Violet Light (eBook)

Ian Sternthal (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
180 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-2282-8 (ISBN)

Infos

'Charlie Kaufmanesque and BRILLIANT!' Eleni Schirmer, bylines in NEW YORK TIMES and NEW YORKER After pulling himself out of a frozen lake, Adrian stumbles into town. What begins as a lively dinner conversation with a new friend becomes a meditation on mortality-with a final twist that changes everything. 'A masterpiece... one of the better books I've read.' Greg Etingin 'A warm hug.' Amanda Wolfe 'I read 'A Violet Light' in one sitting - I couldn't put it down.' Gillian Morantz 'Magical.' Cantor Gideon Zelermyer, Grammy Award winner, 'You Want it Darker' 'A wondrous ode to friendship, loss, life and what may follow.' Eric Siblin, bestselling author of 'The Cello Suites' 'Highly imaginative... a potent writing sensibility behind it that will produce many more books.' Robert Lecker 'A work of art... a must read.' Joshua Brown 'Beautiful and heartbreaking and moving and so smart!' Suzanne Zelazo, author of 'Lances All Alike' 'Brilliant!' Arlene McKibbon 'A beautiful story.' Anthony Wexler, University Writing Program, Johns Hopkins University 'One of the most powerful pieces I've ever read.' Jessica Sternthal 'A MUST read for Leonard Cohen fans.' Penni Kolb, executive director of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim What happens to our dead? Is someone looking out for them on the other side? A Violet Light takes up these questions, exposing fiction's power to imagine what might happen to us on the other side of life. After a fatal accident, a young artist named Adrian finds himself seated at a table with an esteemed guide: the Montreal legend, Leonard Cohen. Together, over the course of a long meal at an idyllic bistro, the dead artists reflect on the meaning of their lives-the struggle to love, the pursuit of fame, and the pleasure of friendship. And slowly, with Leonard's help, Adrian experiences a form of self-acceptance denied him in life.

Ian Sternthal lives in Montreal.

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"e;Charlie Kaufmanesque and BRILLIANT!"e; Eleni Schirmer, bylines in NEW YORK TIMES and NEW YORKERAfter pulling himself out of a frozen lake, Adrian stumbles into town. What begins as a lively dinner conversation with a new friend becomes a meditation on mortality with a final twist that changes everything. "e;A masterpiece one of the better books I've read."e; Greg Etingin"e;A warm hug."e; Amanda Wolfe"e;I read "e;A Violet Light"e; in one sitting I couldn't put it down."e; Gillian Morantz"e;Magical."e; Cantor Gideon Zelermyer, Grammy Award winner, "e;You Want it Darker"e; "e;A wondrous ode to friendship, loss, life and what may follow."e; Eric Siblin, bestselling author of "e;The Cello Suites"e;"e;Highly imaginative a potent writing sensibility behind it that will produce many more books."e; Robert Lecker "e;A work of art a must read."e; Joshua Brown"e;Beautiful and heartbreaking and moving and so smart!"e; Suzanne Zelazo, author of "e;Lances All Alike"e;"e;Brilliant!"e; Arlene McKibbon"e;A beautiful story."e; Anthony Wexler, University Writing Program, Johns Hopkins University"e;One of the most powerful pieces I've ever read."e; Jessica Sternthal"e;A MUST read for Leonard Cohen fans."e; Penni Kolb, executive director of Congregation Shaar HashomayimWhat happens to our dead? Is someone looking out for them on the other side? A Violet Light takes up these questions, exposing fiction's power to imagine what might happen to us on the other side of life. After a fatal accident, a young artist named Adrian finds himself seated at a table with an esteemed guide: the Montreal legend, Leonard Cohen. Together, over the course of a long meal at an idyllic bistro, the dead artists reflect on the meaning of their lives the struggle to love, the pursuit of fame, and the pleasure of friendship. And slowly, with Leonard's help, Adrian experiences a form of self-acceptance denied him in life.

