DITW 15: A Preview
Added 2024-07-21 14:18:14 +0000 UTCSo sorry, everyone. I know I said I'd put out a chapter last night, but this opening is trickier than I thought. I'm still messing with timelines and such (and I may still tweak them even as I write and post the chapter; please, bear with me!), and adjusting to the changes in some of the characters.
I think I can still post a chapter later tonight. For now, I will post the opening to the last book, and let you acclimate to the fast-forward in time.
So, here we are, eighteen months later...
###
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
Friday. May 7
Dorchester played their encore, a rousing rendition of Holding Your Heart, around eleven o’clock. Josh and Meyer were out of the ScotiaBank Arena, downtown Toronto, and ordering drinks at the Irish Embassy by eleven-twenty. The waitress escorted them to a booth for four looking out onto Yonge Street, Josh telling her they were expecting two more. Meyer ordered them Guinnesses and the waitress asked Meyer what happened to his arm. Meyer lifted his arm, bound in a cast up to his elbow, the curled tips of his puffy fingers sticking out of the end. “You wouldn’t believe it—bear attack. Up north, in the bush, thing came out of nowhere...” He shook his head and his gaze went faraway, expression grave. The waitress was attractive and Meyer tried some charm.
The waitress said, “You’re right—I don’t believe you.” Meyer had got her smiling.
Josh slid into the far side of the booth across from Meyer, leaving room for the other two who were meeting them here.
Meyer looked offended. “You don’t believe me?”
“No, offense,” she said. “You don’t strike me as the bear-fighting type.”
Meyer cocked an eyebrow. “Who said we were fighting?”
That got a laugh out of her, and Meyer relaxed into the bench, smug-smiling.
Josh said, “Does he look like a man who could fight off a bear or does he look like a man who’d go over the handlebars of a motorcycle?”
The waitress clicked her tongue in her cheek, winking at Josh at shooting a finger pistol. “Got it.” Then to Meyer: “Hope you were wearing a helmet.”
“What’s the point?” Josh said. “There’s no brains in there to protect.”
Meyer showed him a comical look of scrutiny, and the server laughed again. Now she turned her eye on Josh, flirting with him. Then saw his wedding ring.
Comments
Two times Nine is Eighteen, if I remember my times tables... my mind is the funnest place rife with travesties and invention.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-23 16:16:38 +0000 UTCThere's shame, and then there are its tenacious siblings... guilt & despair... a dogged pair of lurkers.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-23 13:48:53 +0000 UTCVirgil's Dis was a model for Dante's Inferno. Aeneas received the golden bough from the Cumaen Sybil by Lake Avernus, which enabled him to safely visit the underworld... despite some scrapes especially one with Achilles! He also saw Dido Queen of Carthage there, the lover who he had betrayed and who killed herself when he deserted her to sail off on his quest to found a new Troy... the Glory that was Rome (or so they say).
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 22:23:44 +0000 UTC'nec credere quivi hunc tantum tibi me discessu ferre dolorem'
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 21:56:19 +0000 UTCThink'st thou that I, who saw the face of Kimmy Enraptured over a tormenting Devil's fat iron prong And tasted the eternal joys of her foully slathered cunny, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss? Sorry for my travesty of your HNA, Kit!
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 16:30:22 +0000 UTCYeah Andrew... But I see Cherry Blossoms as progressing in discrete hops allowing us to assimilate good moves and bad... changes for the better or the worse. I have long since placed my faith in the author which makes it ironic I feel trepidation now. It is obviously a measure of KT's skill and personal investment that we feel so strongly for this work... but, as Pete pointed out, we each engage with the work from our own angle... Until now I have anxiously looked forward to each new instalment... now it's not that simple. Like Kat, if this were a completed book I would desperately have devoured it... It's like... where do I put all that crackling desperation? We've all got problems! Wot the Hell! Wot the Hell! Toujours Gai! 'Conflicted' is the word I was looking for!
