Part 1. Pacific Beach
= 1. =
 This is the true story of how Martin Brown met the girl of his dreams, and how his epic journey to reach her (actually just two hours away as the seagull flies from San Diego to Los Angeles) turned into a lengthy nightmare of epic proportions involving zombies, aliens, carnivores, circus clowns, neo-Nazis, cult members, and other somewhat unusual persons.
Nothing in SoCal is what it seems to be—especially the truth, once we look under the cover(up)s and understand how our world really works.
Chloë Setreal, the goddess in question, waited patiently—but even her patience wore thin. Think of Penelope in the Odyssey, waiting for her beloved and heroic Ulysses, returning from distant wars, to overcome monsters and demons and the wine dark sea and find home with her at last. This, however, is not a retread of that story. The things that happened to Martin en route to the City of Angels would overwhelm lesser persons, but Martin and Chloë rose above the sea foam to win us.
Martin was offered hope that he might have both the goddess and the job of his dreams—as a creative, imaginative young consultant at Alienopolis, Inc. in the big city, with connections all over the globe and all sorts of exciting people and places. As the old Chinese proverb goes, the longest journey begins with a single step.
Martin later told an alien taxi driver that he would die to reach this woman in Los Angeles, if only to ask her why she had two little dots over the last letter in her name.
For Martin, that first step in the journey began with his sipping a craft beer at a scenic little bar overlooking blue sky and beach sand in Pacific Beach, a neighborhood of San Diego.
He was at that moment we all dread—first day home from college, nothing to do, no hope, just the past and a bleak future, with almost no here and now except eventually, at day’s end, going home to mom and dad’s house to watch reruns, feed the cat, and argue with his sister.
Argh.
|
Thank you for reading the first half (free, what I call the Bookstore Metaphor). If you love it, you can (easily and safely at Amazon) buy the whole e-book for the painless price of a cup of coffee—also known as Read-a-Latte (hours of reading enjoyment; the coffee is gone in minutes, but the book stays with you forever). You can also get those many hours of happy reading from the print edition for the price of a sandwich (no, I don't have a metaphor for that, like a 'sandwich metaphor?'). To help the author, please recommend this book your friends, and also post a favorable (five star!) review at Amazon, Good Reads, and similar online reader resources. Thank you (JTC).
|
E-Book
|
Print Book
|
TOP
|
MAIN
|
