Fiction

Chapter Four. Realities

“It’s me, all right. The name Bryant that he says is my right name ain’t the right one, but if you knew where to look, you’d find the old news stories about me quick enough. Not that it matters: The statutes of limitations don’t run any 30 years, and anyway it wouldn’t be so easy, extraditing me out of here.”

“But except for the names, the rest of the story is true?”

“Oh, more or less. Like Huck Finn says, he stretched it here and there, but mostly he told the truth.”

Mr. Barnard and I were standing, in parkas, by the frost‑covered windows of his greenhouse room, which the morning sun had turned into a splendid wilderness of illuminated traceries. Mr. Barnard had said he thought I’d like seeing the designs. I was a little surprised that he’d notice such things. I think, now, that he wanted to get my first impression of the book in surroundings as unfamiliar to me as possible in our limited world. Continue reading Messenger Chapter 04

Chapter Three. Introductions

I had a long winter and spring ahead of me before I could try to get over the mountains to India, and the monastery was not so large a place to roam. I soon used up its spaces.

I’d get up in the morning—after sleeping as late as possible and then lying in bed staring up and out at the blue‑black sky beyond my window—and wander down to the kitchen to fix myself some tea. (In those early days I sorely missed my coffee.) Then I’d make my way down to Mr. Barnard’s greenhouse, or his workshop, or I’d pace one of the little patios that open off the main buildings. Sooner or later Mr. Barnard and I would come together and we’d have a lunch, usually some thick slices of bread and butter, or perhaps a few pieces of fruit. And while we ate, and later while we sat in the library rooms or went outside for a smoke, he and I would talk. Continue reading Messenger Chapter 03

Chapter Two. The Monastery

Late the following morning, Mr. Barnard found me lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering how long the trek back would take. Provided the place wasn’t an elaborate Chinese trap, I figured I’d stumbled into probably the only place in Tibet that would help me get back over the border into India or Pakistan. I figured they’d give me provisions, and maybe even a guide. Working our way by night, moving with someone who knew the terrain, I figured five nights, maybe. I couldn’t get over the good luck that had brought me safely here. Assuming that the place was what it seemed.

And suddenly there was Mr. Barnard at the door. “Well,” he said, beaming benevolently down at me like a Buddha with a mustache, “when I looked in on you a while back, you looked like you were working hard on catching up on your sleep. How are you feeling now?” Continue reading Messenger Chapter 02

Messenger: A Sequel to Lost Horizon

By Frank DeMarco

 

Dedicated to:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, admirable representative of his people, a man upon whom hatred has no hold.

Having,

of all mankind,

reason to be bitter,

the Dalai Lama lives serene.

He smiles.

And to Danny Lliteras, author of the Llewellen trilogy:

In The Heart of Things

Into the Ashes, and

Half Hidden by Twilight,

who encouraged and prodded me by word, example, and friendship.

And to the memory of my brother Joe, 1949‑1979.

Continue reading Messenger Chapter 01