Surviving immortality, p.49
Surviving Immortality,
p.49
Jessup pushed the chair along the path, taking Landau and Rachael and Randall to the hotel.
Matt Reece heard the clacking of shoes on the stone walkway. He looked up to see a middle-aged man being led by an impatient flock of children, begging him to hurry. The man held a wooden bucket and a washrag, no doubt taking his kids to the nearest public bath. Matt Reece watched them pass. He turned to glance at Vishal and closed his eyelids on tears.
Vishal said, “Don’t be sad, cowboy. Just focus on all the hungry kids we’ll be feeding. We’ll have a dozen helping us on the ranch.”
Matt Reece snuggled closer while turning to face a nearby pond, on which the evening sun was shining. The sky was reflected on the surface, beneath fish moved in a slow cadence, and duckweed waved to and fro. This watery sky was different from the one above their heads. It was clear and filled with a serene light; from underneath and from within, it swallowed up the earth, and everything seemed to sink into it like a great anchor of pure gold that became dark with rust.
“Yes, at least a dozen. Let’s go home,” Matt Reece said.
They rose, and arm in arm they walked over the stone bridge that crossed the pond.
Afterword
KENJI HIROSHIGE died fourteen years after being imprisoned. His illness had something naked and abstract about it, and to which no name other than death could be attributed. It seemed that death found a way to enter the scene and finally take what it had waited so long for. As the end came, Kenji Hiroshige made little resistance to his approaching fate. He showed signs of an unutterable weariness and often remarked to his jailers that he was “dead sick of being confined, sick of the whole damned thing.” Giving his own version of “Give me liberty or give me death.” His brow furrowed, lines of arrogance and boredom eventually spreading to his entire face, morphing into an exaggerated, grotesque grimace, and continued to deepen and spread until death smoothed them out.
Toward the end, Kenji Hiroshige made a last request, which, though scarcely understood, was dutifully complied with, although the doctors knew it would do him no good. His wish, which would bring about Kenji Hiroshige’s last act, was that Matt Reece Connors visit him before his death.
Matt Reece came to stand at the side of Kenji’s prison hospital bed. He hadn’t aged a day, still as young and fresh and beautiful as a spring morning. Vishal stood beside him, and no one could doubt the intimacy that passed between them. And while Kenji was in one of his more lucid moments, propped up with pillows, shading his eyes with his wax-colored hands—he couldn’t bear the light after being kept in a dim cell for so many years—he composed his features into a malignant grimace and said he was sorry for the pain he had caused.
Matt Reece could see that his stepfather’s soul was tugging at its moorings and would soon break free to drift along unknown currents. With Matt Reece’s head bent to his right, pity forced him to try to comfort this sick, dying man. Thus it fell to Matt Reece Connors to administer the last bit of human kindness to Kenji Hiroshige, holding that yellowed hand to ease the final spasms and be his helper into death.
So died the man who thought he would live forever, uttering his last sigh on a bitter cold night. The prison hospital room was brightly lit, with three doctors in attendance. The stern furrows of his boredom smoothed over his face, and he was carried along, leaving his waxlike shell behind.
The body was cremated, and Matt Reece Connors took the ashes back to the Promesa Rota ranch. On the first day of spring, Matt Reece and Vishal rode west, as far as the foothills of the towering White Mountains, and spread Kenji Hiroshige’s ashes over a windblown bluff. They watched them rise on the breeze and settle over the landscape. Dust to dust, as it should be.
More from Alan Chin
The realities of war are brutal for any man, but for a Buddhist like Andrew Waters, they’re unthinkable. And reconciling his serene nature with the savagery of World War II isn’t the only challenge Andrew faces. First, he must overcome the deep prejudice his half-Chinese ancestry evokes from his shipmates, a feat he manages by providing them with the best meals any destroyer crew ever had. Then he falls in love with his superior officer, and the two men struggle to satisfy their growing passion within the confines of the military code of conduct. In a distracted moment, he reveals his sexuality to the crew, and his effort to serve his country seems doomed.
When the ship is destroyed, Andrew and the crew are interned in Changi, a notorious Japanese POW camp. In order to save the life of the man he loves, Andrew agrees to become the commandant’s whore. He uses his influence with the commandant to help his crew survive the hideous conditions, but will they understand his sacrifice or condemn him as a traitor?
Readers love The Lonely War by Alan Chin
“This is the most beautiful book I’ve read in a very long time. It is magnificent.”
—The Book Breeze
“…a modern classic. … While The Lonely War is not always an easy read, it is most definitely worth your time and I highly recommend it.”
—Joyfully Jay
“The Lonely War simply exemplifies Chin’s superb writing!”
—Paddylast Inc
“Chin’s writing is often literary, sometimes poetic, and in keeping with the broad sweep of the story, it illustrates the intensity of the love, relationships, and the coarseness of an all-male crew and prison camp.”
—Historical Novel Society
ALAN CHIN enjoyed a twenty-year career working his way from computer programmer to Director of Software Engineering, but he lost interest in computer science when he began writing fiction. He walked away from corporate America in 1999 and never looked back. Since then he has traveled to over forty countries, scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef, tracked black rhino in the Serengeti, and dined in most of the capitals of Europe. Oh yes, and he’s published several gay-themed novels and two screenplays.
In addition to writing, Alan is making a name for himself as a literary critic for several online publications which include Examiner.com GLBT Literature column, Queer Magazine Online, and the Lambda Literary website. In 2007, QBlissmagazine awarded their Pride In Literature award to Alan for his debut novel. In 2010, Alan’s novel, The Lonely War, swept the Rainbow Literary Awards, taking top honors in four categories: Best Fiction, Best Historical, Best Characters, and Best Setting.
Alan currently spends half of the year traveling the globe and the other half writing at his home in Palm Springs, California.
Website: alanchin.net
Blog: alanchinwriter.blogspot.com
Email: alanhchin@aol.com
By Alan Chin
The Lonely War
Surviving Immortality
Published by DSP PUBLICATIONS
www.dsppublications.com
Published by
DSP PUBLICATIONS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dsppublications.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Surviving Immortality
© 2018 Alan Chin.
Cover Art
© 2018 Tiferet Design.
http://www.tiferetdesign.com/
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact DSP Publications, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dsppublications.com.
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-544-6
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64080-545-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919630
Digital published June 2018
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Alan Chin, Surviving Immortality
