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Mile Highand
Falling 
by Joel Dinerstein 
 
Chapter 1
 Denver, Colorado Fall 1992
Sunday
The first thing I remember was churchbells.I creaked open my eyes ... fluorescent lights peered down into my face from asinister cotton-candy sky. I closed my eyes. Tight. Yet from what seemed a thousandmiles away ... ... I still heard churchbells.The churchbells rang ... as if they came from inside me.The churchbells sounded and resounded as if ... as if the air was made of musicalmolecules and every element had a different tone, as if 
church bells
were thesound nitrogen and oxygen tones (and trace tones of argon and methane) made collidingand re-colliding.I remember that train of thought exhausted me.Then I heard
churchbells
again ... peace and goodwill towards ... I fell back asleep.******** Next, I heard a voice. Loudly. Right in my ear. Directed at me.Then it stopped.Then I heard the voice again."Stand up and put your hands on your head. You on the billboard stand up and put your hands on your head."The sky was a lighter shade of pink. I squinted straight up into it, searching for thevoice. There was a sheer plain flat cliffwall to my right.
Oh, right, a billboard.
I rolled slowly onto my side, gingerly, hung-overly, hoping daylight might break gently upon my ginger soul.A copcar was parked below, its nose pointing right at me. I stared at it. We werethe only living human beings in a Wendy's parking lot. Or a stage set of a Wendy's
 
 parking lot. Hard to tell right then.The copcar spoke. "Stand up and put your hands on your head," it said.Daylight pubcrawled through my veins. My body ached yet seemed paralyzed.My clothes felt both wet and dried, dewy and frozen.The cop in the driver's seat talked into his hand. "You on the billboard stand upand put your hands on your head."The words buzzsawed into my brain.Why didn't they get out? They looked tense and scared -- of what?, of me? Thatwas funny -- I coughed up a laugh. As if Mike Durrell might pull a gun and startspraying. I rose up on one knee; it felt like I had just created my body from Lego parts. Istood up very, very slowly; I put my hands out to my side.Turned all my pockets inside out. Pulled up my pants-legs one at a time.The cop behind the wheel put his coffee on the dashboard and got out of the car.He was about my age, thirty-five, thick, confident; he seemed mighty proud of his dirty blonde mustache. He had a gun in his right hand and a powder-blue megaphone in hisleft; he seemed unsure of which one to draw. He kick-closed the driver-door andtentatively squatted down next to it.His partner rolled out of the passenger seat maybe thirty seconds later -- a sack of young potatoes, maybe twenty-two. He looked like an angry fat kid who got tired of  being made fun of one shitty high school afternoon and started lifting weights. Hesquatted behind the open passenger door and used it as a shield. I guess he thought Imight pull a glock out of my ass."I have no weapons and no money." I raised my hands. "I have nothing on me.""That's an expensive sweater and Italian shoes," the dirty blonde cop said quietly,sort of to himself.His young partner stood clear of the car-door, his gun pointed right at me. "Whatare you doing up there?" he yelled."Protesting," I said. I was surprised both by the answer and by the sound of myvoice."Protesting?" the dirty blonde cop grunted out a laugh. "Protesting what?""The Broncos."
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NarrativeBoy

The first two chapters of a finished novel. Reader demand will bring out the next two--

reply06 / 14 / 2009
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