Thanks to everyone who has donated money to my next film project. It is a sequel to my film YUP. You can help fund this campaign at the link below by donating or sharing:
This week on WPR, I am sharing the first part of a short story that I have been working on. I have written some short stories before, and I like the format. Its parameters feel less daunting than those of a novel or even a screenplay. You have to get to the action quickly, and the best short stories are artfully succinct in their delivery.
I offer you a fictional story that still lacks a title. Feel free to guess what will happen to the character you are about to meet. I can tell you that this sequence of events in question will steer the trajectory of the rest of his life.
Reply to this email or leave a comment if you have a good guess for what happens next.
Without further ado, please read on . . .
September 12, 1965
I don’t know what I was thinking. I’d gone out to sea many times before. My dad’s old motorboat was on call 24 hours a day and always waited for me to jump in and speed forward. I needed clarity and comfort as I retreated from the battle I had just waged against my mom. The sting of her words and the dull throbbing of emotions lingered.
I had gone to my usual spot near the buoy that was about a mile and a half from the shore. The tide was low and the surface of the water was calm. The big gust of wind that rushed over as soon as I shut off the engine was the warning I should have heeded. All I wanted to do, all I needed to do, was to sit by myself and stew—to be alone with my thoughts and far away from the expectations and palpable disappointment of others.
Heavy grey clouds were climbing over the high ridges further up the coast. It was a mostly cloudy day anyway, and I thought nothing of it when I noticed them in the corner of my eye. My boat started to sway as the water began to seethe below. Before I knew it, the calm I enjoyed a few moments before was consumed by a swirling, writhing mass of foaming water. A flash of lightning pierced the sky and rumbled hungrily in its wake. Maybe I should have seen the signs of a storm’s approach, but this upheaval came in high and fast, too fast for me to outrun. I was suddenly trapped in the middle of something inescapable.
Revving up the engine of the motorboat usually took at least a couple of tries. It was the most dependable machine I knew and the only thing my dad owned that I wanted to keep after he passed. It was one of those older boats that had a cord that you had to yank to get the engine started. She would fire up like always after a couple of gentle pulls, but in my panic, aggression took hold of me. I forced her to start too quickly twice, and she was not having it. There was no time to slowly get her going.
Waves started rolling in from a distance. I could feel the growing ripples in the water as my body and the boat swayed erratically. Rain quickly fell in big splotchy drops everywhere and sounded like a violent swarm of bees attacking the ocean, a pummeling kamikaze assault upon every square inch of surface. I was drenched and completely undone.
When I finally got the boat started, it was too late. The storm’s surge had come to stay.
September 5, 2025
It happened so long ago. I think about it every day. Every time I plan to leave this town, he pulls me in, just like he did when the motorboat capsized. My head hit a sharp edge of the boat, and I plunged into the deep. It all happened faster than I could keep up with. I just remember barely seeing the boat writhing above me as the undertow pulled me down, the distance between me and the water’s surface expanding. It was strangely calm underwater while the violent storm above hit its stride.
I started to feel my chest constrict as I remembered that I needed to breathe. In a sudden panic, I flailed my arms and legs around. My high school swim coach would look at me with disdain, like he usually did, if he saw me. The more I moved, the lower I sank. My body was at a complete loss for what to do.
And then, it happened.
Thanks for reading this work in progress. I am still working on the rest of the story. I have always been intrigued by specific moments in people’s lives that came to define who they are. Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit at the back of the bus comes to mind. But people do not have to be famous to get my attention. It is the acts of bravery, loyalty, and defiance that reel me in.
At some point, I will reveal the rest of this story as part of a bigger project.
I share the first part with you today to encourage myself to align all the other parts accordingly.
Wish me luck.
UPCOMING SHOWS
The French House
Nashville, TN
Sunday, December 6
Project Updates
New Music:
Recorded demos of two new songs
Working on my vocals for the songs
New YUP Sequel Film Project:Mapping out a plan for filming various scenes