to my brothers? To Isaac? How did it all end?

  “You must have a lot of questions,” a male voice whispered from somewhere out of sight.

  I startled and sat up. “Do you read minds in paradise?” I jested, my own voice hoarse and broken and barely audible.

  “Now that would be handy,” the man said, as he approached. My eyes were still hazy, and I hadn’t seen him leaning against the tree. He draped a blanket over my shoulders from behind and I realized I must have been naked. “So you are aware,” the man continued. “I knew you would be. Makes my job of educating you quite a bit easier.” He was old, I could see as much. His hair was grey, but he stood tall and robust.

  I wrapped the thick blanket around myself and attempted to stand. I found my legs strong and capable. I looked around, taking in the setting, and my heart lept at the sight. The sky was blue again. It had been the colour of blood the last time I looked upon it. The blueness sent a wave of peace through me. In the distance on all sides were rolling hills and outcrops of trees hustled together. The field I was in was lush and green and grassed all over, except for the patch of earth where I had been. There it was soil, fine and deep brown, turned and soft. My vision was clearing. I rubbed my eyes awake and took a few steps to try out my new legs. At the base of the tree, there was a chair. It was simple and wooden, and on it sat a lute bag.

  “Your garments,” the man said, when he saw me looking at them.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any food in it?” I asked.

  He gestured me towards the bag, and I went for it eagerly. The man watched me intently as I took out a heel of crusty bread and tore it apart.

  “My name is… ”

  “I know who you are, brother,” the man said.

  I looked at him then, really seeing him for the first time. His smile, that nose, those unmistakeable eyes. I tried to swallow down the tears. “Isaac?”