Scene 1 from the discarded files

            As you may or may not know, my first novel, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”, is in the process of being published. I don’t have a date yet when it will be available, and I suppose that’s why I haven’t been spreading the word as much as I should.

          It is the story of an American woman and an African boy. When I first started writing it, I switched back and forth between not only the woman’s and boy’s point of views, but about five other people as well. It became rather cumbersome and confusing. I had to cut out some of the various character’s stories, but didn’t delete them entirely. Those words, those other perspectives, remain on my laptop. I thought that maybe, in prelude to the release of the book, I would start sharing some of those scenes here.

            The boy’s point of view

The boy didn’t know how long he lay on the floor of his mother’s hut. He knew that she was working around him, cooking meals, making chai tea. He knew that sometimes she knelt next to him and poured goat’s milk, mixed with cow’s blood, down his throat.

The bleeding had stopped but the pain continued to pound through his entire body. He was afraid that he would never be able to walk again. He was more afraid that no one in his tribe would speak to him again.

Then one night, when everyone was fast asleep, he rolled unto his belly and pushed himself up onto his knees. He rose on wobbly legs and took a tentative step. He discovered it wasn’t as bad as he thought. Walking actually helped, it made him feel alive again, it forced him to breath. 

In silence, he filled a cloth bag with several pieces of chapati, the flat fried bread which they ate at most meals, and some strips of dried meat. He tied the bag along with the knife to his side and reached for a long stick which was leaning against the wall outside.

He knew what he had to do.  

These boys, from my first trip to Kenya in 2006, were the physical inspiration for the boy in the story.