The End and the Echo

By Howard Brad Halverson

Dealing with the sorrow of being left by a lover, Brandon Anderson begins a narrative of his relationship that spans a decade of disjointed recapitulations. From the premise of reconstructing memories Brandon has of Gillian, the object of his adoration, the inner workings of affection are explored and contrasted with a mundane landscape of everyday existence. Brandon's recollections paint scenes that range from quiet suburbia to arid deserts, illustrating a wander lust weaving through the Western United States and the hard wrought maturity of a young man who idealizes romance. This winding path is portrayed in a non-linear style seeking to emphasize the randomness of experience and the conception of memory that places events out of sequence from the present. Experimental in design, Brandon's intimate cavalcade issues a critical approach to culture and human relations delving in philosophical speculation. All 13 parts of The End and the Echo combine to form a profound, haptic literary aesthetic filled with an ecology of the heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard Brad Halverson
• Release date: Jun 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465860880

Howard Brad Halverson

A recent graduate from San Francisco State University with a BA in English Literature, Howard Brad Halverson is now turning to authorship. Originally from Northern Utah, Howard has also traveled extensively in many different underground music groups or solo and even a semester abroad in Växjö Sweden. Howard is influenced largely by modernism and seeks to maintain a deconstructive approach to all projects. With his fledgling novella, The End and the Echo, expect a varied stumbling through human thought and experience, often complimented with cultural criticism. Howard aspires to continue writing as well as being involved with many other creative or expressive endeavors.

Book preview

The End and the Echo

By Howard Brad Halverson

Copyright ©2010 Howard Brad Halverson

All rights reserved.

Writers Guild of America Reg. #: 1456135, 09/04/2010.

ISBN-13: 978-1468164572

ISBN-10: 1468164570

Contact: thepassionofabolition[at]gmail.com

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

for Howard Val Halverson

I.

Glancing backward. That is the premise of many stories. But why? To attempt a balanced answer, if such a singular ideal could be entertained. An answer to what? To that something behind that binds the eye, that pulls your head around and keeps it focused there while the universe catapults forward. No matter what that something is, it is the reason for this telling. So now you have the why and what, at least theoretically. Is it too much to baldly etch out other inquisitive facets for an audience to grasp the concept of activities and objects contained somewhere in a time and space that isn't the immediate one? And then it seems a bit didactic to so orthophemisticly pronounce the structure of this story. Or, now, even if there is a real story and not just some formulaic exercise of narrative devices to generate a pseudo-experience, (which, incidentally, will support my theoretical and ideological presuppositions).

Do you see, then, the dilemma that writing presents in concurrence with the reality it proposes to represent? Again, it is too much, too blankly stated what is happening here. And now the reader is questioning the relevance of this noncommittal to delve into the descriptive passages and blocks of dialogue, the reflective nuances that resonate through that internal voice of the narrator or narrators. And those thoughts of the reader are well grounded. Really!? What kind of author would piddle around with direct literary analysis of its narrative and not shoot straight for the heart of the story to appease the compulsive desires of the mass audience? That would be a sort of suicidal measure on the part of the author. A method immediately estranging the author from its audience. But for me it is necessary to dash before your eyes any illusions you have upheld as to what is happening within these lines. Instead, it is plainly displayed that where you thought you were simply being entertained you are engaged in a falsification of actuality. Even if that means the sacrifice of subtle trappings paraded by contemporary writers to lull and numb readers’ sensibilities towards authentic experiences of literary expression. Instead of the learned crafting of novelty, or even a poetic impulsiveness, where reality and words dissolve, the emphasis is on a series of feelings I’ve had and the operation to convey those, pass them on, release them, their ethereal tentacles pulling me back.

Then visualize me narrowing my eyes. Squinting into the diffused past, the rigid outlines of experience clouding, mingling with the vapor of other pasts. In some magic haze that is memory, phantoms sway in a hideous pantomime, words echo like incantations – a whole panoramic of sensuality pulsates vaguely. And in this shifting milieu one thing remains consistent, a lost expression I turn over and over again, attempting to resurrect…her. Those cluttered incidents of her – extending to an initial chance were she was present, an initial commitment to knowledge of her existence, loss of her in my thoughts, resurgences of her adoration, and her becoming a permanent fixture in this mind – bearing the disparate arrays of happenings; in all that was there she still resounds like the chink of some angelic crystal in the hollow of my skull.

But to dress up those thoughts of that particular previous in a pseudo-flesh is not entwined among this narrative. It is that feeling that I must place emphasis on for readers. It is the flashing in the chest that has never subsided. That is what underlines each syllable present here. And true to the fashion of epiphanies or epitaphs, its vibrations will remain constant and clear regardless of any distance between that experience and the individual, chronologic or geographic. It is that vibration inspired by her and upon which a descent portion of this life has sustained. Now it sounds as if I am contradicting myself, but let me assure you the vibration is mine. Still a question wrests whether that vibration existed in her. Now you understand. See, she is gone. Gone from me.

