Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Introspection of Imogen Card
    The Introspection of Imogen Card
    The Introspection of Imogen Card
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    The Introspection of Imogen Card

    By Huckleberry Hax

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "We'd booked our place on the crossing just four hours earlier, and it had seemed at the time like we were planning some sort of impromptu honeymoon. There was no event or comment that seemed to mark any sort of turning point after the tickets were in our hands; there was no moment that I could look upon in retrospect as the instant where suddenly the chemistry dissolved. We just faded. We ran out of things to talk about."

    On a cross Channel ferry in the middle of the night, a young man searches for his Ex.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHuckleberry Hax
    Release dateJul 13, 2011
    ISBN9781465963994
    The Introspection of Imogen Card
    Author

    Huckleberry Hax

    Huckleberry Hax writes novels set in and around virtual worlds. His best-known titles are the books of the AFK series set in Second Life®.A resident of Second Life since 2007, Huck also writes regularly on his blog about the metaverse and was a columnist for the acclaimed AVENUE magazine for over two years. His book, Second Life is a place we visit, collects together 42 of these articles.Huck is also an experienced voice performer in SL and has read aloud from his and other titles at a wide range of venues, including Milkwood, The Blue Angel, Bookstacks, Cookie, Nordan Art and Basilique.Huck's other interests include poetry (he has published a volume of his own poems called Old friend, learn to look behind you in the coffee queue and co-edited issue one of the poetry journal, 'Blue Angel Landing'), photography and machinima.

    Read more from Huckleberry Hax

    Related to The Introspection of Imogen Card

    Related ebooks

    Coming of Age Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Jun 16, 2022

      A genuine miracle occurred at the art opening of the Blinky 40th Anniversary Exhibition at California State University Northridge Gallery in Southern California on 2 February 2019. An artwork by Erika Ostrander of the “Shroud of Blinky” was found wee

      6 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Apr 20, 2023

      It Happened to Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Diary of Remorse

      Sep 6, 2022

      I was plagued by remorse, but my remorse seemed inspired by insignificant dumb things—things not really worthy of bona fide remorse. That didn’t make it any less painful or plague-worthy, as I was still riddled with disgrace on a minute-by-minute bas

      20 min read

    • Article

      CLAIRE de LUNE

      Mar 21, 2019

      CLAIRE de LUNE
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Canceled Comedy Gem

      Jul 16, 2023

      A Canceled Comedy Gem
      5 min read

    • Article

      Addicted To Books

      Jun 1, 2022

      The plaque on the door of my hotel room said ‘Superior Room’. Once inside, I searched for evidence for this rather grandiose claim. None was apparent, though there was a chocolate on the pillow. And the toilet paper had been folded into a neat point

      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      People let themselves down so hard they took to clappingwhen the plane lands. Sometimes even at the creditsof a movie. Their funerals turned out to be for the livingall along. You wouldn’t know how much they hatedcrowded trains by the way they kept b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Guillermo del Toro

      Jan 13, 2022

      Guillermo del Toro
      5 min read

    • Article

      Roundtrip For One

      Nov 1, 2019

      Roundtrip For One
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘We've Gone On Holiday By Mistake’

      Jun 28, 2023

      Is there somethingyou really miss when you're away? For the last 38 years, I would say my wife [Joan Washington, who died in 2021, aged 74]. Do you travel light? My luggage got lost flying to New York 22 years ago, and I swore I would never ever trav

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of Rush

      Nov 26, 2021

      The Art Of Rush
      6 min read

    • Article

      Finding Orlando

      Jun 11, 2019

      Finding Orlando
      3 min read

    • Article

      Body Language

      Aug 14, 2019

      Body Language
      5 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Adventure On The HIGH SEAS

      Jun 17, 2020

      Adventure On The HIGH SEAS
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Rumaan Alam

      Dec 19, 2022

      Rumaan Alam reflects on 2022 through the books he read. The post A Year in Reading: Rumaan Alam appeared first on The Millions.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Everything Happens SOMEWHERE

      Jun 15, 2020

      Everything, even thought, takes place somewhere. When remembering ordinary happenings and previous conversations, most people automatically recall where they took place and at what time. If not, they may ponder, “Now, where was I?” For more important

      8 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Introspection of Imogen Card

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Introspection of Imogen Card - Huckleberry Hax

      The Introspection of Imogen Card

      Huckleberry H. Hax

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2011 by Huckleberry H. Hax

      Huckleberry H. Hax is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

      Cover design by Huckleberry Hax

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      For M.M.P.

      We used to catch toads, ram the nozzle of a bicycle pump up their backsides and blow them up till they burst. That's what boys are like, I don't know why.

