coming soon: Ode to Joy- a serial novel

Ode to Joy

The story of four Victorians who struggle with mental illnesses yet to be diagnosed. Unlike today there are no proper treatments for their ailments and the problems they pose are pinned to their personality flaws and life. But like today, there is little understanding for what ails them and the love and support of family and friends prove to be their salvation.

Meet Lord Orion Hookwell, the eccentric earl who has spent his life in and out of asylums. Adjusting to the idea of being a father and a secret “sodomite” he must find ways of coping with his cyclical mania and depression. He thinks he may have found his quirky, supportive wife Bri’s long lost child but reuniting the women proves to be more difficult than he at first estimates. Brigid, meanwhile, deals with badly timed flashbacks of her youth in British-owned India. When she cannot shake these flashbacks she begins to wonder if she is as mad as her husband. Their family friends Charles and Lucy Arteberry have baggage of their own. Captain Charles Arteberry, proud alcoholic and libertine is deteriorating before his family and friends’ eyes and Lucy must piece him back together by re-exploring his past and his grief for their shared beloved Fonso. While Charles is slowly dismissed as an immoral and cruel man, Lucy stays by his side. But Lucy has demons of her own. Every winter she is taken with a deep melancholy. But will anyone believe that their rock, the cheery and talented Lucy, could feel such lows. Together they are working toward a huge production to fund a women’s shelter in London. Will Bri and her long lost daughter be reunited? Will Charles dismiss the secret human traffic his ships now support? Will Orion, for the first time in his life, check himself into an asylum for the good of his family and friends?

This will be a serial novel. Meaning while it will be quality it is also written while being published. A character guide and other useful information will be handy on this blog for your viewing pleasure and use. 

Everything is (c) 2012 Luz Briar. No stealing.

poetry: Nonus- "I used to be a bad man"

I used to be a bad man
Until they took my mind away
And now I am not accountable
This is what the doctors say.
One marvel they held from me
In my own time
Was that the heart may still beat
Without the mind.
And mine is surely lost
While the heart is on display
My chest gaping open,
All the rest in decay
Except for this evil thing,
destroying all in its way.

I have never been my master
I have never known liberty
From the chains of this monster
Inside of me
I have never opened my heart
To good and fruitful results
Only to blood
Pure as fetid mud.
And the irony, it is
I never knew of this
I never knew I had heart
Until I lost my mind....

And as it turns out
You can kill the mind quick,
And leave the heart beating.
Who would have guessed this?
And it becomes my fate
To wonder beneath
The dark waters I drowned
In the limbo where I bleed.
Every face laughs
There is the man with no mind.
I used to be a bad man
When I had the choice to find
The pathway between the two
And choose where good lies
But now I am a fool
Choice-less and blind.

I have never been my master
I have never known liberty
From the chains of this monster
Inside of me
I have never opened my heart
To good and fruitful results
Only to blood
Pure as black mud.
And the irony, it is
I never knew of this
I never knew I had heart
Until I lost my mind....

(c) 2012 Luz Briar.

poem: Frailty & Flowers

The smoke is cleared
The faces bright
They are smeared
With make-up, right
Left
Down and upsides.
I see your hearts
and your minds
I shot the dart!
The fault is mine.
Felt
it deep in your lives.
I say I'm sorry.
Hypocrites.
But you tossed me
Far aside
like a ragdoll, like a shoe, like any toy.
And you should say
"I didn't lie."
Start a new day,
thought I'd die.
Like your ragdolls, like your shoes, like your old toys.

Woe is me; I'm tossed aside
Poor fragile flower.
But frailty thy name is You
I gave You your power.

short story: Are You Still Hurting? (7/7)end

7

No matter what corner or room the singer tucked herself into the buzzing and chatter of her family and Mina’s relatives follow her.

In the stained mirror she saw the brown roots of her hair spreading and when she stretched her mouth open to see the hole in her gums it bled black.

Seven rooms and twenty-nine corners later she screamed. She sat up and hit the walls around her with her fists until her shoes and feet joined in. Small holes began to dent the wall.

"Stop it! What are you doing!" Mina’s voice arrested the musician.