Textauszug

A fidgety stillness hovered over the forest. It was as if the air had been vacuumed-sealed in a recycling bag and the sky quickly spray-painted by beginners. Pine cone dust and coyote dander fell like volcano ash from nowhere. Embarrassed by their oversized white coats, the tallest of the birch trees waited patiently for something else to happen. A raven cawed, jigsawing the silence into a puzzle. Two hours after he had begun, Adrian had already looped around the back woods. Instead of stopping for the day, he skied down the front yard toward the lake. Invigorated by the aerobic exercise, his mood was starting to lift. Arriving at the shore, Adrian noticed hoof prints spotting the ice then disappearing off the lake across Route 329. This early in the season, deer tracks were an encouraging sign of adequate ice cover.

Why not, he thought.

Edging onto the ice, Adrian jumped up and down to test its thickness. Besides a few small water bubbles spittling up along grassy slush at the bank, the ice under his skis proved solid. “Eez a voyle-it die… ” he said, weighting the skis and turning and stomping, compressing the snow into thin trenches. I shouldn’t be on the ice this early in the season but I am, he said to himself. He crouched down to tighten a boot clip and make a few other small adjustments to his bindings and gear. After sipping water and blowing his nose again, Adrian set off toward the southern end of the lake.

He shouldn’t have been on the ice that early in the season, but he was. And what Adrian could not have known was that a stream of warmer water had snaked its way across the lake just below the surface, thinning the ice above it. He could not have known this because the snow was so fresh and so thick. “The deer are successful because we killed all the wolves,” he said, upset with the humans, resentful of the deer, and—for reasons he didn’t completely understand—nostalgic for more predators. Success was overrated, he thought. “Success eez veh-ree ov-air-ray-ted, Mate,” he muttered, more French than Australian.

But while contemplating things like success and phonetics and the deer situation, Adrian crossed a weaker section of ice. In a moment made from millions of congealed moments, the ice cracked and vanished beneath him. Carried by his momentum, he sank diagonally into the water along the trajectory of his path. His skis slowed his descent and then locked him in place, leaving only his head and neck exposed. Snowballs rolled in after him, barely melting as they sank. His anger exploded inside him like an aneurism. FUCKING PERFECT! he thought. NOW I’M SOAKED AND FREEZING I COULDN’T HAVE STOPPED SKIING FOR THE DAY I HAD TO KEEP GOING I WAS AT THE HOUSE I COULD HAVE JUST TAKEN MY FUCKING SKIS OFF AND OPENED THE DOOR AND HAD A BATH AND AND A BEER LIKE LAST WEEKEND WITH JEREMY I COULD HAVE MADE A FIRE AND READ IN FRONT OF THE BEAUTIFUL CRACKLING FIRE NO NOT GOOD ENOUGH THE LOOP BEHIND THE HOUSE WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH NO ADRIAN NEEDED MORE MORE MORE MORE SKIING FUCKING DEER! Instead of being projected in rage, Adrian’s words sunk into the membranes behind his stomach, cramping into a barely audible chirp, and the water smelled like rotting leaves and dead flesh and was the colour of an oil spill. Adrian had never made contact with such a complete version of cold. It was the coldest there ever was and the coldest there would ever be. The cold sprang for him, snuffing out his voice and the warmth of his perspiration. This was an electrocution: an execution by all the executioners using all the electricity, and it shorted Adrian’s anger into a bird’s hiccup.

He had seconds, maybe a minute.

Of course Adrian attempted to cry out, but he still couldn’t. His life didn’t flash before his eyes but sort of folded inward and backward but he didn’t panic—he was still more angry than scared. BIG OUTDOORSMAN BIG COUNTRY-LIVING RUGGED MAN OF THE WILDERNESS LIVE BY THE EARTH AND SKY FOLLOW THE TRACKS OF ANIMALS FUCKING BULLSHIT CITY BOY THAT CAN’T EVEN TELL IF THE ICE IS THICK ENOUGH HELP ME FUCKING SOCCER STAR BIG MOVIE STAR BIG OUTDOORSMAN BIG LADIES MAN HOW COME THE DEER DIDN’T FALL THROUGH HOOVES COVER LESS AREA THAN SKIS HELP ME HOOVES ARE LIKE NEEDLES THAT’S WHY NEEDLES ARE SHARP BECAUSE THE FORCE IS CONCENTRATED INTO A SMALL AREA IT WASN’T MY FAULT SKIS ARE LONGER AND WIDER THAN HOOVES! Along his line of sight, the snow against the dark water switched the landscape to grayscale. He thrashed in black and white, sputtering ice water spray and frozen vapour. On this Wednesday afternoon of December 6th, aside from the midges and bugs petrified into crystal, he was alone.

