Fantasy, Fiction, Facts and the Muses

The world keeps reminding me of the next novel in my BackTracker series—perhaps it is the muses nudging me to get it to print. 
The battle between fiction and facts playing out south of the border,  the role of religion and faux religion in that battle, and the January storm pounding both rain and snow against my windows has me replaying scenes in my mind from that Book 5 which has been restlessly sleeping on my hard drive.
One of those scenes is the story told by Shrug, my tall silent Saskatchewan farm boy, in a rare emotional monologue as he explains how he went from being a preacher to an undercover cop. Apparently he did not impress his congregation when, after they showed up one Sunday to hear his sermon he said “Good morning” and then dragged them off into the fields to help an unfortunate neighbour with the harvest.  He was never a strong believer in the power of words. He felt power lay in knowledge and sharing that knowledge by talking about it created a vulnerability. He also felt power lay more in actions than in words.
That scene is one of just many philosophical moments readers can expect to find sprinkled throughout all my novels. Scenes, wrapped tightly into the plot, designed to take readers beyond just the interesting story and make them think—should they be in the mood to do so.
Today’s blizzard reminds me of a less philosophic scene, just a telling of the power of the prairie. Again, it is Shrug’s scene, one that changed the man forever. Changed him for the worse but empowered him to move beyond the pulpit.
“It had been an icy prairie winter day.  The brilliant noon-time sun, played sad games with the frozen world.  Though it promised to share its fire, it didn’t.  A cloudless, blue, blue sky domed the world from horizon to horizon.  A blazing sun cast indigo shadows in the snow.
Then you stepped outside and the ice took your breath away.  It seeped up your sleeves and down your neck, and made your cheeks burn and your eyes water.
Even after twenty minutes of idling, the heater in the car breathed ineffectually against the elements outside.  The windows invited the frost back faster than you could scrape.  Once on the road, the steering wheel moaned with each turn, and the tires thumped, and the doors crackled with each movement.
It was not a day to be travelling alone along isolated back roads, in those days– before cell phones.  Farms were miles and miles apart.  If anything were to happen to a traveller or his car, way out here, on a day like this...
But Shrug had been travelling, because he was the only minister within ten townships– and someone needed him....
God would not let the vicious cold last forever. But between the time the cold left and the warm arrived– there was the blizzard as the prairies became the battle ground between weather fronts. Snow pelted down from the dark skies while under the power of the fierce wind, snow already on the ground rose up. The gale roared and whistled across the flat prairie and kept going– right through the windows and doors of even the most well-built home. Things that shouldn’t move– moved under its fury….
The two hour drive, took many more hours. At times, he left his vehicle to stomp around in the headlights– to find where the prairie ended and the road began. He searched in the blackness speckled by driven snow to see the power poles that could offer some sense of direction. He got out and shoveled through drifts so that he could drive to the next drift to shovel. 
It was not seven when he got home; it was way past mid-night. The town was black, the blizzard having stolen the power. His house was almost as icy as the outdoors. And when he laid the back of his hand against the baby’s cheek…”
Yes, indeed. A fine pandemic lockdown project—revisit, revise Sacrifices Book 5 in my BackTracker series. 

Most exciting thing that happened to me during lockdown

Yes, lockdown, or 'sheltering in place' as some say, rather euphemistically, or self-isolation as the Public Health edicts call it is difficult.

For those of us without children at home, and not working from home...well, let's just say I had a very pleasant one hour conversation earlier today with a telemarketer. What else is there to do?

I've asked my social media friends to share what the most exciting thing is that has happened to them since the pandemic struck.

For me, I can't think of many exciting moments to consider and rate.

Perhaps the most exciting thing happened yesterday when I played hide-and-go-seek with the grandchildren. I'd forgotten how dark closets are when the door is closed. Remember the tiny crack of light under the door? I can't say I actually saw that crack. I mostly just saw the ceiling, being as I was simply a face and voice on an iPhone. Diminishing this experience, however, was despite the fact I was hundreds of miles away I repeatedly got blamed for making too much noise and giving away the hiding spot.

