There wasn't much she could do about it now, but had she gone the other way, perhaps things would have turned out differently. Gale, named for an Alice Cooper song, and none too proud of it, was an only child. She lived with her father in New Orleans where they had recently moved to start fresh. That's what her pop called it, starting fresh. Her father was what they called a tinker. That's what they called it in the books Gale loved so much. Really he was just a struggler. When Gale's mum left he kind of fell apart. He was doing his best but was not at all cut out for single fatherhood. He was now working by day at a used and rare books shop. By night he worked as a street performer. Gale was his assistant and their show was a cross between old school illusion and modern foolery. That was all well and good, but right now Gale had to figure out how she had gotten turned around. She had only lived in New Orleans a short while but already she had her bullies from which she must steer clear. It was while avoiding the scuggz that she turned a corner down a side street and happened upon the strangest hole in the air. That was the only way she could describe it. The air in front of the brick wall in the alley had a wavery look to that seemed to throb and pulse. She ventured toward it, cautious but intrigued.

So, I figured if I want to write, write what I know best. That would be me. What spurred me on was my struggle with a chronically ill, pain killer and Ambien addicted loved one stricken with an eating disorder. It has just gotten to the point where I need an outlet. This is it. Years ago when I moved back home from Boston to the the South I discovered my mum in a deep #depression and addicted to OxyContin. I had pushed and cajoled to wake her from her "cotton dream" and finally got her past it. Years later, here we are lost in the dream yet again, different drug, but the same old , same old. About three weeks ago she almost died. She ended up on a ventilator for a week and the doctors were not hopeful. Seeing her like that made me realize I can't see her go out like that. So I began the fight to get her back. I begin my written journey here.

It was a day like so many others. Marasol had spent the morning reading in the abandoned wood behind the church. There was a felled tree washed clean by the elements until it gleamed like bone that she liked to climb. The limbs met to form a sort of basket chair that she would sit in and spend her day exploring other worlds until dusk began to set in. It was there that she met her only friends, for Marasol lived a rather solitary existence. Her parents had split up when her mother had decided to up and leave without explanation and now she and her father lived in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere New England.