"I can't find any fucking privacy in this house!" she raised her voice. "My family is here and nobody will answer questions. In case you haven't noticed it's a pigsty in here."

"You are completely overreacting!" Mina grabbed the smaller woman's wrist. "You don't know what happiness is. You wouldn't know it if it hit you in the face!"

"Apparently not! Get the fuck away from me or answer my questions!"

"What?" the larger woman screamed. "What are your questions and why do you feel you can ruin my family’s vacation!"

"Where's my brother!"

"He's right over that!"

The singer followed Mina’s finger into the hallway where a gentle hissing noise led her to another corner down another twisting hall.

Sid's long face was hidden beneath a gas mask. In his hand a hose sprayed its fumes.

"Sid!"

The sister ran to her brother and blocked his way. Whether his eyes met hers was a mystery. Behind the mask he could conceal his actions. "Sid, is your cell phone working?"

The brother did not acknowledge his sister but pushed past her with the hose. She pinched her nose and watched him pass.

"Sid!"

When there was still no answer she looked to Mina.

"Does he have fucking wax in his ears!"

"The mask might make it hard for him to hear."

"Doesn't he see me?"

Mina shrugged.

One more corner and the young man pulled his gas mask off, shaking his head free, his hair falling in all directions.

The singer ran to his side and grabbed his arm.

"Sid. I need to borrow your cell phone. Mine is at Mina’s house. Please."

The brother did not acknowledge his sister. He passed her and dragged his equipment down the hall.

Through the labyrinth of the old house the musician tripped down the stairs to the cellar. Her left hand clutched the egg-shaped pills in their jar. This time when she reached for them they were present.

They rattled with each step she took. Her bloodshot eyes found the final step and with tears rolling she sat. She emptied all of the candy-covered pills onto the wood. Ignoring the splinters she ate them one by one, swallowing dry. Each burned her throat but the action was mechanical.

When the final pill slipped down a raw throat the singer was already coughing.

She fell over on the floor to roll in dirt. One cough followed by another until it was the sound of a death gurgle.

Teeth littered the floor as the woman lost them in her coughing fit, gums bleeding and eyes raining.

Her stomach pushed up the poison and her throat was swollen.

A small insect crawled from her mouth and spread its wings, buzzing away. It was followed by another, and another. The singer could feel each creature leave her body but her paralysis prevented action. The swarm crawled from her body and overtook the cellar in as little as ten minutes.

It would be less than an hour before the bees moved upstairs, impervious to Sid's spraying. They took over the halls of the mansion. Their stings were enough to exterminate Mina and Sid's family.
The mansion would become the world's largest beehive.

short story: Are You Still Hurting (6/7)

6


When she could not find her brother the musician sat on the steps of the basement and rested her face in her hands. She began to weep into the protective shield when voices disturbed her. Her family and Mina’s stomped down the stairs, moving her forcefully out of the way. She pasted herself against the wall, tears still in her eyes.
At last she saw her brother, eyes low. He threw open a closet as the basement was crowded and a large bucket was pulled from the darkness. He dragged it across the floor so that a scraping made the musician cover her ears. Chills crawled up her spine.
The bucket was placed to the left of a chair. The uncle had a sack tossed over his back. It flattened on the floor when he dropped it and the family pulled out apples, oranges and potatoes.
"Why is she crying?" the musician's little cousin asked.
"Ignore her," Mina replied.
The singer sank against the wall, plopped on the floor, her heart sinking to her feet. Where it had been there was an aching feeling of abandonment. They all looked at her but none of them saw her tears.

The fruits and vegetables were thrown into the bucket that stood beside a chair. She did not remember them filling it with water and wondered if it was the metallic liquid spewed by the shower where privacy was not allowed.

The families began to climb the chair and bob for fruits, faces in the water and teeth working to bite those floating plants. The musician collected herself from her heap on the ground. She took the steps out of the basement one by one but at the corner of her eye she saw what she wished she had not.
The apple her aunt bit into swarmed with white worms that tunneled their way in and out of the rotted red fruit. They devoured the meat of the plant as the aunt's teeth connected with their meal. This time the singer said nothing but watched. It took a moment for her to clear her throat and find the voice that had been shamed silent.

