“Lindsey, would you like to start the Longue Durée program? You are only 34.” “And in six years I will be forty.” She answered. “I already have wrinkles on my face, my hips are getting wider, and I noticed a little tummy right here.” She put her hand on her navel. “I take that as a yes?” “Yes! You and Father have done it. You haven’t had any side effects, have you?”
“No, but it does have a downside. All your friends, bridesmaids, everyone you knew before, will all grow old and die. You will find yourself wanting to share our secret with them, but you cannot. You will remember things that happened eighty years ago, and say something about it, while people look at you at thirty years old, as if you have lost your mind.
It also affects a baby. It develops wrong and will abort before the full term. That is what killed Nicole. And, you can never go back to where someone may recognize you, and wonder why you look so young and youthful, while their bones ache, their skin wrinkles, and their hair turns white. Can you handle that responsibility?”
The problems we were about to unleash, had bit me before. My impulse was to create a new identity, and use the new residence in St. Kitts as my home base.
I felt the anxiety, remembering how the greed of the world would pay any price for youth and extended life. Longue Durée made me the billionaire that I am. I didn’t need any more money, but it has become a mental disease.
What would they do now, that anyone could have a perfect body, or cure any biological imperfection?
My husband was snoring terribly. I made him stop snoring… and now I still can’t sleep.”
“I’ve heard that story before and been told that I snore sometimes as well. How did you get your husband to stop snoring?”
“I pushed my pillow against his face until he quit.”
My husband was snoring terribly. I made him stop snoring… and now I still can’t sleep.”
“I’ve heard that story before and been told that I snore sometimes as well. How did you get your husband to stop snoring?”
“I pushed my pillow against his face until he quit.”
Pg. 185
“Mmmm, very good! I’m not a big wine person, but I like this.”
“It’s the only wine my Daddy would drink. He preferred beer too. SO! What did you want to tell me?”
“Well, I really, am running on a theory. I need your collaboration to confirm my ideas.”
“You have my undivided attention. Show me what you got!” she leaned against the armrest and smiled at me.
I reached into my brief case and started pulling the printouts from the computer. I started looking through them trying to decide how, or what, I was trying to prove. I laid the papers down on my lap and looked into Brooks eyes.
“Tell me what you know about Julienne.”
“Well, Daddy loved her in the beginning, after Mom died. I know that she was married to daddy’s partner Adamo Napoleon before she knew daddy. We all went to their wedding in Martinique, and the church blew down after they were legal.” She laughed. “I told Emily that it was a bad sign!” she laughed again. “Want some more wine?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Let’s see. Somewhere, daddy lost interest in Julie, and got the hots for his new secretary.”
(I flipped to page 7.)
“That would be Miss… Lalina Simonetta?”
“YEAH! Crap! You have all the shit in those papers, don’t you?”
She scooted over against me and tried to see the papers. I turned them away from her and looked at her. She backed off and stood with her empty glass.
“Some more wine?”
“No thanks, I’m still good.”
“Brooks, I know that Julie killed Adamo. I suspect that she killed your father. She may have killed your mother. I’m fairly positive that she just tried to kill my girlfriend.”
Suddenly Brook was no longer in a playful mood. She took a drink of her wine and sat the glass on the table. Her eye contact never wavered.
“You’re serious?” She stared at me, hoping for all of this to be a bad joke.
INSOMNIACS, has not been to the editor yet. Covid-19 has damaged my cash flow, and my real job is about to close the doors, but in the meantime… there are other really wild books to read. At present, I am writing a book called THE REPEATER. Check out the Longue Duree-Extending Life group on AMAZON.
“Great. Bethany, I have another lab. It is doing research off the grid. Would you be interested in helping us, off the record? Think about what you could do if the government didn’t set your limits.”
“And I still get paid?”
“Yes. I brought them back to life. I took a sample of their DNA, broke it down on the spectral analyzer, and cataloged the atomic structure of each creature. Then I created the atoms and elements to regenerate it. I sort of mapped an atomic cocktail, and let the machine create it inside the mouse carcass. Within twenty-four hours, the mouse was standing and breathing. In three days, they were as you see them, now.”
“Do you realize what you have done?”
“Yes, he does, Bethany. That’s why I brought you here.”
“What are these? Ohhhhhh!” Bethany stepped into a side room and looked at several containers of human organs, one hand, and a bearded man’s head.
“More tests,” said Martin, “reach into the liquid and squeeze the hand.” He elbowed me on the arm to watch.
