NaNoWriMo - Day 4, Part 1

The dingy cream-colored paint on the ceiling swam in his vision. He breathed raggedly, hands crossed on his chest. A tightness was growing in his side that threatened to spread down to his leg, so he levered himself off the floor and grabbed an aspirin before showering. The heat of the water melted the knotted muscles a little, and he felt almost human, rather than a ball of assorted aches and pains, physical and mental.

He dressed for work early, hunting through the laundry for a black shirt and finally resorting to the pile of mildly dirty clothes in a basket by the back door. In truth, he could wear whatever he wanted, but he felt that to flout the dress code he set for his workers was bad policy. Although they never seemed to follow it anyways.

It was still too early to really leave when he stepped out in the glaring sun, blinking and fumbling for his sunglasses. He recalled that they had broken last month and sat down on the front step of his wide, rambling wooden porch. The upstairs neighbors' car sat in the driveway, mud-spackling the queer shade of maroon paint, while beside it his Triumph bike gleamed like a nicked but carefully polished gem. Clean because it sat there, as useful as a sundial in a tsunami, he thought. Between the rain and his leg, he'd be lucky to use the damn thing once this summer.

His own car needed to be washed, though it didn't have the same coating of dirt as the neighbours'. Another thing he probably wouldn't get to this summer. He sighed, limped to the car and drove to work.

For once, parking was easy to find.

NaNoWriMo - Day 3, Part 2

Sun poured in through the skylight, painting the wooden floorboards in ochre shades. Its warm rays fell on Rafael's shoulders and flared in his eyes. The acrid scent of sweat filled his nostrils as he crouched listening to the melodic twang of the berimbau, the rhythm of the atabaque, the chant of the roda. Even the sunlight seemed to dance with the music as clouds passed before it. His breath came long and slow.

He touched palms with his partner and they cartwheeled into the roda. They began slowly, in time with the music, legs seeking each other out and retreating low and high, feinting and striking. At first the movements were compact, close to the ground, full of intention and trickery. The song of the roda began to pick up speed, and they evolved with the song, standing straighter, become more aggressive. Rafael feinted left and came whirling over his partner's head with a spinning left armada, only to hurriedly throw himself towards the floor to avoid the same coming from the right. Back and forth they went, exchanging blows that never landed.

The song accelerated. So did the dance, now a whirling exchange of standing kicks and 'Au' cartwheels. Rafael could feel the wind of his partner's foot passing before his face, centimeters from striking him. They played all out now, spinning in earnest yet friendly attempts to annihilate each other. His partner threw an acrobatic series of attacks that Rafael was only abelt evade with a wrenching backwards esquiva and handstand. He paused in that inverted state ofr a moment, seeing his opponent as if reflected in water. Sweat dripped from his scalp to the floor. Then he swept in with a low hasteira, moving instantly into a high strike. The sweep hooked the other man's leg and then a violent pain shot down from his knee as he connected with the other man's neck at the same moment that he lost his balance. They fell.

Rafael felt himself hit the bed as he woke. He lay motionless, sheets twisted and soaked, leg cramped and filled with agony. The light of early dawn crashed through his open windows, illuminating the armada of dust motes drifting through the air and stabbing at his eyes. He groaned and burrowed himself deeper into the covers. His fingers crawled on the dresser until they located a bottle of pills. The confusingly screwed cap defeated his groggy attempts and he tossed it aside onto the pile of swept-aside clothes.

His body refused his best efforts to stir it form the bed. He lay in a defeated, half-conscious state for some time. The dream hung persistently in his vision, in his nostrils. Every second was clear as if it were happening at that moment. The cobwebby remnants of sleep gummed his eyes. His leg pulsed.

Finally he dragged himself from bed with a Herculean effort and propelled himself towards coffee. The steel pot stood on the stove, one-third full from yesterday. He poured the cold liquid, swirls of oil coating its surface, into a mug and added a little water for volume before sliding it into the microwave. His head fell against the door of the oven as it hummed, the vibrations running through his forehead and down to his spine. It finished and he took a sip; too hot, stale, and watery. But coffee, nonetheless. It dulled the ache in his head but not his body.

Toast seemed like too much effort so he grabbed a handful of olives and a hunk of cheese and made that his breakfast. In truth, he didn't have to be up and about for hours yet, but even such a dismal morning seemed preferable to the option of returning to sleep and all its attendant torments. The taste of the coffee became unbearable and he added a little instant to fortify the flavor. Sparked with ambition, he fried a few eggs and bolted them down. Food and caffeine had restored some strength. His spirit still flagged. The temptation to simply fold himself in front of a screen and waste the morning tugged at him, but he fought back. For a while he picked desultory tunes on the guitar, but the strings strummed dissonantly and he couldn't find the will to tune it.