      George Orwell. Coming up for air.

      Chapter 1

      THERE'S A PICTURE of me down at the quay from later that summer. I'm wearing an orange t-shirt and sitting on a bollard, opening my arms wide to what I supposed at the time was irony. I was down there for the evening because it was something to do, and in those days you could drive right up to the end of the quay and see the water between the slats under your feet when you got out of the car. Kevin and I had both spent money earlier that year. I had bought my first ever CD player and he had bought his first ever single lens reflex camera. When we went out like that for the day, it was to seek what he termed 'photographic opportunities'. On the way back home, we'd put the rolls of film into the developer and, three days later, pour over the prints in the mini diner in town, holding them delicately by the edges whilst the smoke there curled around us. The diner became known as The Photographic Evaluation Centre, but that term was coined by Terry, not Kev, and probably with a laugh, and probably on the exhale of a Marlboro 100. Terry was a mutual friend. He liked music and he liked photography. Terry had advised both of us in our purchasing earlier that year.

      Kev had wanted 'pictures of dock stuff'. He took photos of dockyard machinery and tried to get close to some seagulls (that might have been the moment he realised his next purchase needed to be a good zoom lens). A bunch of dock workers in overalls an orange not too distant from the colour of my t-shirt were sitting out the front of a portacabin drinking tea and he took several snaps of them, which quite impressed me. They even raised their mugs to him at one point. Then again, Kev wasn't scared of workers like I was. His father was a long distance lorry driver and plenty of his pre-teen summers had been spent sitting in the cab with him, sleeping in the bunk at night in a service station car park somewhere and waking in the morning to eggs, bacon and coffee in a trucker's café. There are so many versions of paradise: Kev's was a day of driving and the smell of diesel.

      Because I was embarrassed at having to talk to the dock workers, I wandered over to the other side of the quay, and that was when I saw the Stena Normandy.

      I actually smiled when I saw her. I hadn't even thought about whether she'd be in or not. And she was getting ready to leave. Her waters were frothing and I watched a dock worker – this one wore blue overalls – lift the final line from the port-side quay and heave it into the water. The ship workers winched it up, and it slapped against the bow as it rose, dripping like a wet dog coming out of a pond.

      I realised it would be passing us in a matter of minutes, so I hurried back to Kevin to tell him I'd found us a new photographic opportunity. I wanted a picture of me and the boat. So that's why I'm trying to look ironic in the photograph. It was either that or grief, and I don't do negative emotions in public. As it turned out, you can't make out a single dammed detail of the ship behind me because it's all blurred and out of focus. Kevin explained to me that he'd wanted to experiment with depth of field, in the PEC three days later.

      I knew that ship so well. I knew every publicly accessible place on it there was to know. When the camera was back looking at the seagulls again, I watched her cast her wake out across the glittering Itchen as she headed for the Solent, and then the Channel beyond. Even five minutes later I could still make out some people at the stern leaning against the rail on the sun deck and looking back at where they'd come from. I wondered if any of them were looking at me and if at that distance the orange t-shirt had become my predominant feature so that I looked like one of the dock workers. I loved that t-shirt. It was the colour of cigarette ends. No guys that I knew ever wore something quite so vivid as that. Instead they all wore black or white t-shirts with stuff written on them that someone else had considered funny. I hated that. It was like telling the same joke to every person you meet. I had already decided to comment on it in my first novel.

      My first novel, I had resolved, would be a philosophical thriller. Thrillers were all I read back then, and they dismayed me by their lack of thoughtfulness. There was space between the words of an espionage tale, I had reflected, for some musings on the meaning of life and maybe a sprinkling of social commentary. Rather inconveniently, the Cold War had not long ago ended, and I wasn't sure any more where and in what context my book would now be set. I was glad about the Cold War ending; from about age fourteen onwards I'd been convinced I was going to die as a result of being vaporised in a nuclear explosion, and any reduction in the likelihood of that happening was a welcome one. But there had been a simple theatre to the Russians being the (misunderstood) bad guys. It was like modern day Cowboys and Indians. When the Cold War ended, it was like a whole future got wiped out and we all had to start from scratch. It wasn't like I had any plans or anything. It was more like discovering a really long-running TV series you'd just assumed would always be there had been cancelled. The Cold War finishing was like hearing that season thirteen of Dallas would be the last.

      The spot on the Stena Normandy I remembered best of all was the corner on deck eight by the port side doors and at the top of a set of stairs that led down to the nightclub; Imogen and I had laid out to sleep there at about one in the morning. A carpet spot by a door isn't the best of places to camp in on a ship, both for reasons of traffic and for reasons of cold when the traffic slips out

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1