Their worlds and words are a part
of my days and my nights and my
in-betweens. They talk to me while
I cook,
watch TV,
drive, and sleep. They give me
scenes and dialog and dilemmas; joy and sorrow and
horror. They give me
the impossible, and task me to make it plausible. At least
enjoyable.
There’s Aggie and her mason jar, and
Rosemary’s wish, the one she won’t
take back. Then there’s
the woman who runs over the not-quite-a-man, in a town
on the edge
of forever. And crusty Queenie, who
never did much right, who
never thought it quite necessary, who
might manage to do some good.
There’s Yvonne and Jacob, back in 1949,
Bonnie-Jane and Hannelore, in 1985. And still,
in stories written and always calling, Nell and Ledanora,
Mabel and Frankie and Tracy. Back and back, to
Ethen and Zihariel, Linhare and Wait. There are
warriors and queens who knock on my skull–Remember us?
I do. I do. How can I forget? You were once
my everything. The foundation of
my everything. The beginning of
Everything.
If not another book gets published, I will
write and write and write. There will be
mutiny, otherwise. Inside my head. In
dreams and waking. I’ll walk about like a character
from Wonderland, quite mad and rather glad to be so. Better
than the knowing, the abandoning, the void of a well
left to dry.
I prefer the parade never end, a continuous loop, of
characters and places already known, and those
slipping the red-ropes to join in, unannounced but
always welcome, to dance their dances and sing their songs, to
tell their tales and ask for my assistance in
ditching the parade for
broader horizons.
