Kjor Jan Kju

About the Book

Prologue

O how banshee wind shrieks among frail spires still erect in the ancient city! How my hearts bleed as centuries, eons, go traipsing about empty howling spaces where no one, NO ONE, has birthed a single grain, one tiny spec of creative thought for ages unknown. I rest in the ancient lonely streets, cover my head and project my yearning through Time to the many Gods who cower behind realities without number, who reject questions of where you have gone and how you may return.

Oh yes. I hear you, Colostrum Mother, but the familiar words, thoughts, gestures do not come through. Your arms do not wave at me in the old beloved way, nor does your mouth hold that incredibly beautiful sour-plum twist when you talk. But your desires come through. You instruct me to initiate a stratagem to evolve Someone capable of bringing you back. Oh how the thought allures and repels me! I am the poet of the Jalanese worker-scientist-poet triangle. Mathematical formulae are hieroglyphic to me. When I speak them, they drop into a murky pool and sink, leaving only ripples I cannot read. My hearts chill at my small ability. And yet it is mathematics that will effect rescue; not tears or words, nor blood flowing from the heart.

Yes! Yes! But to comply will require fifteen or twenty centuries. They will think of me as destiny. They will smell dinosaur droppings on my shoes and they will call me immortal. How can I tell them, that in the reality to which you fled, mathematics is a brown muck and physics an odor like heather blossoms; that everything is turned inside out and sideways and upside down. And that you can't remember how to come home? Why can't you speak to me? Impressions. Impressions.

Nothing more specific than the purple sunset beyond the fragile spires and moon-dream bridges of the ancient city. I weep for you as you for me. But I am a child. How can I succeed? Yes Colostrum Mother. I shall try, if I must. If it will bring you home to me.

About the Author

Bill Doede graduated from North Central college so long ago that housing developments did not exist, and Naperville, Il was a metropolis of 5000 people. He spent his 'two years before the mast' during WWII in the Pacific Theatre. Bill wrote science fiction stories for magazines like GALAXY and WORLDS OF TOMORROW. He prefers writing traditional science fiction, rather than science/fantasy. His poetry colletion LIFE ON A QUILT FRAME appeared in 1994. And now, at 84, Bill continues to write, yet spends a portion of his time working for the WAL MART organization. This epic, KJOR JAN KJU, is his first published novel.