Behind The Words // "The Night Walk Men" - Alternate Ending

I've been getting a lot of questions about how I work. I will, in time, write a lengthier piece about some of my habits as I put quill to digital paper for those of you that are curious about such things.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd share some cut pieces from one of my more popular short stories, currently free at Smashwords.  This is done in the hopes that it may give a bit of insight into what gets tossed and what stays and how things evolve as I write. It's a small sample, but kind of fun for me to look back at too.

This bit was cut out of "The Night Walk Men" the short story which acts as a prelude to the coming novel series I'm working on. I cut this for a number of reasons, but mostly because it interrupted the flow or was just too "Sparrow-ish", that is to say, too arrogant, even for the extremely arrogant narrator of the story. In the end, it was one of the pieces from the puzzle that simply wouldn't fit with the rest and had to go.  The joy for me is in sharing it, even if it's not part of the "official" story.

For those of you who haven't read "The Night Walk Men", AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!

This would have been an ever-so-slightly different ending, one where Gabriela has a big tumble into the hands of the fates.  To everyone who has read the story and wants to see a slightly altered ending, enjoy!

Our Gabriela, she’s not really gone, is she?

I mean, she’s not gone for good, is she?

     I can’t tell you everything.  And it’s not because I want to hold anything back.  It’s not because I’m trying to punish you for something.  You should know it all.  Or, at least, you should know everything there is to know.

Even I don’t know it all.  If I did, I would be more powerful, and then, in turn, so would you.  You would be the next to get everything, every morsel.  It would only be fair.

But I don’t know every last detail. I only know a good heaping portion of it.

     I can tell you that our Gabriela didn’t hear a speech before her plummet.  Not a whispered version, not a shouted judgement.  No one said, “I am black volcanic glass to your white palomino skin.”  She did not hear these words.

And I can tell you that when she descended, when she swooped down like a bird with her small white shirt and her unwashed blonde hair flapping madly, she finally closed her eyes, closed them tight against seeing anything at all.

I can tell you that she didn’t see who caught her.  I can tell you that she doesn’t remember anything past the fall, that she doesn’t know how she came to be sitting in her parents' car in the parking lot with the back door swung open, or that she doesn’t how much time had passed or even if the fall really happened.

But I can tell you that it did.  When she is conscious again, she feels warmth on her back and on her thighs and on her shoulders – it’s the touch of Obsidion, of his black volcanic glass coming into contact with our Gabriela’s white palomino skin.  It was him who appeared and saved her from the fall.  He’s not human, you know, and I told you he could conjure nearly anything.