"Don't!"

The aunt was successful and the apple pulled from the water. When it was handed to the uncle the maggots were nowhere to be seen.

The musician could only stare for a few minutes, not understanding where the maggots had gone but supposing it had been a different fruit.

"Fuck you all," she spoke up.

Up the stairs and down the hallway she sought out the room Mina had shown her. The one with no fan and no lock on the door.

But every room led into another and every hall twisted into more. Hallways and small chambers. Scurrying and bumping into walls. The singer's irritation mounted into rage. She reached into her pocket for her dose of medicine but could not find it.

short story: Are You Still Hurting? (5/7)

5

The singer can no longer cleanse herself in the metallic water with the silhouettes of these strangers on the other side.

She tore the curtain out the way, marching to the clothes she abandoned on the floor. She donned the clothes without a care for what the strangers see and kicked the rickety door open.

Down the hallway the musician rushed. When she collided with her aunt she nearly screamed.

"The bathroom!"

"What is it, sweetheart!"

"Children and a guy in the bathroom! They won't leave to let me shower. Where's Mina?"

Her uncle appeared behind the corner of the hall laughing, along with one of Mina’s relatives.

"They don't speak English. They probably didn't understand you."

"Well, can someone tell them to get out so I can shower?"

Her aunt, uncle and Mina’s relative looked to one another and nodded. They took the singer's arm and led her into a dining room.

A wasp at the center of the table lay on its back, struggling to move. Before the musician could point it out her uncle cleared his throat.

"We've all decided it's time to have a talk with you."

The singer's green eyes glared at this man. But he was not alone, for her aunt and Mina’s relative sat down to do the same.

"This is another example of the kind of thing you do..." her aunt spoke.

"What?"

"The children in the bathroom. They didn't do anything wrong and yet--"

"Wait. Wait!" The musician cut the air with her hands. "All I'm asking for is for privacy."

"Let us finish, dear."

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"See what she does?" the uncle spoke to Emma's relative. "She drama-mongers."

"What?" she demanded.

"I think you're overreacting," the aunt spoke.

"There's metallic water in the bathroom. The door doesn't lock. I didn't complain. All I'm asking is for those kids and that guy to leave the bathroom while I fuckin' shower!"

"Maybe you should take your medicine," the aunt soothed.

"Wait. I'm not overreacting. This makes no sense."

"Would you like to talk to your brother about it? He's the one who told us you'd be coming here."

How would her brother Sid have known she would be at Mina’s summer house. How and when had he gotten here?

"Sid is here? Where is he?"

The brother and sister had their differences but the musician refused to believe that Sid would have suggested such an intervention. Usually he was tacit and left his sister alone, saying nothing of what he thought. She simply did not believe her aunt and uncle.

She searched the house in every room and corner and found only more of Mina’s family and her own.

 One of her aunts was smoking and as they made small talk about her brother the musician kept shaking her head, eyes watering at the sound of buzzing.

"Do you hear that?"

Her aunt shook her head in the negative. But she did not ask what it was her niece heard.

The musician followed the noise and found herself with ear pressed to the wall, listening for a hive of bees. The wallpaper was thin and could peel with ease to reveal a nest. But she left it be and continued to seek out her brother.

short story: Are You Still Suffering? (4/7)

4

The singer had made her way toward Mina’s shower after the pond incident but her friend blocked  her with more harsh words and her body.

"Actually, we have to go now or we'll be late."

"We just jumped in a dirty pond. And you pissed in it."

"Look. I don't know why we're at each other's throats. But we have to go now, okay? We're going to be late."

The musician washed up in the sink, grabbed her things and threw them into her car, slamming the door. Following Mina’s car was like following an army of ants into a nest where she knew she would be devoured. Several times she considered turning around and driving back to her apartment. But the pills that sat in her pocket reminded her that she needed to be surrounded by people, even those who drove her insane.

She reached into her pill case and yanked out one of the speckled candy-like pills. Without hesitation she tossed it out the window of her car. Today's dosage gone.

Mina’s country house loomed in the distance.

Up close it frightened the singer. She turned to Mina when the rotting wood of the house cued her to its condition.