“AAAAAHHHH! IT SQUEEZED ME BACK!” We laughed.
I threw her a towel, and she dried her hand.
“And what does the head do? Sing Beatles songs?”
She stroked her fingernail from the head’s chin up into the temple. His eyes suddenly opened, and he smiled, showing his grey teeth.“AAAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAHHH!”
I grabbed her. She was clearly upset. “DON’T TOUCH ME! AAAHH!” She pulled away from me.
Bethany rushed out to the loading dock, and I found her with her face against the concrete block wall.
“Should I take you back to MRI?”
“No way! You guys are breaking all the laws. Man, and God.”
“Yes, we are. What’s your decision?”
“Count me in.”
This is the book that started it. Each one kept getting crazier.
David Alexander.
“Yello! Louis Bautista.”
“Louis… this is Celia…mom just called me. She said that she got you to help her get her driver’s license. Do you think she can deal with that?”
“Oh yeah! She hot rodded my beemer like an Indy driver.”
“Really?”
“Really!
“So where are you? “Asked Celia.
“I just got on I-95 south. I should be home in a couple hours. Probably about noon.”
“Okay… see you soon… bye.”
Celia rolled over, naked in the bed, and looked into Anthony’s eyes.
“Where did Josh go?” She asked.
“He just ran to the restroom. He’ll be right back.” Said Anthony.
“I have to go home. I enjoyed our night together.” She kissed him and started to get out of the bed. He pulled her back as she giggled and he got on top of her, one more time. Josh appeared beside them and waited for a break to join in.
Many of you know me from a diversity of social media sites, so you probably know that I lost my 15-year Pomeranian, Koko. I’m over the loss now.
A year, or so, before she died of kidney failure, I bought Zenzi, a wolf-sable Pomeranian. She learned fast, and inherited all of Koko’s tricks and habits. That was a good thing. My wife is a great trainer and has a lot more patience than myself. (She’s married to me.)
Zenzi graduated… and has become the perfect companion. When Koko died, Zenzi became depressed and there was no way to explain death to a dog. I did, but those words were not in her vocabulary. She laid around a lot, and stared at me, wanting to know when I was going to go get Koko, or wondering what Koko did that made me so mad, to get rid of her. No way to explain. Zenzi was about a year old, and no longer in that puppy stage. After much thought, I decided that another puppy was the answer. Pomeranians aren’t happy when they are alone.
In my latest books, Louis Bautista had a Pomeranian in book 1 and 2.
I flew to North Carolina to buy a little black and tan Pom. I researched taking a dog on a plane, and… I think I can do it. (That story is on my blog), but the bottom line is that a weird bonding happened because of the airport experience. Now in Florida, Athena follows me everywhere. I haven’t been to the bathroom alone in months. Normally, my wife is the trainer, and I don’t interfere with her years of experience. Like I said, more patience than me.
Athena says otherwise. I… am her human, and she rejects the authority of my wife. She whines when I go to work, sleeps between my knees at night, and has learned that if she stares at me long enough, I will give her a dog-biscuit. So, I have been doing her training. I am on lockdown with this Corona 19 thing, so the timing is good. She’s a lot smarter than I thought. I have learned that it is not that she can’t learn, she just doesn’t want to learn. She is the most, strong-willed, dog I have ever owned. She is finally surrendering to STAY, DROP, and NO. She learned COME fast enough, but just doesn’t always feel like doing it. I teach my dogs hand signals as they learn the commands. I also teach them that belching and farting, gets rewards. My wife just shakes her head at me.
The leash is my biggest challenge now. She just lies down, like, drag me human! You can’t use a collar like a regular dog. Poms have a trachea issue, so you have to use a harness. She hates the harness as well. I have several different styles, and she prefers the old original nylon straps. Due to the Florida heat, I believe she wants as little body contact as possible. She’s making progress. Wait until she discovers that I bought seat belts for the car.
Once again, my patience is a bit less than a dog trainer, and often she frustrates me, and I feel like she’s beating me. I have failed. She’s going to hate me for all of the abuse I’m inflicting on her. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I consider giving her to someone more qualified.
Then… I finish my latest page for my website, save it for tomorrows posting, and shut down the three 24” monitors in front of me. The cooling fans whine to a stop, I close my schedule book, and roll my chair away from my desk. It stops against something and I look back in the floor. Athena pushed her dog bed across the room, and against my chair. There is a sudden flow of emotion. I reach down, pick up her limp three pound body, and hold her against my chest. “Come on girl, it’s bed time.”