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 13:29:57 +0000 UTCWell KT... having refreshed my memory of Libby's state of play at the end of her latest book, I now even have, I believe, my not unfounded suspicions that in some ways the genesis of Kimmy owes a debt to Libby. I love Impure Thoughts as anyone who knows me would attest. And Libby is yet another thrilling enigmatic star in the Morrison firmament.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 12:09:43 +0000 UTCAs Kat insists, and I concur, it appears that the real culprit of DEViLIN' the Waters... who, in an awful time of trauma, seduced Kimmy in order to get his deviant wicked way with her husband... is getting off lightly, as his kind almost invariably do. So Josh's lawfully wedded wife was taken in adultery with Big Dickus's cum running down her leg with a big fucking twisted smile on her face... big fucking deal as Jesus averred!* For incredibly childish reasons of insecurity, this bloated over privileged capitalist pig light-heartedly and mean-spiritedly wreaked havoc on two vulnerable flawed humans that were (up till then) in most probably the worst moment of their lives. Even if I believed in the law of Talion I cannot conceive of a punishment that would fit the enormity of his transgression against what I would consider to be (un)common human decency. As for Kimmy, because she succumbed to addiction does she deserve punishment as well as the condemnation of historically retarded Victorian morality... Judge not lest you yourself be judged... or cast yourselves into the company of Stones and their genocidal ilk! Forget Happily Ever After... if KT Morrison ever wrote a fairy story it would be the kind Bruno Bettelheim applauded! Touch wood and weave a circle round me thrice... " Why this is hell, and nor am I out of it." Even the Catholic Church believes that the greatest torture of hell is to be deprived of the solace of love... * There are more Jesus's in the world than any of us have had hot dinners so don't even bother to quibble... PS When I referred to Stones I was not censuring the rolling variety.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-22 08:28:47 +0000 UTCYeah, I think it’s going to be Quinn (assuming she’s still with Meyer) and then someone like Karina, but only as a friend of Josh. I think he’s still wearing a wedding ring cause he’s still married to Kimmy, but my guess is they’re still separated. The baby would be about a year old now, so we’ll see what Kimmy’s current situation is. This was kind of the longer time jump I thought could be possible, though I suspect we’ll get flashbacks of how we got there. Josh seems light and confident, but I’ve always felt he’s been light, confident and jokey around his friends and other people (not named Kimmy, Devlin or Amy). So I don’t know if that in of itself points to him being in a better headspace now than he was in the last chapter.
JL23
2024-07-21 23:20:30 +0000 UTCYes, Josh and Meyer were most glib, playful and affable.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 23:03:16 +0000 UTCAs far as character changes go, I think we are seeing some increase in confidence for Josh communicated in this brief preview.
Glaucon
2024-07-21 22:20:23 +0000 UTC“So sorry, everyone. I know I said I'd put out a chapter last night, but this opening is trickier than I thought. I'm still messing with timelines and such (and I may still tweak them even as I write and post the chapter; please, bear with me!), and adjusting to the changes in some of the characters.” You take your time to get it the way you want KT. This is too important to rush. The last bit about the changes in characters is intriguing. I assume one is that Josh is happy, but what about Kimmy? Can’t wait to find out. As for Devlin, i don’t know if I really care.
Tracey52
2024-07-21 22:06:18 +0000 UTCI wonder if the Canadian band Dorchester is a stand in for Rush! (LOL!)
Andrew Mellein
2024-07-21 21:53:50 +0000 UTCWarp and weft... KT.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 21:49:26 +0000 UTCI wonder what the title of Book 15, Avernus, foreshadows for the ending of the story?
Kat
2024-07-21 21:35:53 +0000 UTCI had no expectations in Maggie... but with this book I share your fear Tracey. Also I fear an ending which shares the innate pessimism of what only too often passes for 'reality'...
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 21:35:51 +0000 UTCDoes Josh still recognise that love after the contortion's it underwent?