"Mina, no offense. But this looks like a haunted house."

"It's just a house, your majesty. Sorry it's not a five-star inn."

In the house itself Mina embraced her father and mother and they waved to the musician.

"It's been a while."

"It has been," she answered, eyes on the wooden walls. Termites ran in and out of the small holes.

Mina led her friend to a room where she could set her suitcase down. Unlike the rest of the house, it was organized and the walls painted over with a cool blue.

"This is my room," Mina announced. "One moment."

The musician's fear returned as Mina set her things down and then proceeded to lead her to another room. It was cell-sized.

"There's no fan. And the door lock is broken. Just push a chair in front of it."

"Is this the guest room?"

"Yeah."

In the distance, the soft sound of a familiar voice caught the singer's attention. When she spun around  her own aunt and uncle were in the doorway. They waved and her aunt stepped forward to hug her.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked.

What on earth her family was doing at Mina’s summer house was a question her aunt did not answer. Instead she began to list all the chores that needed to be done around the house.

As the musician wandered the rickety mansion she spotted more and more of Mina’s family and several members of her own. There were no answers to her questions.

The hanging scent of mud and piss drove the musician to the only restroom she could find in the house. The rusting pipes and smell of metal did not scare her away. She had bathed in worst showers, the kind with cameras and no razors allowed. But the moment she opened the door she was met with the gaze of three children and a teenager. The children sat at the edge of the tub and the teenager was gazing into the stained mirror. All four of them turned to her as if she had intruded.

"Excuse me...can I use the bathroom to shower please?"

One of the children opened her mouth and the words that fell out were not English. A second one replied and again they were not words that the musician knew.

"I have to shower!" she raised her voice.

The teenager snapped at the children and the three stood, following him out of the bathroom.
The singer slammed the door shut and turned the knob to lock it. When there was no click to signal its locking, she kicked at the door in fury and stomped to the shower. Tearing her clothes off, she hopped into the rusty tub and turned the knobs. A waterfall of cold, metallic liquid hit her but she cleansed herself the best she could. When finished washing her face and the water ran down her body, she could see from the corner of her eye the shadows from behind the curtain. The three children and the teenager had returned while she showered, watching her shadow as she feared theirs.

short story: Are You Still Hurting? (3/7)

3

Inside Mina’s house, through a thin screen window, the musician still watches the pond where the duck has not returned. It is nearly sunset and the sinking image of the sun with its life-giving symbols is reflected on the pond's surface. The musician felt at her body when nobody was looking. She felt the curves and flats and beneath her armpits, realizing how sticky she felt. Her hair and fading dye job, as her fingers ran through it, were greasy.

"I feel disgusting," she announced to Mina while they stood in the kitchen barefoot.
The larger woman shooed the musician from the sink.

The woman washed her dishes and responded to the musician in a tone that could not be placed. It was somewhere between condescending and pity, "well, you can bathe, you know."

Minutes later they stood outside, safe from the peering eyes of the city. In a place this isolated the two of them were offered the security to shed their clothes without the judgment of strangers. The musician had no qualms with being seen naked, although the pond water frightened her. She said nothing. Mina, on the other hand, was a large woman and self-conscious of her body. Yet the singer saw nothing wrong with her appearance.

The two young women dived into the pond with the ducks, fish and the not yet infant dragonflies who had not yet shed their aquatic abilities for wings. The moment the singer submerged herself was the moment she felt their soft bodies all around her, soft skin on soft skin, despite the difference in texture. The sounds they would someday make, that serene buzzing of their wings, already in her imagination. Her brain seemed to swarm with the images of their future as she allowed herself to sink for those fleeting moments, suspended, white and brown hair spread out in the mucky water.

Just as quickly the singer resurfaced for air, the admiration melted back into disgust.

She coughed up pond water. "Mina, this is in no way getting us cleaner."

"Yeah, but it's fun," Mina replied, bobbing where she had waded in. She did not dunk herself the way her friend had. Her hair was still dry, everything from her large shoulders up, clean of the pond.

"You tricked me. You told me you were going to dive with me."