He turned to exercise to stem the ennui that threatened to drain him, leave him lifeless as if the victim of a vampire. Push-ups, sit-ups, weights, repeated over and over until the muscles shook and the tendons quivered like untied lines snapping in the wind. It was pain, but a good one that somehow made the other more bearable. At last he finished, collapsed, panting on the cold wood of his floor. Sweat dripped down into the small of his back and pooled beneath him. For a few moments, he felt decent and alive.

NaNoWriMo - Day 3, Part 1

A few others spoke, men and women Rafael didn't know or vaguely recognized. He heard nothing, just stared down at the odd collection of keepsakes arrayed across the top of the coffin. His eyes kept coming back to the hat; he remembered as clearly as a photograph Louis' laughing face beneath the bent brim, discolored with age. His face had been so like his brothers', and yet in many ways so different; perpetually amused where Damien looked somber and James angry. Laughing, but with some dark sadness in his eyes. That face appeared more clearly before him than the scene he stood in; smiling, sighing, and silent, in the stillness of death. All three, but the last most clearly.

The last people spoke the last words; and slowly, they began to drift away. Gina was the first to go, flanked by Louis' brothers. Others wandered away in twos and threes; the priest, the mestre, Ourinho and his girl. Jason stood for a long time, and finally wandered over, laid his heavy hand on Rafael's shoulder. He jerked instinctively in surprise, but said nothing. For a moment they stood, gazes locked. Then Jason turned away without speaking and padded into the rain, so that only Rafael was left, staring into the gaping wound in the earth. He was soaked, now, but hardly noticed; his hair dangled before his eyes, dripping down his face.

He wasn't sure how much later it was that he noticed the gravediggers standing ill-at-ease beneath the willow, smoke curling from their cigarettes, waiting for him to go. Perhaps he'd only been there for a few moments, perhaps for half an hour. The empty bottle of whisky hung awkwardly in his pocket, and on an impulse, he pulled it and tossed it away, turning as he did so that he did not see it fall, only heard the light shattering of glass as he returned to his car, closed his eyes and started the engine.

The radio turned on when he did and strains of Irish pipes floated from the car's speakers. He stabbed a finger at he power switch and shoved the car into gear. The gravediggers tossed spades full of earth through the air as he drove away, rolling through the winding paths in low gear. Once again he heard bagpipes, and looked in confusion at his stereo. But no; a crowd huddled by another grave, a piper sending the plaintive drone into the atmosphere. Rafael slowed but then thought better of it, feeling ghoulish in his fascination.

The gates now stood open as he left the cemetery and headed for home. The cafe would keep for now, on a rainy evening like this. He drove too fast down the empty roads, hugging the curves and feeling the tires strain under the load. On at least one turn he felt them lift and had to modulate the clutch to keep the car under control, wheels spinning out silver tails of water. Down the straightaway, around the rotary, clipping the grass and fishtailing slightly on the downhill curve, he roared homewards.

Before long he was in the driveway, panting slightly, foot aching as it held down the clutch, engine purring. Adrenaline lifted his heart into his throat, pulsed his veins against the skin. He turned the car off and limped hurriedly inside to the medicine cabinet, where he grabbed the first orange canister and dumped a pair of pills into his palm. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of himself; hair chaotic and damp, eyes bloodshot and sunken, collar twisted. He turned away in disgust as he swallowed the pills dry. A pile of unfolded clothes lay on top of his tangled sheets, and he had to shove them half-heartedly aside before slipping into an aching and troubled sleep.

NaNoWriMo - Day 2, Part 1

The cemetery gates stood shut when Rafael arrived, and he had to leave the car and push them open. They groaned and flakes of rusted black paint floated to the ground. He drove down the winding lanes with a growing sense of trepidation; somewhere in a tree, a dove answered the rain with a plaintive call. An old man shuffled among the graves, a broad umbrella protecting him as he moved along a twisting path.

Ahead, he saw a cluster of cars parked under a spreading willow, among them the long, low shape of the hearse. A small group stood by them. Two men were opening the rear door as he pulled the car onto the verge. He saw the faces turn toward him but for the moment, he remained seated, watching. Finally, he left the car and joined the rest of the group.

