There are those writers that claim certain pieces of writing
poured out of them. As if they were sitting at their computer, or wherever it
is they write, and the story was absorbed through their fingertips onto the
page without any trouble at all. These annoying writers often say it was as if
they were possessed. By what, who can say? A spirited muse or an amused spirit.
Either way, it’s become a cliché. Still, that’s exactly what happened with me
while writing Woke Up in a Strange Place.
(Don’t roll your eyes at me! Sit up and pay attention!)
The story of Woke Up in a Strange Place stemmed from
a peculiar dream – nay, a vision! – when I was very ill years ago. I had, at
the time, just recently discovered I had inherited the same genetic disorder
which killed my father. I hadn’t the time to react properly to the news,
however, being so immediately sick. Lying on the bed, wrapped in blankets and
half-sleep, I saw something. Rather, I envisioned something. I was on a small
boat in the middle of some big river. Fog rolled over the water and everything
was a hazy grey. Opposite me was a wooded riverbank, and on that riverbank
stood my father. He was smiling and waving at me.
That’s where the vision ended and where my book took root.
I imagined an afterlife adventure. My main character, Joe,
is dead at the outset, waking up in a beautiful field of barley and having no
memory of his life. The journey is the thing, right? He is met by a stranger. A
lovely man he senses a connection with. A man he realizes, through the various
adventures to come, is the love of his life, the very reason for his journey of
self-discovery, of re-discovery.
Joe revisits his entire life and at every end there is the
fleeting glimpse of the stranger. Only after he sees everything and remembers
it can they be together again. But along the way he must deal with remembrances
of past loves and past deaths, and face horrors like the storm hound Gabriel
Ratchet and the Creeping Mists, a fog that swallows souls. He also finds fun and
mischief at a fraternity of young, over-sexed men who are led by a familiar
face from Joe’s past, now a giant with an enormous penis. Yes, really.
Comparison’s have been made to Mitch Albom’s The Five
People You Meet in Heaven (aside from the giant penis part), though I wrote
this well before I had heard of that book. In the writing, I had more in mind
the Oz books of L. Frank Baum and Dante’s Inferno…all, of course, with
the obvious gay twist. For me, this was – as it is with my character Joe –
about discovering me. I wrote it as both a romantic and a Romantic. This is my
heaven.
And honestly, it just poured out of me…
Blurb:
Joe wakes up in a barley field with no clothes, no memories, and no
idea how he got there. Before he knows it, he's off on the last great
journey of his life. With his soul guide Baker and a charge to have
courage from a mysterious, alluring, and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe
sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past.
The quest is not without challenges. Joe's past is not always an easy
thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace—and reunite with the
Stranger he is so strongly drawn to—he must continue on until the end,
no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.
EXCERPT from 'Woke Up in a Strange Place':
Prologue
“I CAN see heaven,” Lou said. He was holding Joe, cradling him in
his arms as they lay on the nighttime beach. They combated the crisp
breeze with warm sweaters and a tight embrace. The sound of the water
beating the rocks and the shore soothed them.
“You can see past the clouds?” Joe asked, playing along.
They had spent the month traveling the coast of New England—the Gay
Grand Tour. They had rested at B&Bs that had been recommended along
the way. Their golden retriever, Spooner, had been left with Joe’s
mother. They missed him terribly but needed the time alone.
Things had been strained lately. They needed to focus on each other
again. Joe’s position as a book editor—mostly tomes on mythology and
folklore—had taken up a lot of time. And Lou’s mother was a bit of a
menace.
“Absolutely, I can see it,” Lou replied. “Just up there. It’s not
so far.” He pointed to a vacant patch in the sky. “It’s just past that
star you can see shining through that cloud clearing.”
Joe laughed comfortably. “You’re a silly man, Lou,” he said, snuggling into Lou’s chest, smelling his cologne.
“What would you do if I died?” Lou asked. His voice took on a slightly more serious tone.
The question took Joe aback. He raised his head from Lou’s chest
and looked him in the eye. “What kind of question…? We’re too young to
be talking like that.”
“We’re not too young. I just turned thirty. People die every day.”
“Well, not us,” Joe replied bluntly. Granted, they hadn’t been
taking terribly good care of themselves lately—lots of take-out and an
expired gym membership—but talking about dying just seemed odd. Like an
insurance commercial. “We’re together forever. I’d go crazy without you.
Absolute bonkers.”
“You’ve got more courage than that. You would survive.”
Joe didn’t say anything, but he knew Lou was wrong. He couldn’t
think of a world without him. Not anymore. Not after all he’d been
through, all the disappointments and searching.
“Would you wait for me?” Joe asked quietly, his head resting again on Lou’s strong chest.
“Where?”
“In heaven. Beyond the clouds and the stars. Would you wait for me?”
“It wouldn’t be heaven without you. Of course I’d wait. I’ll always
wait for you, Joseph. Waiting for you, the anticipation, it’s what
drives me. You’re my life-force.”