• • •

The stranger was on his way to meet a friend. The man was thin, with narrow, hunched shoulders. Like a metronome slightly out of sync, his long coat swayed with his almost imperceptible limp. He walked along the dirt road past the cabin, and noticed ski tracks leading down the yard toward the lake.

“I change, I am the same,”2 the man said, walking past.

He had been on this road before, as a boy. The patterns the brown sand made against the snow were similar to the patterns he remembered. The dirt reminded him of Turkish coffee grounds turned in a saucer for divination.3

“I change, I am the same,” he said again.

A car passed, and all the driver saw was an old raven with hazel eyes4 and feathers so black they were purple.

• • •

Adrian had moved to the country from Montreal the previous fall. His apartment in the city was one of only a few still remaining inside a large brick building. Due to zoning laws, the legality of his dwelling was questionable, but he lived there undisturbed for over a decade. One afternoon, though, while cleaning his bathtub, Adrian was told he had six months to leave. A few weeks later, he drove up north, arriving at the cabin with his stuff.

Built fifty years earlier by a local carpenter, the cabin was of rustic design. It sat perched on a slope between a dirt road and Lac Bouchette, a small clover-shaped lake in Morin-Heights, a Laurentian town eighty kilometers north of the city. The house was small and well-marinated in the sounds and scents of the forest. In spring and summer, Adrian fell asleep to frogs and insects busy in their nightly courtships. During winter, pine breezes drifted in through the chimney and wall seams. On the ground floor of the house was a kitchen, a bathroom, and a guest room. There was a dining room table with three wooden chairs, and a couch facing a stone fireplace. Between the couch and the fireplace stood a coffee table, and on it a scatter of magazines and books. Most of the items on the table belonged to Adrian, but a faded copy of Journey of Souls5 had been there when he had arrived. There was a reliable internet connection in the cabin, but no landline. And for some reason, the house had a conspicuous absence of mirrors. Despite its quirks, Adrian felt very much at home.

That book, Journey of Souls, had made it down to the dock the previous summer, along with two beers and some other reading material. Adrian’s keen interest in journeys was tempered by his skepticism about souls, but the retro images of clouds and skies on the sun-yellowed front cover tipped the scales in the book’s favor. At the lake, sitting in one of the two wooden Adirondack chairs with his bare feet up on the other, Adrian skimmed the first dozen or so pages. Michael Newton, the author, was a hypnotherapist and claimed to have uncovered detailed reports of the afterlife by guiding his subjects into trance states. Subjects recalled their experiences as souls moving between incarnations. The book described the afterlife as an expansive realm where souls undergo a journey of growth. Sometimes, souls who have just arrived do not know that their bodies have died; at first, they can be disoriented by their new surroundings. In the afterlife, names of people and places sometimes change to fragments of names or nicknames. Souls can see humans and other souls, but humans can’t see them. Adrian sipped his beer and read on. After we die, time itself becomes warped, expanding from a split second to infinity and back again. The future could become the past, and the past could seem like the present. A month on earth might contract into a few minutes in the Great Beyond. The book contained descriptions of limitless light, eternal happiness, and so on.

Adrian sighed. He had heard versions of all this before. When he finished his beer he said out loud to no one: “When I die, just turn me into an eagle.” He closed the book, tossed it onto the dock, and went for a swim.

• • •

On solid ground, he would have just poked the release clip of the toe binding with the tip of his pole, releasing the boot from the ski without effort. He had done this hundreds of times without much thought. But here, treading water with frozen limbs, leverage and precision were absent. RELAX ASSHOLE RELAX BREATHE RELAX I CAN DO THIS I KNOW HOW TO DO THIS HELP ME I’M COORDINATED I’M GOOD AT SPORTS AND DRAWING I’M COORDINATED AND STRONG I’VE DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES BREATHE BREATHE HOOVES ARE POINTY LIKE SKI POLE TIPS HOW COULD I HAVE FALLEN IN! Starting with his right ski, Adrian removed his wrist from the strap on the right pole and slid his hand down the shaft. He brought his right knee up toward his chest and, somehow, found the binding clip with the tip of the pole. He reached down with his left hand to steady the ski, creating just enough...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-2282-8 / 9798317822828