As I mentioned in my previous post, I've started a new book. I've tentatively entitled it "Quirk", but that could change. Anyway, I've written about 5,000 words so far, and I'd really like to hear some feedback. It's a departure from my previous style.
Chapter 1
In which we meet a young citizen of a tiny, remote village.
What is life anyway? Some say it’s a grand adventure, spread out before us waiting to be grabbed by the horns and enjoyed to the fullest. For others, it’s non-stop trial and testing, a battle between failure and success. According to some, it is whatever we make of it.
To me, it’s all a lie. We tell ourselves that we are in control, that our destiny is in our hands, and that things will work out in the end. Rubbish. To me, life is a crapshoot. Some roll sevens while others…snake eyes. It’s all random.
Take me for example. My name is Quirk. I’ve lived 17 summers so far. Not long, you might say, but I know this isn’t my first go-round. I’ve lived before. Don’t ask me how I know, it’s just something I’ve felt, known, since this birth. From my earliest memory, it’s been a given that I’ve gone through this thing called life at least several times before. I can’t remember specifics, just impressions. Sometimes, it’s been rather nice, but most times…not so much.
I thought that this was a common thing, so imagine my surprise when I learned that in fact, I seem to be the only one in my village that had these past life impressions. I mean, I don’t know for sure. I didn’t go around asking people. But I’ve never heard anyone talking about it—not even a whisper. You’d think that if people did have these impressions, I’d have heard something, especially since I was looking out for them.
But no. Nothing. Mind you, a village can keep its secrets when it really wants to. Take my village, for example. We are—or maybe were—just a small settlement of 250 or so souls tucked into the northeast corner of one of the largest kingdoms in the world. Not much happens here. In fact, it’s kind of boring, until this morning, but I’ll get to that. Boring looks pretty good at the moment. I guess what happened this morning is the most excitement folks around here have seen since the Troubles.
Nobody around here talks much about the Troubles. It’s all kind of hush hush. The nearest I can figure is they happened about 25 years ago or so. There was a lot of unrest—a revolution or something. All villages were required to come to the aid of the king to help put down the uprising. No one really wanted to go, but each village had a certain number of soldiers they were required to provide. Now, there has never been, and probably never will be a soldier born in this village, but we still had to supply them. So, about 80 men left to join the army. From what I hear, not many returned.
I don’t really know much about those times. I may have lived through them in a past life, but like I said before, I only have vague impressions. I do have a sense of darkness and pain that I feel is pretty recent, so perhaps I lived through that time and experienced some sort of hardship.
Anyhow, the king was overthrown and as is the way with most revolutions, a new king took his place. From what I can gather, he is even worse than the previous king. That’s not really a surprise, as things are pretty bleak around here these days.
My village is called Naguu. Like I said, it’s tucked neatly in the northeast corner of the kingdom. Our backs are right up against the Pellegost Range. That’s a line of mountains that forms the border with our neighbors, the Cratts. As you could probably guess from their name, the Cratts are a nasty, greedy, vicious, and misbehaved race of marauders and thieves. By all accounts, they are a nomadic people who take great delight in coming down from the mountains to attack and pillage poor, defenseless villages.
Our own wonderful monarch had set up a sort of border patrol to protect his beloved northern subjects from attack, but patrols have become far less frequent in the past few years than they had been. It is said that he has more pressing political and crowd control matters to attend to closer to the capital down south. It’s really unfortunate that he’s having some difficulties keeping everything in order.
I say that, not because I really care about the king’s situation, but because this morning the Cratts took advantage of the lack of patrols to issue forth from the mountains and level my little village. It wasn’t pretty. They looted and killed most of the men, women, and children. A few of us “lucky” ones were thrown into wagon cages. I guess we’ll either be sold as slaves or maybe pressed into service in their army or something.
Anyway, I suppose it’s better to be alive rather than dead, but I could be wrong. Time will tell. Life goes on…for now.