"Oh, well. I changed my mind. All the tiny fish and bugs creep me out. Don't want them in my hair."

"But it's alright if they're in mine?" the singer laughed.

"Yours is already ruined with all of the dying."

"Thanks. Now I know what you think of it."

"I like it. I like it when you do red streaks on white. It looks like icing on a cake."

"And the pasties. I've been afraid to ask you what you think of my pasties on stage."

"Eh..." Mina captured a small fish between her hands. The tiny bait fish could not escape and the singer wondered how it was possible for Mina to cage and torment something that 'grossed her out' so much.  "Well, I think they're a tad ridiculous. But you look great in them."

"Thanks. Plenty of people think they're ridiculous."

"I think you're too smart to run around in pasties."

"Funny. My intelligence goes down if I wear pasties. I think I've proven my point."

"Uh...no. It makes you look like a slut."

"Uh...yeah. You follow the patriarchal way of thinking and--"

"Can we not do this?"

"Do what?"

"Fight."

"This isn't fight. This is debate."

"Take your medicine, god." Mina waded toward the edge of the pond, as if to climb out.

The anger that churned within the singer felt hot enough to boil the water and kill the life around her. She called after Mina, "You don't have to be a twat to me, Mina. You've been on medicine before too. You know what it's like to be told that."

She realized she was standing on tiptoe now, her shoulders and breasts above the water.

"Look. I'm sorry. Are you still hurting?"

The singer did not think about the question. She did not have to. "Yes. Always."

"Your tooth, I mean."

"Yes, it still hurts. I don't want to take this medicine. I don't want to lose teeth and have to wear fake ones on stage and adjust to the feeling. I'm going to be thirty, not ninety. Losing teeth shouldn't be a problem for me. And I realize what I did was stupid. And maybe I belong in a mental ward for a little while but I still don't feel I should be punished for what I tried to do. What I tried to do was not selfish. It was an act of self-defense. My own mind turned against me, was destroying me. My way of escaping it. It had nothing to do with the ones I love. And it's my life. My decision. Nobody has a right to punish me for trying to make that decision. Which I will not do again, mind you."

Mina was looking downward into the darkening surface of the pond. Perhaps absorbing the singer's words. Words she had to pull from a dark and angry cell to share with a friend.

"I'm pissing in the water," Emma laughed. "I hope you don't mind."

The musician's eyes glazed over and she swam backwards, crawling onto land. She collapsed on the grass and curled into an infantile position, she heard Mina call after her. "Why don't you throw away one pill a day instead of taking them? You shouldn't have to take anything you don't want to."

short story: Are You Still Hurting (2/7)

2-comfort stories
Another back tooth was loose. As the musician drove through familiar country roads, she had one hand on the wheel and the other to her face. A finger dug in the back of her own mouth, touching the tooth that caused her such rotting pain. Her anger was as low and constant as the hum of her car engine. If the tooth fell out she was checking herself into a hospital and emptying the candyesque pills down a drain. She could not be a performer with missing teeth. She could not be a performer if she was a caricature of the hick town she had escaped.

The left side of the woman's face throbbed when she made her first stop. A grinding halt in the driveway of her friend's cozy home, the singer slammed on the breaks and smacked the steering wheel with her small fist. She felt nothing close to pain, only more anger.

The large and loyal Mina opened the door for her college friend and the two locked in a stiff embrace. Mina was a heavy but lovely black woman. The singer pulled away before any warmth could be absorbed. She did not want it from this woman. For unknown reasons she did not want affection. She was afraid her sadness, her anger, her fears would be contagious.

"How is your face?" Mina asked, leading the way to her backyard.

Mina’s family was one fortunate enough to possess a beautiful pond where swans and geese bobbed and fish lived out their life, spawning generations of other peaceful creatures. Lives without questions. Lives with no answers.

"My face? You mean the teeth?"

"Duh," Mina snapped. "What else would I be asking about?" 

"They're fine. One in the back is loose. I'm about to give up on these fucking pills." 

"Hey, I have an idea. Feel free to say no." 

"What is it?"

"Why don't you come with me to my family's summer house. Get your mind off the Dr. Seuss pills?"

