Incarnation
by
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"What the hell are you doing?" yelled Josh, moving toward the intruder. In the dim light of the candles and gaslights, Josh couldn’t make out the man’s features. Only that he was dark and menacing. As Josh moved closer, he bent low a little, preparing for a fight with the man. He felt a stabbing through his back muscles from the effort and realized he was again feeling weak and old. He hesitated and leaned onto the back of a chair to steady himself. The thief, sensing his momentary weakness, took the opportunity to escape. He ran around the other side of the room from Josh and bolted out into the hallway then through the front door. Josh recovered from his pain and ran after the man, out into the darkness. He could see the outline of the thief running toward the dock and he ran down the steps and onto the slope in chase. By the time Josh got to the dock, the man was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t have just disappeared and Josh frantically looked up and down the length of the dock, still not seeing the man. Then he heard splashing and coughing from the water in front of where he stood and looked down to see the man sinking into the water of the harbor. Josh froze in place, terrified at the familiarity of what he was witnessing and wondering if he were able to resist the pull that he felt. He suddenly felt very old and weak. "Josh, Josh, are you alright?" he could hear the shouts coming up from behind him. The sound snapped him out of his stupor and he looked around to see Brandon standing there behind him on the dock. Are you okay?" Brandon said again, reaching for Josh but afraid to get to close. "Yes, yes, what is it?" Josh shouted back, turning to face Brandon. "What’s wrong with you?" Here he was, standing in the middle of the night at the edge of the dock wearing the captain’s sea coat; the coat of his great-great-grandfather. He was peering over the edge of the dock as if he were thinking about jumping in, and he was the one asking what was wrong. He stepped back carefully from the edge of the wharf and took a deep breath. He unbuttoned the coat and pulled it off, immediately feeling better and more oriented. "Where am I?" he asked Brandon, now confused and afraid. "You must have had one of your dreams again," Brandon offered, confused himself, and more that a little frightened by the behavior Josh was displaying. "I thought you were going to jump off into the water." "What are you doing out here?" Josh asked, realizing the absurdity of where he was yet wondering why Brandon was there as well. Brandon scratched his head, a little confused about why he was there as well. "Guess I had my own dream," he finally said. "Heard shouting and running and had the worst feeling of dread. I woke up and went out to the kitchen. For whatever reason, I looked out the window and there you were, leaning over the side of the dock with that captain’s coat on. Don’t mind admitting it scared me." Josh took all this in, comparing it to what he thought had been a dream he was having, and decided right then and there he would be much better off if he never put this coat on again. Dreams, channeling, out of body experiences; whatever he had experienced he didn’t need to experience again. This was the first time he’d come-to outside of the closet. It was more than a little scary. He folded the coat over his arm. "I’d appreciate it if we kept this little affair to ourselves," Josh asked, looking intently at Brandon. "There’s no need to worry anybody else."
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About the Book
Josh is a thirty-something advertising executive, deeply committed to his agency and career, and his wife Jennifer. He’s in control of every aspect of his life, and the last of his family’s line. A devout landlubber, he and his wife, an interior designer, own a Victorian mansion in Louisville. When his only other living relative, a ninety-plus aunt in Maine, dies and leaves him her fifty acre coastal island, he connects with his life, his previously unexplored family and heritage, in ways he could never have dreamed, changing his life forever. Incarnation relates the depth of human experience that lies beyond what is apparent and recent, but rather what is our destiny, and the fabric of our being.
About the Author
Raymond O. West is a former newspaper publisher who has written three novels. This book is his second. An Ohio native, West lives with his wife Donna, a Newfoundlander, in Dayton. They have two sons, one a graphic designer in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the other a forester serving in the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe. West writes principally about sea related stories, with his first work a creative non-fiction about the collapse of the fishing industry in the Grand Banks. His experiences and inspirations come from decades of visiting his wife’s homeland, working aboard the wood-hulled long liner fishing boats in Newfoundland’s coastal waters.