THROWBACK THURSDAY
AT THE EDGE OF A LONG LONE LAND
I wrote this story having come across an article about veterans of the First World War who’d literally had their faces blown apart, and survived. There was an artist, a sculptor, who created masks, and painted them so as to appear life like. That got me thinking weird shit. I mean, how does a family react to something like that? The dad goes away to the Big Show, and comes back with no face? WTF?
But I needed more than that for just a story, didn’t I? So I thought, what if the oldest boy is seventeen, and just waiting until he’s eighteen, and anxious to sign up and do his part? The Dad signed up because he’s a Veteran of the Boer War. He’s a Sapper, meaning he tunnels and sets bombs under the German lines.
And then a young widow moves into an old house on the top of the cliffs. And she’s young by today’s standards, like, say 25. Back then, that’s Old Maid material. But what if her husband had been “Aristo,” and his dying left her without an heir? What would she do the resolve that problem? How far would she go?
It’s an interesting little story. And I set it on the farthest reaches of the British Isles, so far, they called it Land’s End. I put it out when I had just a smidge over 100 readers. Like most of my stories, it’s a “love” story. It’s just, well, how far are you willing to go to call it love? And love on whose part? His, or hers? There is love, of that you can not deny, but is it the woman who seduces the boy, or the mother’s love for the father with no face?
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I do enjoy putting up stories for THROWBACK THURSDAYS for a couple of reasons. I get to glean through my stories and figure out which one I should put up. It’s never easy. I like them all for different reasons. But I also realize that my numbers are growing, and not just the FOLLOWERS (which have grown about 100 in the last five days), but my SUBSCRIBERS which are sitting at 730. That’s 600 more than when this story originally came out.
That’s why I put them here. Some of you may have gone back into my archives and read them, most of you probably haven’t. I do like all of my stories, and I do recognize that if there is one particular theme, it would have to be LOVE. Not all love stories have a happy ending though, do they? And a lot of the questions go unanswered. But life’s like that for the most part.
Anyway, I hope you take the time to read this…