A silent nod was all he offered in greeting, and all he received in reply. He walked to where Jason and Ourinho stood, grabbing the hand of each in turn and clasping them around the shoulders. Silver beads of water dotted Jason's dreadlocks, dripping on the fabric of his black suit. A few tears dotted Ourinho's golden lashes, and he brushed them away with a gloved hand. Ze Carlos and brothers Damien and James joined them and together, the six men lifted the casket out of the hearse. Raindrops drummed on the black lacquered wood and rolled off the gilt edging.

They moved slowly; without his cane, Rafael gritted his teeth against the shocks that ran up his leg with each step. He could feel the eyes of the small crowd boring into him as they bent to set the coffin on the metal frame which would lower it into the earth. The six men stood and stepped back almost in unison. Across from him stood Gina, Louis's fiance. Former fiance, he reminded himself. She was in black, of course, from head to toe. A veil fell just to her mouth, but he could still glimpse her eyes, burning beneath. What was that expression..hate? Pity? Or just sorrow. Her long, brown fingers worried at the gleaming gold ring with the canary diamonds.

Damien and James flanked their brother's fiancee, arms around her in condolence. Their faces shared the same high, almost arrogant brows, deep-set eyes and sunken cheeks that had given Louis the look of some mournful chieftain, but physically, they could not be more different. James had a prizefighter's body, with shoulders seemingly twice as wide as his younger brother's taller, lankier frame. Louis had always seemed the golden mean of the two, Rafael thought. Damien did not look at him, but gazed downwards at the casket, focused as if staring into an infinite tunnel. James' eyes, though, bore into him like drillbits, burning darkly from the carved mask of his face.

Beside them stood Ourinho, shorter than all three, his dark golden curls sodden and running down his back. He had the face of a Raphaelite angel and another, even more angelic figure stood by his side. His latest girlfriend; was it Caroline? Or maybe Karen, Rafael couldn't remember. Though he was sure they'd only been together a month, he wept openly in front of her. Near the head of the coffin Jason slowly shifted his weight from leg to leg, looking menacing and incongruous with his long dreads and immaculately tailored suit and raincoat, towering over everyone nearby. He watched Rafael as well, his eyes a piercing, peculiar grey.

Mestre Ibrahim stepped forward and softly dropped a silk cordão casket, the green and gold shining on the black wood like some kind of tropical serpent. His suit fit oddly on his small frame, his old tweed flat cap was ragged, and his shoes scuffed and worn. On the street, he would be easy to overlook, but many in the small crowd stared at him with reverence. He crossed himself, work-worn hands moving in a swift motion from shoulder to shoulder and chest to aquiline nose. The mestre murmured a brief Portuguese prayer and turned away. Others stepped forward and dropped mementoes into the grave; a gold cross, white flowers, a worn leather bible, a tattered Red Sox cap.

A priest began to speak; Rafael didn't recognize him. The words flowed past him leaving no mark, bringing no meaning; platitudes, invocations and prayers. Gina sobbed silently beneath her veil. James' knuckles clenched white. Rafael listened but heard nothing, raindrops drumming on his head, his shoulders, cascading down between his fingers. He could feel the eyes boring into him. The priest finished his speech. Rafael licked dry lips.

Damien began to speak. "He was a brother to me, and to a lotta other people. He..." The words choked in the tall man's throat. "We're gonna miss the hell out of you, Lou."

He stepped back and shoved his hands back into his pockets, shoulders hunched, face to the ground. James pulled his arms from Gina's shoulder and edged towards the casket.

"You left us too soon, brother. All of us deserved to go before you." As he spoke his gaze drilled into Rafael's. "You were a good man, you were a good brother, and I know you woulda been an even better husband and a father. Rest in peace, brother. They ain't gonna make no more like you."

Another moment of silence, and then Rafael stepped forward, drew a slim bottle of Jameson from his pocket and upended it over the casket, watching the twisting amber stream cascade downwards, tumbling and blending with the falling rain. The acrid smell of whiskey touched his nose. He might have been shedding a tear, but he couldn't tell with the water pouring down his face. The last drops fell from the bottle and he put it back in his pocket.

NaNoWriMo - Day 1, Part 1

Yes, National Novel Writing Month. The literary equivalent of a marathon, except at the end people don't congratulate you, they just wonder why you haven't showed your face in the light of day for an entire month.

Here's my profile:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/575010

The goal: 50,000 words; quality/consistency/plot unimportant. That works out to 1,666.6(repeating) words a day. Of course you can work extra hard on the weekends to average it out. I'm VERY good at that...

Anyways, here goes.