In my latest books, Louis Bautista had a Pomeranian in book 1 and 2.
Before Covid 19, I was a cabinet maker for a Yacht Company. It is located in Florida, and based in Taiwan. All of us in the cabinetry department, are distinguished older gentlemen… except Fred.
These yachts are 70′ long. They have two huge Volvo Diesels and carry 4000 gal of fuel. I am a sailor, and am in the minority in this plant. Actually, I only know of one other sailor, and he’s never had his off of the dock. I use my diesel for getting in and out of tight anchorages. My fuel bill is about $200 a year, based on $4.00 a gallon. The seventy, will spend $1600 for one fill up, and probably go through many tanks in a season. I always loose this debate in the shop. Roughly 312 to 1.Right now, April 12th, 2020, I am on home lockdown, waiting for the Covid 19’s Visa to expire. I left a partially built cabinet on my workbench, locked my toolbox, and pulled the plug on my chargers and radio. We have millions of dollars worth of unfinished-sold, yachts to complete, so I am assuming that I will at least have a job until they are finished. This is what I do.
This is starting to look like an advertisement for a yacht broker, but most of these are photos from my cell phone. Myself, and a couple others, have been with the plant since boat one. We did the prototype cabinets with cardboard and sticks, and then started working on weight reduction, weighing everything we created. I am qualified to say that we have some of the most talented yacht-level cabinetmakers available, but we’re all getting old. We have brought in young apprentices, paid them extremely well, and they still quit for anything that resembles a video-game.
“Who’s going to build the boats?”
In the past, any time things got out of control in the United States, or my life, I escaped to an island. That’s always been my answer, and it has been the input for a crazy life.
“I should write a book! HA!”
I have sailed everywhere from Florida, to Grenada. Florida Keys, Bahamas, a New Years party on the beach at Foxy’s, on Joust Van Dyke, explored the Baths, in Virgin Gorda, Scuba dive shipwrecks at 100′, had an eel swim between my legs, personally knew a barracuda named Charlie, raised a peregrin falcon named Fabian, and knew a mule named Vanilla. I fell in love with Nevis, and St. Kitts, Started another book in N. Jamaica, not supposed to talk about Costa Rica, been on a first name basis with a Rasta, and moved to St. Croix, for several years, before returning to Florida.
A sailboat, can take you far, a lot cheaper than a six million dollar floating mansion. Unfortunately, I can’t even afford the sailboat right now. She sits on the hard wondering where I am.
“We can’t leave the country this time. The virus is everywhere.”
We have all become so dependant on the internet. Right now, being isolated in our homes, it is keeping us all from being a domestic violence statistic. My lawn has never been so manicured. My Pomeranians have never had so much attention, and my vehicles have never sat idle for so long.
Can you imagine… do it for a minute… if they shut off the internet. I read that the dark web had already been shut down, so this crossed my mind. Even now, I order my groceries, stay in touch with my family, send my latest manuscript to my editor, and do all of my advertising, ON THE INTERNET. We literally do almost everything on the internet now. We can Google the answer or location of anything, compare prices globally, and learn how to do anything on YouTube. Even school, church, and working from home, requires, internet. There are people reading this, that have never been without the internet or their cell phone.
I live on the east coast of Florida, and we held out on home confinement longer then most. I am only on my ninth day of the thirty day restriction. I have logged many hours in my home office shopping, exploring, and editing.
Today, I am going to get out of here. “I’M GOING TO ESCAPE!”
I did adjustments and cleaned the dust off the bike. I fastened an old milk crate behind the seat, and I am taking my face mask, and hand wipes shopping. We have a few pawn shops, dollar stores, and a pharmacy, within riding distance. Maybe the hardware store is selling tomato plants, and I will try to grow one? HA HA!
My next book, Insomniacs, is ready for my editor, and I was, (Operative word, WAS ), 167 pages into, The Repeater, before I was hit head-on with writers block. Maybe I can pedal into some inspiration?
“Yello! Louis Bautista.”
Right now, April 12th, 2020, I am on home lockdown, waiting for the Covid 19’s Visa to expire. I left a partially built cabinet on my workbench, locked my toolbox, and pulled the plug on my chargers and radio. We have millions of dollars worth of unfinished-sold, yachts to complete, so I am assuming that I will at least have a job until they are finished. This is what I do.
D. B. Alexander 