Under Desert Stars   Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo

If you’ve ever been at the mercy of public transportation, you know this feeling. It happens when you’re a minute or two behind your normal schedule and hurrying to the bus stop. If the bus is even a minute ahead of the usual time, you’re screwed. So you hurry. You walk briskly toward the bus stop, peering at the cross street as if you could see around or through the buildings at the corner where the bus will appear. You lean forward over your center of gravity, ready to make a run for it, even though you know that by the time you see the bus, it’s already too late. It’s a peculiar form of anxiety, waiting for the bus to cruise by and leave you stranded. It could go by at any moment. You can almost feel it coming.

As I wrote the final volume of the War of the Second Iteration I felt a strange sensation building; a quiet, formless and yet strangely familiar anxiety that could never quite be banished. At first I dismissed it as a consequence of the constant troubles of the past year. I never seemed to be able to stay focused on the book, and the longer that went on the more concerned I became for the quality of the finished product. But when I thought about it I realized worries over quality didn’t fully explain what I felt. One afternoon, while feeling the aches and pains left over from a traffic accident, I realized what was bothering me. This anxiety gnawing away at me was the fear of not finishing this book at all. Of not being able to finish it. So many problems had struck out of the blue in recent months, including that automobile accident – which could have been so much worse – what was next? Would the next calamity be disabling? Or something more terrible? And wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony of my life to get four of the five books done and then be taken out by some pointless accident or illness? It would have seemed a far-fetched concern a couple of years ago. By the middle of 2015, thoroughly shaken out of whatever complacency had crept into my life, it felt otherwise.

It felt like I was running a little late, and the bus could roll by at any moment.

Overreaction? Morbid thinking? Some would certainly say so, and council a more “positive” outlook, but I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I’m a realist, and to me the possibility of such an irony is all too real. The troubles of last year merely reminded me of something I already knew. I took them as warning shots. It just makes sense to be mindful, and to not take life for granted.

I quietly celebrated my 60th birthday not long ago. The simple reality is that I probably have more years behind me than ahead of me, at this point. The chance to get into print via the modern version of self-publishing came to me rather late in life. There’s a positive aspect to this. At a time when many people would be winding life down and wondering what to do with their “gold years,” I’m launching something new and – for me at least – tremendously exciting. I’m being challenged in new ways and dealing with new situations. I’m told this is a good thing, a healthy change, and it certainly feels that way! But I have a lot of books in me, a multitude of stories, and I have – how much time left to write them? Does anyone know? Can anyone know? To make the assumption that I have the time I need would be, to put it mildly, foolish. Too many people at or near my own age have suddenly come to an end, of late. People I’ve known or known of have died, cut down by something they couldn’t have seen coming, much less prevented. Over and over again I mutter, in response to news from a friend or news of the larger world around me – “Too young! Much too young!” It’s happened recently to the daughter of an acquaintance. Living her life as usual and suddenly gone. No one saw it coming. It’s the sort of news that makes you rethink many things. It made me write this piece.

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that I am exempt from the possibility of an untimely demise. I’d be a fool to assume such a thing. So I’ll keep moving briskly forward, ever mindful of that bus. The War of the Second Iteration is, for all practical purposes, done. But there are other books, other tales to tell. The clock is surely ticking.  I need to write faster. But then, doesn’t everybody, really?

Isaac Asimov was once asked, in an interview, how he would respond if he received a terminal prognosis. “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” Though it was said with tongue-slightly-in-cheek, there’s truth in those words, so I’ve always been inspired by that statement. There’s been no bad news from my doctor, but it could happen. Or something worse could occur in the proverbial New York minute. Brood about it? No, absolutely not. I’ll use these reminders that life is a chancy business, and that there are no guarantees, as motivation.

And I’ll type a little faster.