Reverse book club & Chapter 1

So three friends, Wes, and I decided to write a book together, but not in the usual way. The notion is this: One person writes the first chapter and then passes it along with no other explanation to the second. The second reads the first chapter, imagines what a full book would be, and then writes the second chapter and gives it to the third. The third then to the fourth. The fourth then to the fifth. And then the fifth back to the first and the cycle begins anew. At no point do the five of us discuss where the book is going. The only guidance we can give is what we put in the actual chapter. The book has no title yet, but this is the opening chapter, written by me (I apologize in advance for the disastrous spacing, it's some sort of blogspot quirk).

Chapter one: A phone full of pigeons

Ring.

Damn phone. I’d been dreaming, and it was pleasant. It was one of those dreams that are almost entirely memories, but have one or two fantastical elements. Adeline and I were at the park describing cloud shapes, trying, not to be accurate, but to be as ridiculous as possible – the Milky Way! Octopus giving birth! Duck! (Whereupon she threw a handful of grass at my head) – except in the dream the clouds were near perfect representations of our absurd designations.

Ring.

I’m tempted to let it ring and just go back to sleep, but I won’t get that dream back. It’s gone, just like Adeline. I’m also curious who would be calling me at 7:25 in the morning.

“Lo?”
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
“Hello? Is there anyone there?” I say slowly, trying to enunciate as clearly as possible, not that it’s likely someone didn’t understand the way I said hello, but you never know.

Not quite nothing. Within the almost-nothing I faintly hear something. It kind of sounds like scratching, but softer. The noise makes me a bit uneasy so I don’t want to hang up without figuring out what it is.

“Hello? Is everything ok?”

The soft scratching from the other end has picked up it’s pace a little bit, but I still can’t tell exactly what it is. Fluttering?

“Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

The sound is becoming more distinct though it is still barely audible. There is something oddly familiar about it, something compelling as well. I feel myself drawn to the sound.

Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh.

I feel like I should recognize the sound. I sit up in bed, press the phone hard to my ear and put my finger in the other one. I fix my face into an almost cartoonishly exaggerated focus expression. The sound is still there, quiet, constant, almost relaxing. Calling out, reaching out to me. Trying to send me a message, perhaps. But what message?

Fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh.

It kind of sounds like one of those tapes people buy to help themselves get to sleep. Calming ocean sounds or the like. Could it just be one of those? No. Who would wake me up just to play me music that’s supposed to help me go to sleep? Besides, it’s too discordant. It sounds like it should be relaxing but it’s actually unnerving. The fwooshes are too close together, too out of rhythm, too on top of each other.

I close my eyes. Trying to picture what the sound could be. The fwooshing fills my head, flying circles around my brain. Flying? Could it be birds? It does kind of sound like wings pushing against air. I try to focus even more intently on the sound and let it fill my brain.

I see myself now in the middle of a room filled with pigeons. I’m in a bookstore – my bookstore – and the pigeons are everywhere. Dozens of them perched on shelves and ladders, while a few more pace back and forth on the counter next to the register. The air above this scene is a blur of gray as the pigeons fly in a figure eight pattern overhead, their feathers occasionally catching the light and glinting purple or green. I’m taking this all in when then the room abruptly clicks out of existence. I am now just sitting up in bed with my eyes closed.

The line has gone dead. I lie back down since I don’t need to open the store for three and a half hours. What an odd phone call.



It’s 4:30 in the morning in an unidentified town on the west coast of the United States. It’s raining, and has been for several days. The current rain is the type that doesn’t seem hard when you look at it, but if you spend half a minute out in it you find yourself soaked to the bone. This is the 267th type of rain and she thinks it’s one of the worst, right up there with heavy misting – the 134th type – which can’t be blocked by a hood or umbrella.

It’s still dark and none of the lights in the motel are on. The woman is lying naked on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Her breasts rise and fall with her breathing, the rest of her long lithe body motionless on top of the covers. A gray cat with white feet is nestled up against her, unperturbed by her sleeplessness or the rain. The cat is sleeping, it’s breathing, slow and regular as the tide outside the window. The cat’s collar, green with silver lettering – Driftwood – is on the bedside table next to a clock blinking 12:00 in bright red numerals.

She isn’t sure when she fell asleep, but she doesn’t feel tired now. She knows she laid down slightly before eleven with the lights off and the rain – then a heaving, threatening thing, #11 – pounding away outside. At some point she must have slipped into sleep, but the line between asleep and awake is so blurry for her she can’t tell when exactly it happened.