NaNoWriMo

Rafael watched the water pouring steadily through the cracks in the window. Instinctively, he knew he ought to get up, throw a towel down, maybe try to fix the thing, but he couldn't be bothered. The rain hammered at the windows, cascading down the ancient, bubbled glass. Every so often, a car would rush by, splashing the panes with grime from the street that soon washed away into the deluge.

Twenty days of rain in June, a flood of biblical proportions. A truck rolled through the puddles, sending a tidal wave against the windows. The trickle surged into a flood, and with a heavy sigh, Rafael pushed himself away from the bar and limped across the room to throw a few towels down to mop up the growing pool of dirty water. It was only five in the afternoon, but outside the headlights of the cars flashed across his eyes like searchlights, briefly illuminating the yellowing walls of the cafe. He grimaced at the thought of having to paint them.

He jammed more towels into the window sill and, his leg aching, sat down heavily in the chair by the door. The wood creaked as he leaned back, ancient nails complaining at the strain. Another thing to fix. A stab of pain shot up through his knee and he winced, digging his fingers into the joint. Sailors always used to say that rain made their old wounds tighten. After a month of rain, though, surely that stopped? He fished in his pockets for an aspirin but only came up with an empty tin of mints and crumpled packet of cigarettes. There was one left, but he set it on the table. Maybe the rain would stop in the next hour.

At the other end of the cafe, a fat man snored and shifted in his sleep. Rafael leaned around the pillar to stare at Jorge, dozing fitfully in front of a half-demolished plate of sardines. The edge of the table rose and fell on his swelling stomach with each sonorous breath. A half-empty glass of beer slid back and forth with each movement, like a drunken crewman on a boat pitching in heavy weather. Rafael sighed, and dragged himself across the room to rescue the plate and glass before the inevitable happened.

He eased himself into the chair across from Jorge and watched the glass slide back and forth, each time coming closer to the edge of table. Bubbles spiralled lazily up through the amber brew as it tilted back and forth. Jorge slept on, oblivious, as was his habit. Nearly every day he came in, and nearly every day he slumped into the same nap, same chair, same position. His wispy Fu Manchu mustache and beard, gold-rimmed glasses, serene demeanour and brightly patterned silk shirts gave him the appearance of some latter-day Confucius, dreaming peacefully after a long day of doling out proverbs and golden nuggets of wisdom. A battered leather diary lay open in front of him, stained with coffee rings and grease prints.

Resisting the temptation to read the sleeping man's work, Rafael carefully gathered up the dishes and brought them back to the kitchen. A small tower of dirty dishes leaned at a precarious angle in the sink. He peered around the kitchen, searching for Clarissa. An unshielded lightbulb flickered in the back corner, illuminating the twin white cables of her earbuds. She sat with her head down on a countertop, hoodie pulled over her head, heavy metal blasting out of the headphones. A cafe full of the unconscious. Rafael considered waking her and decided against it. She'd spent twelve of the last twenty-four hours in the place anyways. He pulled a stool up to rest his leg and began rinsing the dishes, scrubbing half-heartedly at the crusts of bread, congealed pools of oil and dried grains of rice.

The water began to spurt fitfully out of the spigot, and he gave the pipes underneath a firm kick. Another thing to take care of. He pulled a sticky note off pad tacked to the wall and pressed it to the u-bend. It joined a collection of such notes appended to various malfunctioning appliances; the flickering bulb, the flaky pilot light on the back burner, the broken back door latch held together by a rusted fork, and the wheezing pump on the back of the prep refrigerator. Clarissa claimed that it was giving her cancer, and Rafael was hard pressed to find a counter argument as it slowly bled out coolant day by day.

The dishes done, he hobbled back to the bar and reached under it for the bottle of Jameson he stashed behind the . The first two rocks glasses he pulled out were dusty and distinctly marked with fingerprints, so he tossed them in the bar sink and grabbed a wine glass that dangled from the brass rack above the bar. He poured a slug and then, thinking it looked lonely swirling around in the bottom of the glass, added a handful of ice cubes and topped it off. He rummaged through the drawers for an aspiring, reached into his pockets before remembering he'd already done so, and took a small sip. The whiskey stung his chapped lips. Why were they chapped, when it had been raining for a month? He drank glass of water to soothe them.