Joe sighed, tears in his eyes. “Smooth talker. You always know just what clichés to use.”
“Go to sleep, baby,” Lou whispered. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
A Beautiful Place to Get Lost
VARIOUS echoes. That was all he heard until he opened his eyes.
With a last snap of his synapses like lightning charging back to
heaven, Joe found himself in another place altogether. The stale
argument of biology versus spirituality became moot. In the end, none of
it mattered.
One wonders why there needed to be a right or wrong answer
at all. Joe realized then that love had only ever been about content,
not form.
It was a repositioning, a new form of situating himself. He was
lying on his back in a summer field of barley now. How he had gotten
there, he had no idea. Maybe the sky had dropped him. However it
happened, he was lucid. Everything still felt real. Still felt…
tangible. Stalks surrounded him. In the afterlife, most people wake up
in fields of gold. This has been so since death began because it’s what
most humans know of peace, beauty, and ease. He knew the feel of the
barley as it scratched his skin; he smelled the fragrance of summer as
it blew past him, over him; he tasted the sweet humidity; and he hummed
with the lulling sound of honey bees making love to nearby wildflowers.
There was a perceptible heaviness to the smell of the breeze, though.
Like a frost was soon to set in. A few of the stalks were dead and
fallen.
There was no discomfort in the barley’s touch. It was a pleasant
itch, like a tickle. In fact, there was a tickling sensation to
everything, an almost untamable giddiness. He heard a giggle issue forth
from his own being as he lay on the golden blanket, stretching his arms
and legs out to their full extent.
He could remember nothing of before, our hero. The last vestiges of
imagery had become sepia, like a dream, clouded around the edges. His
memory was receding like the tide. This accounted for his lack of
frantic anxiety, for his complete acceptance of an otherwise absurd
situation. Only he existed in the barley, free of caustic worries. The
few dead barley stalks were interesting but not worrisome.
Memory? What was memory? Me-mo-ree. A strange word. A distant
concept. Laughable. Lacking in
description. For all he understood, the
whole ball of existence was set above and around him and had always been
barley and gorgeous sky.
There was only one thing he was certain of, and that was simply
because the thought had attached itself to him so fiercely, like a
stubborn root digging deep into the soil. His name was Joe.
Joe. Was that it? Three letters? J-O-E. Three tiny symbols of some
ancient script signifying an existence.
There was more, right? There had
to be more. There must be strength and vitality and vigor wrapped up in
those letters somehow, for he was of the barley now, of the very same
fortitude and determination. He felt it inside.
Joe (as he remembered his own name with some glee) lay staring at
the sky. It was different than what he thought a sky should look like.
Not a single solitary shade, but multi-layered, like a cake. Like sweet
eats streaked and decorated with purples and pinks and oranges.
He lounged and gazed upward, feeling no need to move. There was no
urgent call to stand and appropriate a functional demeanor. He felt only
the impulse to melt or sink into earth or sky.
He was not alone where he lay but could sense curious rodents and
lisping reptiles passing around him. Yet he felt no fear or repugnance
at the thought of them. They were of the barley as well. Everything was
one.
A wisp of some sweet redolence wafted over him as he relaxed hidden
in the tall, thin stalks of golden grass.
It was familiar, like an
echo.
The sound of something wading through the barley raised Joe’s
curiosity. He rose to his knees, peering over the tips of the stalks as
they swayed lazily.
He saw a figure. Another someone moving steadily through the grain
waves. The barley flowed around the form as it slowly approached.
Soon, it became clear to Joe that this new form was that of a young
man. He possessed a slender face, a strong nose and brow, a cleft chin,
and dark black hair that blew with the wind at his bare shoulders. He
looked tired. His face was pale, and dark circles marred his worried
eyes. Farther behind the Stranger (and even more curious), almost like
an afterthought demanding to be seen, was a golden retriever that leaped
high enough into the air to see above the gorgeous field, ears flopping
and tongue hanging loosely.
Joe got to his feet and waited for the young man with a rush of
excitement, though it was a mystery as to why. He ran his hand over the
top of the barley that flourished hip-high around him, the tips tickling
his tender flesh.
“You’re here,” the young Stranger said, looking quite breathless. A
hint of expectation lay in his expression.
It was as if he wanted to
tell Joe something urgent. The muscles in his jaw flexed and striated.
It was a lovely jaw, one that might have been carved from stone.
“I’m here,” Joe repeated. “But where’s here?” Joe’s eyes were wide,
keenly observant. His peculiar feeling of intimacy with this mysterious
man grew as the Stranger spoke. Joe felt a closeness, a need for this
individual. Potent desire had now supplanted his previous complacency.
His very breath quickened in this new presence and matched that of the
Stranger’s own.
“Here’s where you’re supposed to be.” The man smiled with a shrug. His tired eyes were misty and full of emotion.
