Hmmm, who can you trust to open a revealing window on life’s unpleasant truths?
Wednesday was a very blustery day around here. Fierce wind gusts rattled the windows and pistol-whipped the trees. It was a “put your head down and hang on to your hat” kind of day.
It also happened to be recycling and organics pick-up day in my townhouse complex. Long before the collection crews arrived, many bins were overturned by the wind scattering the contents. As I walked around the complex on Thursday, it looked like the aftermath of a battle – the battle of the recyclables, so to speak.
As I surveyed the debris on the grass and sidewalks, my always revved up imagination made one of its sideways leaps. It occurred to me that what I was observing could be a metaphor for the COVID-19 whirlwind (and the associated lockdown) that hit us this year. The debris left in its wake has been bewildering to say the least – and now it is doubling back for another shot at us.
If you follow this blog regularly, you know I am a fiction author. Those of us who practice the fiction craft often weave stories around landmark real-life events such as the pandemic. We use the lens of fiction to probe and uncover the unpleasant truths that often lie hidden.
It is a foregone conclusion that many of us will feel compelled to do so for the year of COVID-19. So stay tuned for the COVID-19 fiction pandemic.
In the meantime, you should know that one of my fellow authors Shane Joseph has exercised the writer’s revealing eye in his latest novel Circles in the Spiral. He tackled the insidious phenomenon of fake news and the nefarious ways it can and has been used. If you are disturbed, as I am, by that lurking evil, you should read buy and read his latest work.
Yes, I am openly promoting his novel because he has important things to say. I’ll be so bold as to give you a link to the Blue Denim Press website page for the book. Shane runs Blue Denim Press because he believes in helping authors, whose works would not otherwise see the light of day, get into print.
Yes, I am one of those authors. Blue Denim Press published my short story collection Hunting Muskie: Rites of Passage. Yes, a shameless plug, but indulge me this one time.
I also am inclined to burrow beneath the surface reality in my stories to uncover the lessons that can be learned from those life events that we would rather not endure but unfortunately must. I talk about that aspect of my stories in the “Between the Lines” video that Shane facilitated for his stable of authors.
And yes, I have included a link to that video so you can view it if you are so inclined.
Now I need to tie off the loose ends of this self-indulgent post. So here come the metaphors.
Circles in the spiral is a metaphor for the circular, what goes around comes around, nature of life. Hunting Muskie is a metaphor for the hunt to find and subdue the unseen foe that is burdening our life. Are you sufficiently intrigued?
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
Tags: Blue Denim Press · Circles in the Spiral · COVID-19 · Hunting Muskie: Rites of Passage · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Shane JosephNo Comments