The scene fumes with despair, you can imagine, my present saturated by phantoms that come reeling from behind, each as some reconstruction of moments that rode on frequencies of euphoric oscillation. This is the mode I find myself engrossed with. Fighting to erect some meaning in my life where everything pales to that charismatic glow she imparted. A somber condition full of slow and contemplative ache. For once you have been carried to the heights of adoration, pitched up among heaven, you must remain there, only on the fuel of mingled essence. Or the arch of love's trajectory steeply declines in emotions gravity, crashing in a field of loneliness and detachment. The magnetism of endearment operates in both directions, generating an attraction as crushing as invigorating. Its power coursing on a hairline as to which effect affection will embody.

My reality, after abandonments decent, is a smoldering crater. All that is everyday activity now sears my senses in betrayal of the heights attained in our intimacies ascent. Consciously stewing in this lowliness is a direct consequence of love as much as it is floating in effervescence. And there is nothing in the world or the cosmos at large that guarantees remaining on the upside. Any number of factors could swing the pendulum to degrees of one direction or the other. What matters is the amount of faith placed on the continuity of the vibrations' presence. When doubt creeps in, at any measure, that presence escapes, it is siphoned into an abyss whose swirling vortex increasingly pulls at the impetus of intimacy. But what does faith exist for if not to be challenged, the folds and turns of this plane of existence defy every avarice of rational desire. You cannot have lived until each illusion you proceed from is vaporized. Even love's nuances must be cut to shreds before its substance is made evident. The disappointment is being left to grope my resolution of faith in isolation.

II.

The highway cut a straight line through the flat, brushy plains. A huge blue sky threatened to swallow everything beneath, unimpeded by mountain peaks, the swells of hills, or the hideous volcanic outcrops that were passed earlier. It had been a long spring, a generous green evident among the steppe's usual rocky drab in early June. Green in spite of a complete absence of trees. It must have felt amazing out there, us two insulated in the cab of her speeding sedan had limited exposure to the sun and air mediated by dirty windows shut tight. Even hurdling along at eighty-miles-per-hour we were contained in stillness. In a silence, even through the low buzzing of the stereo, In a lonely place. In a lonely room.

I had always taunted her about driving, Gillian steadfastly committed to the convenience of her automobile. The road, with its succession of straight lines, hypnotizes you, entrances you, and you float along like that, course through life effortlessly. She listened intently, or gave the illusion of listening intently, her hazel eyes blinking softly at the road. But in this trance you have no idea what you’re doing... Do you? Could you imagine having to make your body move at this speed on its own faculties? ...You're entranced to participate in this armageddon. This road through the wilderness, the gas in the tank of this car, this car's manufacture; it’s all a heinous apocalypse against the earth.

Blinking, Gillian's harlequin lips minutely twitching. Was she going to say something? I couldn't tell if she was absorbed in my discourse or if she was hesitant to debate with me. She innocently flaunted that ambiguity, constantly throwing up an array of confusion to those who engaged her. Was she listless? Was she scrutinizing? Was she inspired by cynicism? Aping a stoic gaze at these bleak assertions? I mused at her despondency for a moment more then picked up my diatribe. Even all this land – we're crushing miles and miles in an instant. It’s unnatural. We're removed from it, removed from our environment. Driving is truly a human force – a force of egocentric compulsion – an alienating force.

But you're such a hypocrite, she finally broke in. "Sitting there. You are in this goddamn car." Her voice carried a tone of agitated confidence, aside from its slender and soothing feminine musicality, both features that drew me to her more.

"No. If I pretended that it was alright. Played along with the charade even though I'm conscious of this...ecocide, that would be hypocritical. But I said something. I'm not just taking it lying down. Maybe I'm not setting up road blocks or slashing people’s tires, but you can't call me a hypocrite for saying what's true. Besides it’s not like I dropped a wad of money in some car dealer's lap or make periodic installments at some evil corporation's pit stops, like you, and then put on some holier-than-thou, 'I'm a moralist and it's wrong to say something is wrong when you're doing it' hogwash."

She parted her lips and gave a short lean forward. Hesitated with her head slightly tilted toward me but kept her eyes fixed before her. Then shot me a quick glance. God! I should just push you out of the car right now. Imagine the faculties of your body as it bounces on the blacktop at this speed!

Sure, bitch! My voice raised and my head cocked towards Gillian. "If you fucking tried that you'd just wreck this