The sound of the rain, like television fuzz at low volume, is almost tangible around her, and it fills the room. She is trying to remember the lines of a poem, but she can only remember the end - adrift in a sea of apathy, I wait for rescue – recalling the rest seems important for some reason, but nothing comes to her. Unable to remember the lines she tries to think who wrote it, but once more draws a blank. It bothers her to have this one line stuck in her head, taunting her, reminding her that there is so much she doesn’t remember or understand about what’s going on.



It’s past ten when I finally get out of bed, my sleeping head filled with pigeons. I look outside, hoping to finally see a sky burdened with dark gray clouds like an occupying army, a clear indication of a massive and dangerous storm on the way, but it’s another perfect day – 72, sunny, blue sky highlighted by bright white clouds. Adeline’s been gone for twenty-nine days and Mother Nature refuses to acknowledge it; every day has been a shining example of South Haverbrook’s finest spring weather – the best Connecticut has to offer.

I decide to bike to the store – I may not like that the weather has been so nice, but I’m not too dumb to take advantage of it. There’s something uniquely calming about biking along the shore, watching the waves brush against the rocks below me. I can almost feel the tranquility wash over me. I bike slowly and get to the store with about an hour to get things ready for opening. When I open the door, a pigeon walks out and I realize I’m going to need a lot more time. The store is covered with feathers and pigeon mess.

I go into the back office to call the police.

“Onatonga County, Sheriffs department, this is Marcy, how can I help you?”
“Hi. My name is Jerry Marston, I own the bookstore out on Gavin drive, and hmm… let’s see… I don’t really know exactly how to explain this, but it seems that in the middle of the night my store was filled with pigeons and you know how pigeons are, so now my store is filled with feathers and pigeon mess”
“Hold on. I’ll connect you to pest and wildlife control.”
“No-“
“Pest and Wildlife control, this is Dennis how can I help you?”
“I don’t think you can. I called the police because I feel like a crime has taken place in my store.”
“Then why did they connect you to us?”
“Because the crime involved pigeons”
“Hmm. I see, are the pigeons still at the scene of the crime, because if they are we could send someone out to control them for you?”
“No there, all gone. All I have now is feathers and pigeon mess.”
“Hold on, I’ll transfer you to the sanitation department.”
“No-“
“Sanitation, this is Bill, whatcha’ need”
"I’m sorry Bill, I’m going to hang up on you. Have a good day.”

Deciding that the police probably couldn’t get to the bottom of this anyway I set out cleaning the store.



It’s 8:00 am in the unidentified western coast town and still raining. The sun is blanketed in a thick swath of cloud, and doesn’t seem to be putting much effort into breaking past. The rain has shifted to a spastic driving rain – #36 – where it falls heavy then light, heavy then light on and on.

Inside the motel the woman still lies naked and awake on the bed, Driftwood calmly sleeping at her side. Her clothes are folded neatly and stacked on a chair. She only has one outfit and no suitcase. She has only six other possessions: a Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum revolver and the five bullets within it. At present the gun’s eight-inch barrel is resting alongside the bible in the bedside drawer. Thinking about that makes her smile.

There are footsteps in the hall outside, heavy, purposeful steps. Each footfall bringing the person closer to her door. From the sound of it she can tell that the man is big – between 250 and 280 pounds – and evenly distributed. His walk is stiff so she can tell that he is wearing a suit. She didn’t need to hear that though, they always wear suits. The steps stop in front of her room, toes pointing towards the door. A crinkle of fabric, like the sound of a hand in a pocket is followed by the sound of a man in a suit bending over. A card slides under the door. The feet turn and walk away.

A few minutes pass, the rain changes subtly – #37 now – and Driftwood, gets up, walks over to the door and picks up the card in his mouth without any difficulty, as if he’s done this a hundred times before. He slinks back on to the bed and drops the card on the woman’s chest, purring lightly. The woman absently strokes his head, paying special attention to his ears, without looking at him, her eyes still on the ceiling. His purring lowers into a gentle rumbling of content. She lets out a sigh and picks up the card.

Jerry Marston,
South Haverbrook, Connecticut

“Well Driftwood, I guess we’re heading east. I wonder if it’s raining there.” She say’s with a laugh.



-dale