Write
Between the Lines is an exploration
and articulation of the obvious and the obscure. A cavalcade of
creation and commentary designed to amuse and bemuse.
The
following is an excerpt from c.c. dust's debut novel, a neo-noirish
tech-head-game evocative of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
That night, as the fog
rolls in, the S.S. Salamander reaches the port of Elizabeth,
New Jersey. A tramp steamer, ghosting under the Verrazano,
it carries a cargo of crates and boxes stamped “Black
Orchid Body Parts.“ But that’s not all it carries
in its flaking hull ...
Not by a long shot. The Spaniard smiles softly as he walks
down the metal gangplank. He’s a big man, tall and rangy,
with long black hair and a black Zapata mustache. He wears
a thick wool poncho with a gray-and-white Aztec-inspired geometric
pattern running in horizontal bands across the chest and carries
an old leather backpack over his shoulder. After three weeks
at sea, traveling from Singapore through the Panama Canal,
it’s good to be back on solid ground again.
And soon I’ll be rich. He smiles broadly.
As he makes his way down a gravel road by a chain-link fence,
moving deeper into the warren of dilapidated warehouses and
factory buildings that surround the waterfront, he can hear
the sound of foghorns blowing in the distance. It’s a
lonely, mournful sound that reminds him of whales crying off
the coast of Nova Scotia.
The Spaniard doesn’t believe in premonitions (just cold
hard cash), but there’s something about the fog tonight
that makes him uneasy. He glances over his shoulder from time
to time, but can’t see anything behind him. The air is
silvery and thick; the swirling clouds give added shape to
his imagination. Now the fog seems to be populated with ghosts
and other creatures of the night.
Ridiculous. He shakes his head as he walks, feet crunching
on the gravel, past darkened buildings and streetlights gleaming
like fuzzy beacons in the night — and comes at last to
an old garage, where he knocks on a rusted metal door.
A moment later the door swings open, and he sees a silhouetted
figure standing in a bend of light.
