An Excerpt

I think that from time to time I'll run little excerpts from things I'm working on. There probably won't be much from scripts, because the formatting just doesn't feel like it would fit here; but prose pieces should be dandy. So to start, here are the opening paragraphs from a novel I've been working on for forever, titled Thereby Hangs a Tale. Bear in mind that "Thereby" here is the name of a character, and that it rhymes with the word "therapy."

Thereby thereby sailed the open sea, sailed said sea on his broad flat feet, spray and spume to windward and yon. An honest fellow Thereby, a royal he yet common too, hair a maze of ratnest, feet the scope of schooners, lungs that bellowed in out in two three four. He carried nestled in his mouth thirty-one teeth and one acorn, lodged in a neatly nesting right-side space where once had been a thirty-second tooth.

Flying fish flew into his mouth, happy salmon jumped and spawned and died, eggs rectumed back into the roeing sea, Thereby a fertile fecund fellow of twelvehand high. Locomotion was a puzzle. Thereby galloped across the mist-coated nymphish sea, legs long and loggish, bones of anthracite, lips marbled and eyes lashed to the ever-distant horizon.

Thereby was undeniably in motion, for otherwise would surely sink the ship of foot; yet progress was problematic, as the horizon always remained a horizon. It was always ahead, a thin strip of land always visible; but after all this time, it never had grown the least bit closer. Forward he had sailed for a time past memory; but he was no closer than at the beginning of his improbable journey. Had he only ever traveled round and round, or was there another explanation not yet found?

And then, in the very next chapter, you have this about a guy in Chicago at the Oak Street Beach:

And in this public place, both surrounded and ignored, Honest Ave walked parallel to the shoreline for a time, right through the remaining bathers, stepped on some beach towels, knocked over a small sandcastle, blithely walked through a volleyball game, broke someone’s sunglasses, and reached the farthest end of the beach where none were any longer. Without losing stride, Avery O’Neill pressed forward, felt the water gush quickly into his shoes, pants and underwear, felt his shirt bellying with air, and eagerly sucked in the water once it reached his mouth. By then he could not walk but had to swim a little, his shoes falling off and away, till he reached a good depth and then pushed himself below.

Staying under was a tremendous effort, and he realized why his predecessors put stones in their pockets.

What's that you say? These sound like they're chapters from entirely different stories, you say? Huh. How very interesting. Wonder why that would be?