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 21:23:32 +0000 UTCYes, me too. I want Josh to get his fun like Geoff did.
Kat
2024-07-21 21:20:01 +0000 UTCKimmy really loves Josh...
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 21:17:31 +0000 UTCFor me an HEA with Josh and Kimmy together would maybe be the sadder outcome, I think. I have a hard time picturing the H part, at least, from the levels of pain the story’s gone to for Josh. It’s difficult to imagine how the two of them could salvage any sort of healthy partnership from what’s happened without, in my mind, Josh making even more sacrifice than he’s already made in a way that seems kind of tragic to me.
Glaucon
2024-07-21 21:16:06 +0000 UTCI am kind of hoping for something similar like Cherry Blossoms. Where it jumped forward and Geoff and Nia were with other people but eventually they came back to each other.
Andrew Mellein
2024-07-21 21:10:45 +0000 UTCThe Maggie ending upset me, too. I don’t like Maggie. But here if Josh is happy with another woman, I’d be happy for him. I’ll be sad for no HEA, but Josh deserves someone who really loves him.
Kat
2024-07-21 20:44:03 +0000 UTCReminds me of the time jump in Maggie, where nothing turn out like I wanted it too. I fear the same here. Babies born obviously, the situation with Kimmy’s crime will be resolved one way or another, she could be in jail. On speculating who the other two coming are: I expect both to be women, one Meyer’s girlfriend, and the other? Not Kimmy.
Tracey52
2024-07-21 20:09:16 +0000 UTCDidn't know that! Or your fond hopes, Donkatsu! Good luck! I look forward to KT audio books one day!
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 20:07:56 +0000 UTCAll those things are true, thanks to you all, but Kat reminded me of the concert that featured strongly in Libby's early travails... all of which I have read. I believe KT did whisper sweet nothings about a sequel to "Impure Thoughts" which I, in the fullness of time and according to our prolific author's priorities hope to read one day.
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 19:41:56 +0000 UTCAnd the section of Boston, MA where I grew up. Hoping that KT offers me all the local (Cambridge) speaking roles for the audio version of the "Keely" stories.
Donkatsu
2024-07-21 19:30:18 +0000 UTCIt's also the name of a hotel in London.
Andrew Mellein
2024-07-21 19:22:08 +0000 UTCThat’s because the name sounds like a band from Britain. It would be a great name for a band! Dorchester is also the name of a town in Ontario!
Kat
2024-07-21 17:21:30 +0000 UTCSo is KT doing some world building? I hope Kimmy meets Nia! Lol.
Chris K
2024-07-21 16:57:50 +0000 UTCI actually thought I'd heard of the band from real life ignorance... thanks for jogging my memory and lighting my darkness, Kat! It was relevant for Libby! Personally, I can't imagine things ending, what I would consider, well... but 'I' don't have to...
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 16:48:28 +0000 UTCI can’t wait to read the rest. Dorchester, the band from Chelsea Hates Libby!
Kat
2024-07-21 16:02:05 +0000 UTCAvernus... so we can expect everything coming up roses? Would I be right to assume a reference to Virgil's unfinished epic? The abrupt ending of which has always lent a fortuitous feeling of modernity to the Augustan epic of Dante's pagan guide... for me any road!
Bill F Protagoras
2024-07-21 15:57:18 +0000 UTCAlready my interest is high. Can’t wait to read the rest.
Andrew Mellein
2024-07-21 15:14:07 +0000 UTC18 months is a long jump, but I don’t see it as long enough for Josh to have divorced Kimmy, meet someone else, fall in love and get married again. But I guess we’ll find out shortly.
JL23
2024-07-21 14:36:02 +0000 UTCBut who's ring is he wearing!? I didn't think the jump would be as long as 18 months! Can't wait to see what's been going on!
Chris K
2024-07-21 14:23:48 +0000 UTC![개성인쥬스[pingkypen]](https://samuzai.com/istorage/106895.jpg)
