I submitted October (my third novel that came out last year) to Coverfly’s ScreenCraft 2023 Cinematic Book Competition. Hollywood has a history of transforming books into film and television, and Coverfly connects writers to industry professionals. The Cinematic Book Competition’s judges look for stories (novels, novellas, and short stories) that can be adapted for the screen. Past winners sold their work to studios and worked as writers for Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and CBS; winners also signed with literary managers and agents.
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Until next month,
William
Excerpt from October, chapter 1
This morning I find myself standing in front of closed curtains and in the gaps of twos—two months, two days, two lights, two images. Spots on my eyes from deep sleep burst and fade. My dream lingers in this room, and for several seconds, the ghostlike shapes that danced in front of me slough off into remaining darkness. Behind the curtains, a thin band of fire breaks up the bottom of black sky, summer continues its tilt into fall, and the first of October has come on as easily as a foot steps in front of the other. September was just over there, near my computer, where evening and morning swap, and where I stand in the middle, no longer asleep but awfully sleepy inside echoes of who and what I saw. Dawn is well on its way. Everything is finding its place on either side of the curtains.
No blood on my head. No pain there, my neck, or anywhere—at least no new pain from standing here, which will probably give me some pain later today. By lunchtime, my ankles will bulge like summer ticks. My hands—as arthritic and spotted as they were yesterday and as arthritic and spotted for the new day and new month. Nothing significant around me has changed. My apartment is quiet. My things have not shifted—books, bills, notes to myself, or mementos, especially Ray’s cane. The streets behind the curtains are quiet. Cole has not caved in or broken apart overnight—no flooding, no power outages, no surprise storms. The mountains have not crumbled into the foothills, which have not smothered the Tri-Valley. The early morning air seeping through the desk’s window, which leaks regardless of the season, chills me.
I tighten my robe. The curtains’ navy slightly brightens. The clock by my computer does not reassure me I have stood here for only a little bit. But how long? I don’t recall sleepwalking, but anything seems possible nowadays now I’m my parents’ age. Mom always worried Dad would end up in the middle of downtown Cole—not worried he’d die from traffic or a bite from a rabid animal but he’d be standing wide open on Main Street in his pajamas, and the town, having watched Dad make the journey, wouldn’t bother stopping him, most of them probably waving at him. “Hiya, Marvin. Would you like a cup of coffee?” None of them would do anything else but fix their breakfast, get ready for their day, and have some new gossip, especially for church.
The dream I had before I shuffled from my bedroom, across the living room, and to my computer belongs now to the past. I chased a shadow never revealing its source, but as soon as I reached it, it split like smoke. “So vivid,” Dad said about his dreams. “Everyone I knew alive and dead visited me at some point. I guess they had something important to tell me or just wanted to shoot the breeze before they had to go back. I was never scared, not even with Cousin Ralph who smelled like his favorite bottle. I never had much to tell them or to give anything to them before they left.”
Maybe the house woke me. Maybe its old bones needed some attention from me, wanted me to make sure my old bones would fill its chairs and rooms, occupy it again. “Patty,” its old walls and joints whispered. As long as I’ve been in one of its apartments, I reckon it doesn’t want me to leave and, if it held more than memories and moments and made a home for me, if it had arms and hands, it might do all it can to keep me from drifting too far.
Maybe I got up in the middle of the night because I convinced myself, in my hours of sleeping, Saul sent another note to me, or maybe two, and his message, many hours ago when the moon shone behind the curtains, was not definitive and abrupt. After our chat ended, I went to bed convinced I would not hear from him again. His promise of a translation for his photo was the only new thing from him. I turned off my computer, wiped my eyes, and accepted that was that between us as I pulled the bedspread over me and whispered, as I do every night, “Goodnight. I love and miss you” to Ray.
If I had never met Saul back in February and answered him, if I had never pursued him on those cold nights or up until last night, I may still be sound asleep. My computer holds Saul’s photo, his many promises, and our conversations. Standing here, did I want to see myself arrive from the past and sit in the desk chair, turn on the computer, and stare at ourselves in the monitor? Had Patty arrived from the past, would I have asked her who watches the living? The night? The dead? The day? The sky, with or without sun or with or without stars, connecting the living and the dead?
Every time my computer starts, the first thing to load is Ray’s image of us standing at the mountain cabin many years ago, which fills me with joy, love, and sadness. But Saul is also there, and his photo pushes me away as much as it pulls me back. His photo stung me the first time, and it has answered me without me asking it any questions. When Saul’s photo consumes me, I panic because of Ray, which often wakes me in the middle of the night because I have misplaced something about our life together, like a map missing one of its paths.
Avoiding anything about Saul is impossible. While I wait at the microwave for popcorn, I glance at the computer screen. His photo flickers when I take off my makeup in the bathroom and stare at the mirror. Getting ready for bed, I pull back the covers, and streetlights outside my apartment or the curtains glowing with moonshine halos the desk.
I’ve sometimes imagined Saul’s photo would change during the months it sat in my computer, or if I didn’t think about the photo or his promise of a translation, everything about him and us would go away. Maybe a gnome-like creature would emerge from the digital universe, crawl into the folder, and push around the pixels and nudge the tones until his photo held something different than when I received it and reminded me where I was and was to be. Sometimes I wish his photo would disappear from my computer or maybe today will be the day my computer doesn’t start, but then I regret wishing Saul and his image would go away and I never met him.
Chatting with him has not been complicated or too confusing. We described ourselves and what we were doing when we were online. We have never followed through on meeting in person. It’s never been about that. Anything more would require work and energy beyond what we put in. We’re limited to who we are and can’t become. And I made it clear to him where I was with it. He has lost a spouse, but unlike me, he has been willing to start fresh with love and dating.
He never once said to me I could trust him, which, as far as I’m concerned, someone says in order to get something out of you, and trust loses what it’s meant to bring out. I have never seen his face nor heard his voice. He has fulfilled all his promises to me in the past, writing to me whenever our schedule fleshed out on its own. We became familiar with our habits, likes and dislikes, and our secrets. From a distance, wherever he was, neither space nor time separated us. He claimed he was states away, but he was in the same room with me—no longer strangers.
His photo arrived like a door dropped between the past and future. I have never sent him a photo of any kind. He’s never asked for one of me. I cannot confirm what he said to me has been the truth. But I also cannot confirm what he said to me has been lies.
Every day, I move between Saul’s image and Ray’s. And although Ray has been gone for a while and I live alone, I am never alone because he and our images when we were together and Saul and his image have me. One photo greets me, like a face in a crowd, and the other image, more familiar over time, also comes and goes. Both photos have been with me at peaks, in valleys, and on the plains in between. I pass by them daily and nightly, month to month, but I should only have one.