Fool's Gold

By Annette Siketa

Greed saves a man from having an overly pious, hypocritical vicar as a father-in-law.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annette Siketa
• Release date: Oct 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005262297

Annette Siketa

For those of you who have not yet made my acquaintance, my name is Annette Siketa, and I am totally blind. Were you aware that most blind and visually impaired people are extraordinarily perceptive? To sighted people, this ability must seem like ESP, and I suppose to a certain extent, it is. (I'm referring to the literal meaning of Extra Sensory Perception, not the spooky interpretation.) To compensate for the lack of vision, the brain and the other four senses become sharper, so that we can discern a smell or the identity of an object. I promise you there's no trickery involved. It's simply a matter of adapting the body to ‘think’ in another way.Being blind is no barrier to creativity. Like most things in this world, life is what you make of it, and after losing my sight due to an eye operation that went terribly wrong, I became a writer, and have now produced a wide variety of books and short stories, primarily of the ghost/supernatural/things that go bump in the night genre.So, how does a blind person write a book? On the practical side, I use a text-to-speech program called ‘Jaws’, which enables me to use and navigate around a computer, including the Internet, with considerable ease. Information on Jaws can be found at www.freedomscientific.comOn the creative side...well, that’s a little more difficult to explain. Try this experiment. Put on your favourite movie and watch it blindfolded. As you already ‘know’ the movie – who does what where & when etc, your mind compensates for the lack of visualisation by filling in the ‘blanks’. Now try it with something you’ve never seen before, even the six o'clock news. Not so easy to fill in the blanks now is it?By this point you’re probably going bonkers with frustration – hee hee, welcome to my world! Do not remove the blindfold. Instead, allow your imagination to compensate for the lack of visualization, and this will give you an idea of how I create my stories. Oh, if only Steven Spielberg could read my mind.

Book preview

Fool's Gold

by Annette Siketa.

Copyright 2022 by Annette Siketa.

No part of this book may be reproduced or manipulated in any manner whatsoever, without the express permission of the author. All rights reserved. Please respect the authors’ rights. Only through honesty can the insidious practice of illegal copying be curbed.

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Contents.

Fool's Gold.

Natural Remedy -tickle your funny bone with this zany medical adventure.

Other Books and Freebies.

Extract from 'GHOSTLAND'.

About me.

*****

Deakin pulled at his lank moustache. You can't be too careful whom you marry, he said, breathing whiskey fumes in my direction.

I had not seen him in some time and chanced to meet him in the street. We greeted each other like the old friend's we were and adjourned to a club. We chatted about the topics of the day, and then somehow the subject turned to marriage. I took in his flushed countenance, his prominent girth, the carelessness of his attire, and decided that only a very desperate woman or a lunatic would marry him.

Are you speaking from experience? I asked.

I was engaged about a year ago, he replied. Fact is… he looked around and then moved his face closer to mine, fact is, if she ain't dead or married to someone else, I'm still engaged to her.

I don't understand.

Jane was a nice girl who lived near Colchester. I was a clerk in London at the time. Not much of a profession I know, but I was smart, wore good clothes, and had a silk hat up to here. He raised a hand above his head. If the height was what he claimed, he would never have passed under any conventional doorway.

I made no comment as he continued, "I got to know Jane through a friend who was engaged to her sister, Mary. Both girls were staying in London with an aunt who owned a pie shop.

"Now, this aunt was very snooty, and wouldn't let Mary go out with her betrothed unless her sister accompanied them. My friend brought me in to even out the number, and we used to go walking in Battersea Park on a Sunday afternoon. Jane wasn't what you'd call pretty, but she had a smile that could charm a horse.

"I liked her from the start, and when my friend married her sister, he asked me down to Colchester. His wife wouldn't live in London, and so they took a place not far from where Jane lived. I was introduced to her people and not long afterwards Jane and I were engaged.

Jane lived with her parents in a nice house with a garden. Her father was a vicar and owned the house. Got it cheap because the former owner was a notorious burglar.

I nodded in understanding. I take it he was hanged.

Till he were dead. He raised his glass in a toast. God bless his soul. I echoed the salute. Jane played the piano, he continued, "and there wasn't a hymn she didn't know - poor girl. Didn't know a waltz from a polka.

"Her father was kind but on a Sunday he was a devil. When he was in the pulpit, he looked over the top of his spectacles to see who was paying attention. Woe betide the person