"Thanks but I'll still have the pills with me, Mina."

"Yeah, but, uh, you'll be thinking about something else. And it's really nice. And big. You could get away from the stress for a while.”

The singer fell reticent. She peered at a goose in the pond. It ducked beneath the water. There was no sound as it disappeared. She anticipated its return but was distracted by Mina’s next words.

"Don't feel bad about taking weird meds, okay? I had to take them too. It's just a phase in your life. It’ll be over soon."

"A phase? Mina, I've had it all my life. It's not a phase. I'll be thirty soon," the woman felt her temper about to bubble to the surface but Mina was not finished.

"I know this story. My mom knows this woman who had to take meds like the ones you take."

The wheat tickled her legs where she sat still watching the smooth surface of the pond, heart rate speeding as Mina continued with her narrative.

"This woman. She's a beauty queen. Kind of like you. She took some pills the way you are now. Weird ones with fucked up side effects. One day her house caught fire and she was so wrapped up in happiness, because of the pills and all, that she was dancing around and singing when the fire started. The firemen saved her and she's charred. But when she looks in the mirror she still sees how she used to look because of the medicine."

The image that flitted through the singer's mind was nothing like comfort. A destroyed body, peering into a mirror and smiling at what she saw while the rest of the world pitied her.

"How is that story supposed to make me feel better, Mina?" the singer finally cracked. "What kind of a story is that? I mean...are you nuts?"

"You don't have to get snippy."

"Snippy? You just told me one of the most horrific stories I've ever heard."

"It's not that horrific. She's happy."

"It's a false happiness!"

"Jesus. You're so sensitive!"

The singer turned her eyes back to the pond, realizing the goose had not surfaced again.

short story: are you still hurting?

part 1 (of 7)
When she swallowed an entire bottle of prescription sleeping pills, the singer could hear bees. She even twitched and swatted around at the insects in her brain.
When her eyes flashed open the bees were still with her. Buzzing until they degraded into the beep of hospital equipment. Stomach pumped, the musician was rescued from a dark abyss of swarming insects.

"All I'm asking is if this is an anti-psychotic, a mood stabilizer or an antidepressant..." she asked her doctor.
The man looked up from his electronic device and tightened his jaw. "Is it the appearance that bothers you?"
The singer looks down at the speckled pills in her hands. They are egg-shaped and like nothing she has ever seen in medicine.
"They look like they belong in a Dr. Seuss book..." she answered, her voice dipping into frustration. "Like Easter Candy. But, no, that' not what bothers me."
"Listen," the doctor looks down once again. "I am required by law to medicate you or else hospitalize you."
"I know. The nurse practitioner told me. I'm crazy, I get it. How strong is this stuff?"
"Strong enough to keep you from being a danger to yourself."

The singer began to feel teeth loosening in her mouth the following day. Only the wisdom teeth and those furthest back bothered her and at first she thought it a trick of her mind. In her apartment she sat at the piano to practice a new song. She had just brushed her teeth and her reflection revealed a woman almost thirty years of age, green eyes with hair that was bleached white. But at the roots brown began to grow out. Without her stage make-up she appeared frail, frightened. She brushed her teeth with fury, a usual mark of pride for her. Why would her adult teeth be loose?
At the piano, practicing her range, blood trickled down her tongue and a back tooth clicked against one of the keys. She blinked down at the instrument's teeth, where her own bloodied white sat stupidly and without explanation.

"It does have some minor but strange side effects. Anger is the most common."
"A tooth fell out!"
"That's more rare," the doctor's voice was distant over the buzz of bad reception. "You may have to wait it out. Unless you want the other option."
"The mental ward?" the musician asked, throat catching.
"Losing the tooth was probably a coincidence this time. Have you been taking the pill with a meal?"
She turned the candy-like pills in her palm before answering, "Yes. But I've also been tasting blood. All day long."
"Do you fall asleep after taking the pill?"
"I take it at night."
"Yes, that and cotton mouth are a small side effect."
"I'm about to sign up for the mental hospital."
"Are you sure you want to do that."
The musician does not wait to retract, "No. No, I don't ever want to go back there."
"You're worrying yourself. Try to relax."