Although that was a fun event, perhaps for an exciting event I should consider my social distancing visit with four close friends around a roaring campfire the other night. The fact that we couldn't share food or drink or photos did't stop us from sharing a few good laughs. Especially when we enacted our perspectives on tele-medicine and our annual physical exams.

But as far as the type of excitement that gets one's heart racing, the number one event since being in self isolation has to be the day I exploded the hot tub.

Now, I am ever so grateful to have my very own hot tub, outdoors. A place I can go and soak away my worries and woes. But like I hinted at before, boredom does strange things to people. It seems it caused me to believe at some point that I might have plumbing abilities.

In any event, I decided to fix that control knob that leaked. It had been leaking for months but it only leaked when the jets were on and the tiny trickle just ran back into the tub so nothing had been done about it. But for pandemic-induced reasons, I decided I should and could fix this issue.

Well about two minutes into my repair job, complete with the explosive sound effects, a frothing four foot pillar of angry water torpedoed the knob and its leaky innards a good fourteen feet into the air. Myriad plastic pieces fell back from the sky, burying themselves into the surrounding snow banks as the geyser kept rising, writhing and roaring from the hole where the control knob had once been.

Keep in mind it is -10C , I'm soaking wet, in a bathing suit and the water in the tub in dipping dangerously low. I'm jabbing at the control panel to turn off the jets but nothing is happening. The pool of water outside the tub is beginning to freeze.

Luckily, a few more jabs and I finally got the jets turned off. I stared around me. I couldn't believe my misfortune. I'd entered the tub fearful and anxious, intent on giving up my stress to the warmth of the water massage as I'd done almost every day since  Covid-19 stay-at-home orders were issued. Now, I was more anxious than ever and had apparently disabled one of my life's few remaining pleasures.

But, being me (and being cold), I didn't stand there long. My robe, which had been carefully hung on the rail was dripping wet. My slippers were wet, too, but they were my plastic sandals so I slipped them on and, mostly naked I raced around the deck, digging into the snow to retrieve washers and rings and various other pieces of plastic that looked like they may belong to a hot tub control knob.

Still fancying myself somewhat of a plumber I pieced things together as best I could and then closed the tub lid, too frightened to turn on the jets to see if my fix job worked.

As I climbed down from my hot tub, I realized with horror that the steps were covered in a smelly, brown mess. As were my sandals! Apparently in my dash about the deck to recover pieces, I'd uncovered the winter's stash of doggy do-do.

I now had to rush about (still in my bathing suit), scrubbing, cleaning, rinsing, disinfecting the steps, my shoes, the deck, itself. 

I was not a happy camper when hubby showed up. But bless his soul. In less than an hour he had my tub up and running again.

I'm am so very happy that each day, I can still slip out there and soak. The snow is now gone, the stash of doggy-do gone, and overhead the Canada geese fly, robins flirt in the nearby trees and around the pond below, my beloved red winged blackbirds trill.

Yes, the day the tub exploded was the most exciting thing that has happened to me since lockdown began.

"...Lockdown" has been brought to you by the BackTracker Series.


Canadian author, Eileen Schuh, is known for her thrilling elements of crime, sensitive treatment of social issues, and emotional exposure of the human psyche.

Schuh's most recent release in her gritty BackTracker crime series is the crime thriller, OPERATION MAXTRACKER. The previous books in this series are THE TRAZ, FATAL ERROR and FIREWALLS.Schuh is also the proud author of two adult SciFi novellas, SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT and DISPASSIONATE LIES, the adult crime thriller, SHADOW RIDERS.Her latest release is the grade school novel, BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE RAINBOW.
Eileen Schuh, Author 
FIREWALLS
FATAL ERROR
Schrödinger's Cat
THE TRAZ
Web site: http://www.eileenschuh.com
Blog: http://eileenschuh.blogspot.com