Excerpt from CHAPTER ONE - "Waking Up Eve"

Paul Jason Jordon thanked the dark-eyed man for helping him prepare to die. He said goodbye and closed the door. The two men had only met a few weeks earlier at the hospital when Paul's heart had grown so heavy with remorse that he couldn't take in a full breath. The dark stranger had just appeared beside his bed one day and introduced himself as Justin Templeten. Curiously, from that moment forward Paul had found it easier to breathe.

Paul turned away slowly from the pain that chewed away his insides. He shuffled over to the stove and picked up the kettle. His hand shook so much now that he could only fill the kettle with enough water for a single cup of tea. Paul had never much cared for tea before but now he found something sweet and kind inside the cup. He reached for the black knob to the far right on the back of the stove and clicked it onto high. When he placed the kettle on the burner there was a small ting.

He moved carefully through the kitchen and headed for the other room. When he finally reached his writing table he eased himself down onto the chair. He sighed heavily and brushed a trembling, eternally-tanned hand over the top of his bald head. It still surprised him that he had no hair. Just six months ago he'd had a full head of thick white hair; a sailor's hair, wavy and unkempt. The chemotherapy had seen to it, though, that he would take leave of this world much the same way he'd come into it sixty-nine years ago: skinny and bald.

The old man (it was his body that had grown old, not his mind and least of all, his heart) chose not to answer the insistence of the tea kettle's whistle. Instead, he just listened to the screeching, which drifted and swooped like the familiar far cry of a seagull.

Paul had spent the last twenty-two years at sea, carried from shore to shore by life's ever changing winds. He had been happy in spite of the high cost of his choices. He remained very still, watching the sun ease its way down beneath the horizon. He recalled something Justin had said to him when they first met: It takes courage to follow your heart, most people never follow their dreams.

The creamy orange, pink and purple shades of the late winter sky intoxicated him. He drank the colors in boldly knowing this would be his last sunset.

Innis, Connecticut was a decent place to die. The simple, quiet lifestyle of this small New England town had helped bring peace to Paul's heart. But then, any place near the sea would have been fine.

His fingertips roamed the ridges of the old desk from Bali he'd always treasured. He could almost see the sweet face of the man who had made it for him. Special for you, sa, the man had said over and over again while Paul sat contentedly in the cool shade of the palm tree and watched him carve. Paul smiled, a single tear rolled down his weathered cheek. He felt each ridge of the desk top, each scar, with a slow and sacred awe.

He placed the pen down across the last page of the letter he'd been writing for days to his only living child. Somewhere out there Paul had a son whom he had left twenty-two years ago.

Too tired to get up and turn off the tea kettle, he lowered his head to rest on the surface of his desk. He began to slip away; it felt good, this letting go. The face of his one true love began to emerge through the mist in his mind's eye. His hand slid off the edge of the desk bouncing slightly a couple of times from its own weight. His arm hung there swinging slightly, back and forth, back and forth.

By the time the land-lady had opened the door to turn off the smoke detector from the burning tea kettle, Paul Jordon was gone. His arm hung stiffly now as if frozen in midair, and there was a strange, crooked smile across his face.

Copyright � 2001 Darci Knowles. All rights reserved.

--From Waking Up Eve, by Darci Knowles. � February 2001 , Jupiter Brahms Publishing used by permission.