His eyes wandered across the rows of empty tables. The chairs stood in haphazard lines, but he couldn't bring himself to the go and straighten them. All the lights were on, at least, although in the back corner a metal lampshade seemed to hang at a particularly precarious angle. Some of the faded sepia photographs and line drawings of Rio, Salvador and Olinda had been knocked subtly off the level; he reached out to straighten the nearest one. A faint buzzing sound leaking through the speakers reminded him that the stereo was still on although the CD had finished playing. He conducted a desultory search for the remote, then dragged himself over to the system and stabbed spitefully at the power strip with his cane, shutting it off with a harsh electronic squawk.

The cane was preferable to the aluminum crutches he'd been dragging himself around with, but it made him feel like a relic, a piece of driftwood washed up on the beach and bleached in the sun. Not that he'd seen the sun for days. It was an antique; like the cafe, he thought. Like himself, in some ways. It was made of Pau-Brasil and had an ochre sheen to it. The top had been carved into some kind of animal years ago; a bird of some kind, or was it a fish? Age had battered it beyond recognition; his father had had a bad habit of dropping it, and once left to roll around the bottom of his boat for over a month. His grandfather had apparently stolen it from a colonel in Bahia, a story which Rafael was almost positive was fabricated - he had probably stolen it, but more likely from some old farmer passed out in a bar - but liked too much to dispute.

He took a handful of olives from the bowl set out on the bar. They were good olives, from the Armenian store; he made a mental note to get more. They were addictive, these things. As soon as he'd scraped all the meat off of one, he felt compelled to eat another, until the woody taste of the pits forced him to spit them out. The whiskey and olives had made him thirsty, and he downed another glass of water. Outside, the rain kept falling. Bored, he turned to espresso machine. Every time he got bored, he made espresso. He'd had a few today already...two? Three? It put him on edge but at least he didn't fall asleep like Jorge and Clarissa.

He filled the portafilter with espresso and tamped down the grounds with practiced flicks of his wrist, moving with the unconscious grace of muscle memory. The feeling was oddly satisfying, like turning a key in an oiled lock or cracking knuckles. A thin jet of boiling water sprayed out of the portafilter as it brewed and he quickly leaned all of his weight against the handle to jam the leak shut. Another thing that needed fixing. He slammed a Post-It on the machine and swirled the espresso around in the demitasse. It'd brewed too thick and dark, and he could see a few grounds suspended in it, but he didn't care enough to fix it. He sucked it down black, no sugar; he liked it better with sugar, but sometimes he drank it black out of some obscure obligation. The whiskey and the coffee gave him a dizzy, hyperactive feeling. His leg throbbed, and he realized his phone was ringing.

When he fished it out of his pocket, he stared for a moment at the animated church bells dancing on the screen. Five thirty in the afternoon. It took him a moment to remember where he had to be. Before he left, he set an eggtimer in the kitchen to wake Clarissa in a few moments. Truthfully, she'd probably pick herself up the instant he left. Could she really sleep with that noise blasting into her eardrums? He nearly knocked the coat rack over as he grabbed his jacket. He'd almost made it out the door when he remembered his wallet and had to limp back to grab it from the kitchen.

Outside, the rain slid down his collar despite his best attempts to turn it up against the downpour. His meter had expired when he arrived at the car. He hadn't received a ticket, though; an amazing piece of luck. His knee stiffened as he eased himself into the driver's seat, and for a moment he sat, biting his lip, eyes closed, leaning against the window. An ambulance roaring by with sirens on full startled him from his reverie.

With a groan, he turned the key in the ignition. Time to go to the funeral.

Triumphant Sun PDF

In the interests of keeping things up to date, I have created a PDF of Triumphant Sun, edited for clarity(and so that I can remember what's going on!), and I'm going to post it here.

Then maybe I'll, you know. Write a little.

Riches Among the Ruins

Yes, it's been quite a while since I've posted - but that should change, now that I have something resembling a full-time position.

I'm working for an author in Boston at a company called Turan Corporation, helping run the website, blog and general communications for this book:

As such, I'm going to be researching, writing and posting about the book, emerging markets and economics on blog.richesamongtheruins.com.

I was genuinely surprised by the book - I have neither economics expertise nor much knowledge about emerging markets. Essentially, my entire exposure to economic policy is reading a few blogs (like Pat Garofalo's economics column at Think Progress) and the Economist every week.

However, the book lays some complex financial arrangements out in simple, comprehensible terms. Furthermore, it's a genuine, real-life adventure story that reveals, at least to me, how crazy business in the various dark corners of the world can get.

I don't recommend things simply out of obligation or because it's my job (although it is my job!), but if you are interested in geo-politics, economics, or just travel, this is a pretty fun book and something I'd recommend picking up.

Hopefully, I should have some time to update here as well.