Wet

It has been a wet day here in the WaterPark Capital of the World. Showers, drizzles, rain, showers, all alternating. A good day to stay in, do some packing for the move and also get in some writing. I took a break before lunch and did a little shopping during a lull in the precipitation. I ran into one of the library NaNoWriMo group, a woman I hadn't heard from since right before we started. She told me that she had suffered a mild stroke and was just now able to get up and move about again. So any writing projects are on hold for the time being. She has published one novel already, though it as not a NaNoWriMo product.

My word count at the moment is 48,263. I imagine I will hit 50,000 sometime tomorrow, probably when I am writing at the library. That does not mean I will have a completed draft, although as far as drafts go, it is filling out pretty well. 

The word-of-the-day is panglossian: characterized by extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity. (Taken from the name of the character in Candide.) I haven't put it into today's writing, but I think it will be possible to use it somewhere. The narrator's daughter is a bit panglossian. She does not, however, think that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Her mother abandoned the family and her father is a recovering alcoholic who is estranged from his own family. She's optimistic, not delusional.

Here is a section, again not from what I wrote today, from the narrator's first encounter with the boy with wings:

I looked down the corridor just in time to see the door to the guest bathroom open and the boy come out.

            He was just under five feet tall, I would guess. From the bottom of his bare feet, pale with dust, to the top of his head of dirty blond hair, that is. The wings reached another foot above that, white, not glowing. Just white. Normal white, like bird wings. As he came closer, I saw that he had green eyes, no, maybe hazel. He had a light tan and what looked like a hint of stubble on his chin. He was wearing what I assumed were the same cargo pants Katie had described, worn but not really torn. The many pockets didn’t sag, so I guess he wasn’t carrying anything in them. He was bare-chested, but he had on a nondescript vest.

            I backed up until I hit the wall. I was still holding the phone and it was a moment or two before I realized that the annoying buzz I heard was not in my head but the phone signaling that it was off the hook. I fumbled trying to put it back on the stand and managed after three tries.

            The boy smiled and came closer, his hands in his pockets. He didn’t say anything, but he cocked his head to the side and peered at me. He didn’t look afraid or curious or … anything, really. He was just there.

            In my kitchen.

            With his white wings.

            “Daddy,” Katie said, ever polite and as if this was the most natural thing in the world, “this is Angelo. I told you about him.”

            Automatically I stepped forward and held out my hand.

            Angelo looked at it for a moment and then at Katie.

            “Shake his hand, silly,” she said.

            He reached out and took my hand, turned it over and looked at it closely for a moment, then looked up and grinned, shaking it vigorously up and down.

            I was still is a daze and just stood there while he pumped my arm like he was working an old well pump.