“That’s a stupid thing to say.” Joe grinned. “But it’s nice. It’s
really nice here.” He looked around at the flowing field of gold and the
ecstatic canine in the distance, if only to keep from staring so
obviously at every tiny detail of the Stranger’s face. What lovely eyes!
“Well, it’s been waiting a while for you.” The Stranger couldn’t seem to take his sad eyes from Joe.
“I know you,” Joe said, drawing closer through the barley. He
recognized that the Stranger was naked, but then, he realized, he was
too. He hadn’t noticed this fact before but felt no disgrace in it now.
“Who are you?” he queried softly.
“You’re right,” the man smiled with slight mischief. “You know me.
You know me very well, Joseph.” He stared at Joe, swallowing a lump in
his throat. Again, that look of urgency, of some tale to be told.
Without thinking, Joe put his hand to the Stranger’s chest. He felt
as if it were an altogether natural thing to do. He felt the warmth of
skin, but there was no rhythm beneath it. There was no beat or cadence
in the toned chest. Joe gasped as a sudden maverick echo shocked him
like a jolt of electricity. The chill of grief and loss rippled through
him, and the image of a towering structure appeared in his mind, a
lighthouse from a distant memory. It lasted only for a moment, passing
quickly, but it made him draw his hand away. The Stranger grabbed it
gently. A soft breeze sprinkled over them, birds in the cake-like sky,
butterflies in the field just above the flaxen waves.
The Stranger smiled again. Nostalgia. His eyes brilliant blue hints of past joys. Memory.
“I know you… who are you?” Joe choked out, all at once very moved.
“I have to go now, Joe,” the Stranger said as he let go of Joe’s
hand. “I just had to see for myself if it was true. And it is: you’re
really here.” With teary-eyed reluctance, he turned and began walking
away. He appeared not to see the dog that bounded ahead of him.
“Please!” Joe shouted. In that moment, he felt the odd sensation of
something being torn from him, something deeply cherished. “Where am I?
Can I come with you?” He began trampling through the barley toward the
Stranger. More of the stalks looked haggard and frostbitten.
The Stranger turned with a smile, a tear traveling slowly down his
face. “You will. But it takes time. You’ve got to remember it all
first.”
Joe felt that want, that painful need to be with this young man.
“I will be there when it all comes back, Joe. But it has to come back slowly, like these waves of gold.”
“And you’ll be waiting?” Joe knew he sounded desperate. But his desperation did not feel baseless.
“As long as it takes. You know I will,” the Stranger said as he lifted his hand to wave. “Have courage. Great courage.”
The horizon very quickly changed to a deep violet and seemed to
draw itself around the young man like wrapping paper. His lovely form
became a silhouette and then vanished altogether into the darkening air
as if he had not been there at all. The golden retriever disappeared as
well, with a reverberating call for play. The
Stranger’s leaving brought
the dusk.
Joe stood bewildered and shaken. A dim light shone on the stalks
about him from the sky’s devastating moonlight. He felt he would cry,
like a child ripped from the comfort of loving arms. He questioned what
to do, looking about at the darkened field that now began to glitter
with tiny bugs. It seemed colder now. That frost was settling in.
He perceived a penetrating restlessness in his core, a surge of
ambition to get underway so that he might be with the Stranger once
again. After all, he had said he would be waiting. This was no time to
wallow in the tragedy of things lost. This was a time to begin a search
for answers. Joe could not remain in the field. He had to walk on. And
though there was no trail or path that he might follow, he placed one
foot in front of the other and began.
His journey was now underway.
As he made his way through the violet night, his grief faded and
was assuaged by the serenity he had first known lying in the tall grass.
The tips of barley again brushed and tickled his hands, groin, and
thighs as he walked. Every step he took gave him hope, though he was
more aware than ever of the dead stalks.
Off on the horizon and high above him, indeed all around him, he
saw thousands of glittering lights of all colors blinking and winking
their way across the sky. Some left exuberant streaks to show their
passage in the night; others were almost imperceptible. It was a
hypnotizing show, and it delighted him.
Once he had decided to start walking, tokens of past experiences
came more easily to him. Remembrances in little droplets, like dew
forming on a leaf. He remembered now his dislike for ketchup but his
love of hamburgers; his favorite color, green; and his favorite time of
day, dusk. All of these tiny personal accents collecting now like little
dewdrops finding their ways to the center of the leaf. And as he peered
into the night, his earliest memories came back to him.
BIO:
Eric Arvin resides in the same sleepy Indiana river town
where he grew up. He graduated from Hanover College with a Bachelors in
History. He has lived, for brief periods, in Italy and Australia. He has
survived brain surgery and his own loud-mouthed personal demons. Eric
is the author of THE REST IS ILLUSION, SUBSURDITY, SIMPLE MEN, WOKE UP
IN A STRANGE PLACE, and various other sundry and not-so-sundry writings.
He intends to live the rest of his days with tongue in cheek and eyes
set to roam.
LINKS:
