This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story, Thirteen Days before you begin this novel.

The following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely unintentional.
If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their awakening sexuality is offensive or illegal in your area, then might I suggest you go read War and Peace or something equally stimulating.

Simon's Journal

Volume II

Thirteen Nights – After the Crusade

Written by

Danny
Author of Thirteen Days

Chapter - 2

PART 5 – Traveling to points unknown without actually going anywhere.

As I finished reading the first paragraph of Lowell’s story he’d sent to me via email, my printer spat out the last page of his email before slipping back into techno-slumber until such time that it is called into service again. I quickly shut everything down, stowed my E-Journal away in my desk and headed for my closet with my handy little flashlight. However, when I stood up I realized that sometime during my chat with Lowell online I’d absolutely flooded my GoodNite and I had not even had the slightest notion that I’d had to go or that I’d wet myself. However, I was so excited about reading Lowell’s story that I didn’t let it bother me. I just tossed the pages along with my flashlight into the bottom of my closet, closed the door after pulling out my bathrobe, and went in search of Mom to put me into a diaper for the night.

When I got to the kitchen, I wasn’t surprised to see that Mrs. Winston had left. I’d heard her leave sometime before dinner, but I was surprised to find that Officer Tucker, Mary’s father, was sitting at the kitchen table with both Dad and Mom. I guessed it had been him that I heard ringing the doorbell earlier. When I saw him sitting there, it was almost as if a wave of joy flooded over me as my entire mind was briefly filled with thoughts of his daughter Mary and before I realized it I was asking him about her.

“Hi! How’s Mary?” I asked almost in a state of euphoria.

“Hello Simon.” Officer Tucker said and then as if he were tripping over his own tongue he managed to add, “Uh, well, she’s just fine!”

The way he said it, was just as if he had taken a needle and popped the balloon that was my temporary source of pleasure. In that instant, all three of them looked as grim as if someone had just expired. I entered further into the room, shuffling my bare feet on the cool kitchen floor and something in the way that they were staring at me told me that they already knew about Tater and Bull coming home and were about to try and break the news to me as well.

I thought about telling them I already knew about the guys were getting bought out of jail but I decided I didn’t want them to know that I had friends that were emailing me and keeping me informed about the current events. Therefore, I had to stand there while Officer Tucker told me the whole story. Actually, I found out a couple things I didn’t know. So I guess it was a good thing I kept my mouth shut, and listened to what they had to say. One thing was that the reason Mike and Tater’s Mom had to pay money to get Tater out of Jail was because the Law says that to get someone out of jail you have to ‘Post a Bond’ and Officer Tucker took the time to explain to me exactly what that meant. Something I thought was sort of funny, not laughing funny but peculiar funny was that Officer Tucker and my parents kept using the guys real names, but inside my head, I was automatically translating their birth names for their more playful and less official sounding, nicknames. He, as well as Mom and Dad, wanted to be sure that I knew that they’d been told that the guys are not allowed to come near me, talk to me, or have any contact whatsoever with me. If they try to, I am supposed to let Dad and Mom know. If they are not around, I’m to tell a teacher, Miss. Freeman, a police officer, or any adult I can find. I didn’t bother to tell them that Jasper had already tried to establish contact with me for his older brother Bull.

When they were somewhat satisfied that I was adequately warned, I gave Mom ‘The Look’ and thankfully she picked up on my subtle way of asking her to come change me so that I could go to bed. With a smile, she excused herself and escorted me back to my room. She’d tried to put her arm around me as we walked through the living room, but I stepped up my pace to get ahead of her. Actually, to get out of her reach would be more honest. Without any direction, I pulled off my robe and hung it over my headboard, then pulled down my soaked Goodnite and assumed the position on my bed.

“Oh you were wearing a Goodnites this evening?” she asked, as if she couldn’t see that I obviously had been.

I was still feeling furious with her for having told Mike’s Mom about what Tater and I had done together, and she must have picked up on that because she tried to get me to understand that she... “Was trying to help Mrs. Winston understand just how bad the situation really was with Tater.” The more Mom talked, the hotter my temper got. After a few minutes of futile effort to get me to understand her point of view, or to even acknowledge that she was talking, she let the matter drop for the moment and finished diapering me in silence.

Without asking me if I wanted cloth or a disposable diaper, she’d put me into a cloth diaper and plastic pants, which in fact, was precisely what I wanted her to do! I figured that if I’m going to read a Teenbaby story that was written by a Teenbaby, I might as well look the part myself!

Mom also took a moment or two to inspect my new armor and only asked one question, “Do you get hot wearing this?” The only answer I offered back was to shake my head from side to side.

She left me sitting on the side of my bed wearing nothing but the diaper that was so big, it covered several inches of the front and back of my plastic armor, and puffed out all the way around me. As soon as Mom had left, and I was sure she was far enough way, I went and closed my bedroom door, and settled myself into the bottom of my darkened closet, and started reading Lowell’s story again; this time by flashlight.

We got off the plane in Jerusalem around dinnertime; I knew the time because my stomach told me so. Father, on more than one occasion, has said, “If you can’t follow your heart, then listen to your guts!” Right then, my guts were telling me to feed them. Father did not start for the camp right away like any good storybook archaeologist would have done, and I would have been surprised if he had. My father, Doctor Julius Browning, did not normally do what was expected of him. He figured if you did the expected, then someone could get a step ahead of you, and that could be dangerous for your health. Instead, we made a beeline for a small hotel and the room we had left behind only a few days before.

As the car pulled up in front of the hotel I felt as if we had come home again, even though home was really only a small bag I carried with me. We almost never stay in one place for every long. Father’s job means he needed to be in ten places at once, and able to go anywhere on a moments notice. However, we’ve stayed at this hotel every time we come to Jerusalem, so it’s the closest thing to a real home that either of us knows.

Upon entering the front door, we walked into the middle of a small bar fight, which was nothing new for us. A fight usually broke out at least once or twice a week, and from a distance, it was sometimes good entertainment. Hardly ever did anyone get seriously hurt, and whenever that happened, I never was lucky enough to be around to see it. Father and I moved quickly along the wall to reach the stairs. I was right on my father’s heals, and we were just about to reach the top of the stairs, when a bottle smashed on the wall right between the two of us, only missing my nose by a fraction of an inch. Father spun around, grabbed me by the front of my shirt, and pulled me up and away from danger so fast that I nearly came out of my shoes. He released my shirt and I fell to my feet on the old wooden floor with a bit of a thud.

I was tucking my shirt back into my pants, which were showing some sign of a small, wet spot on the front, as we entered our room. Father looked over his shoulder at me, and then gazed around the room. He spied a pile of mail on the small desk, which I knew had been left by the hotel owner. She was always looking out for father and I. I think she fancies father a bit, but he’s not looked at a woman the way he used to look at Mom, since Mom died. Next to the mail was a silver tray in need of polishing, as well as a couple of glasses and three dust covered bottles. Just by looking I could tell they were all nearly empty, and remembered that Father had left them there the last time we were passing through.

“I tell you son, a glass of Gin and Tonic and a large stack of mail from the states; what more can a man ask for in Jerusalem on a hot night like this?” he said, while looking back at me over his shoulder.

I kicked the door closed with the back of my shoe, and pulled my hand out of my pants after finishing putting myself back together. “Except maybe a nice bath,” I added, looking down at the dust that I had accumulated between the plane and our hotel room.

Turning toward me, he put his hands on his hips, smirked, and said, “Yeah, you wouldn’t win any prizes that’s for sure.”

He didn’t say anything about the noticeable dark spot on the front of my pants either, but then he hardly ever did. I just waved him off with the flick of my wrist as I made my way over, and slouched into a nearby chair. I pulled a comic book from my backpack, and disappeared into it while Father started to get himself a drink. He picked up the bottle, and found that it was indeed nearly empty, maybe only half a glass at best. He was just about to pour it into the glass, when there was a knock at the door.

He sighed heavily. “But of course it was too good to last.” he said, replacing the stopper in the bottle and walking over to answer the door while mumbling under his breath with each step, “Go away, go away, go away!”

From beyond the door we heard, “Hey, Doctor! Doctor Browning, wake up!”

Just as father was reaching for the doorknob, we again heard, “Come-on, its Lillian Hassley!” and then more knocking. Father opened the door and was greeted by a small lady with a big, toothy smile that stretched from ear to ear.

“Hiya Doc!” the lady said, with a welcoming chuckle. I noticed right away that she didn’t talk or look like a lady by any definition of the word, except that she had long hair, big green eyes, and a face so painted that it should have been on a canvas and hanging in a museum somewhere.

Father smiled back, reached out, took the ladies hand, and began to shake it vigorously, “Lillian how… well how are you?” Father pulled Miss Hassley into the room smiling.

“Come on in! What are you doing here?” Father asked, just as he noticed a bottle in Miss Hassley’s hands.

“What have you got there?” father asked.

“Well I sure get around don’t I!” Miss Hassley chuckled, as she lifted the bottle, “This is Gin, or at least it was a bottle Gin earlier this afternoon. I think there are a couple more drinks left in it! Say, how are you?” she asked while waving the bottle at father.

Smiling again, Father said, “Well I… I’m fine! Come here – sit down! You are the last one in the world…”

Miss Hassley interrupted him, “Here take this before I drop it.” She handed the bottle to my father who took it gratefully.

Father picked up two glasses from the desk and poured them both a drink. “Well, here’s to destiny!” Miss Hassley said as she took a big, gulping swallow. I thought she might tip over as she tilted her head back. It was obvious she’d been working on that bottle all by herself.

As if trying to quench a daylong thirst, father downed his as well before saying excitedly, “By golly, I am glad to see you Lillian!”

“I am glad to see you too! I have been lurking around here for three days waiting for you to come back!” Lillian said, downing another swallow before holding her glass out for father to refill.

“Hey Doc, you look skinnier!” she said.

Father chuckled, “Well you go out and dig holes for six months, and you will take off some of that fat too!” I couldn’t believe that father was talking in such a manor to a woman, even if she looked more manish than any woman I’d ever seen. Aside from one other woman that we’d met while on a dig in Russia last year, I’d never before seen another woman wearing pants.

“What? Me fat?” Lillian laughed as she threw her head back and tossed here hair. “Go on! You’re kidding!”

“Well, get your shirt changed and lets go see the town. I got some news for you!” Lillian stood up and motioned to the door.

“Sit down!” Father said jokingly, but with a note of seriousness too. “Come on! What are you doing here?” Father prodded her.

“Well . . . business, Doc!” she replied.

“What sort of business?” Father continued his questioning.

“Officially? Newspaper business! Ya-know, what’s cooking in the Middle East? That sort of thing.” Lillian downed the last of her drink, sighed a satisfying thirst quenching sound, and asked, “Say, how do we get more of this hooch?”

“We’ll go down to the bar in a minute. They’re colder down there!” Father downed the last of his drink too before continuing his probing. “Now go on, go on, tell me about it!” Father was pushing her pretty hard for details, and something in the way she was acting told me she was apprehensive about giving up any information just then.

Just as I was really getting into the story, there was a knock at my closet door that nearly scared me out of my skin. I opened the door only a couple inches to see that it was Dad.

“You doing alright in there champ?” Dad asked.

“Yeah!” I said, and when I did my voice cracked and squeaked so high, that it sounded like glass breaking.

With a small chuckle, Dad asked, “You feeling alright too?”

Again, I nodded and said, “Ahummm!”

“You need changed before I turn in?” he asked, and it sounded weird hearing those words come out of his mouth. It had been many years since he had to ask me that.

Without thinking, I gave the front of my diaper a squeeze and then shook my head at him.

“Okay! I was just wanting to check on you is all! And don’t stay up too late, you might want to finish whatever you’re doing and think about getting to bed.” Dad said, while smiling. Although I could tell that his smile wasn’t entirely genuine.

This time I didn’t bother to say anything. I only nodded my head to let him know I had heard and understood him. As soon as I was sure he was gone again, I re-closed my closet door so that I was sealed in and continued reading by flashlight.

“Well my boss called me in, told me to grab some cash and head east.” Lillian looked over at me for the first time since she had arrived, and I tried to act as if I didn’t know she was looking my way. I feigned that I was still engrossed in my comic book, but really I had been listening to every single word they were saying, and I couldn’t tell you anything about my comic book.

“Hey there kiddo!” She said with a salesman type smile that showed all her teeth again.

Oh, how I hate when people call me kid, boy, sport, or any form of the three. However, I was polite, as I know I should be, and looking over the top of my comic book, I smiled back. “Hello ma'am!”

She turned back to my father continuing where she had left off, “Well, he needed a hot story, and I remembered our good-old-days back in Germany. You and me, nearly getting killed by those blood thirsty Krauts and well . . .” She paused for effect while looking into the bottom of her empty glass, “I heard you were around here . . . so . . . here I am, here you are, so lets go see some of this town huh.”

“Well I’ll be!” Father leaned back in his chair, shook his head while staring into his own empty glass, and said, “When did you get into town?”

“Day before yesterday.” Lillian replied.

“Oh boy,” father muttered.

“Yeah, the bridge is still up, the restaurant down on Fourth Street has food that’s almost edible, and the burlesque is hot.” Lillian uncomfortably looked over at me again, realizing she should have left that last part out for my sake.

Father laughed harder than I’d heard him laugh in a very long time. “You’ve not been to Jerusalem before have you?”

“Me? Not me.” she chuckled, “Why?”

“Well if you had you wouldn’t care about seeing it again.” Father reached over and set his empty glass on the desk.

“Yeah? But the huh… the women.” Lillian smirked in a slightly lower tone, which I knew was for my benefit. However it was a wasted gesture seeing how I was sitting only a few feet away from the two of them.

“You had a good look at any of them?” Father asked.

“Me? Yeah have I!” Lillian perked up and smiled wildly.

Father smiled at him, stood up from his chair, walked over to the other side of the room, and pulled a small book from his bag. “So old friend, why don’t you tell me why you are really here?”

Lillian’s face turned serious as he met my father’s gaze and then he pointed at me with his eyes.

I looked up from my comic again, which I think the both of them knew I was not really reading. Two pair of eyes were focused down at me, “What?” It came out sounding a bit more disrespectful than I meant for it to and had this strange man not been there I probably would have felt the stink of the back of fathers hand upside my head or possibly even his belt across my backside for it.

Father spoke in such a way as to let me know that I knew I was treading on dangerous ground and yet he said it in a manner that I’m sure Miss Hasley didn’t catch onto. “Jonas, why don’t you go to the other room and take that bath and leave us to talk for a bit, ok?”

I knew better than to attempt any kind of opposition so I gathered my things and left the room without making a single peep. However, I didn’t go to the bathroom or to the bedroom. When I knew I was out of both there sight, because the started talking again, I stopped and hid behind the door to listen. Lillian began to tell my father why he had really been waiting for them to return for the past three days.

Lillian stood up from his chair, put a hand to his mouth as if he were trying to keep his words from finding there way to the room I was supposed to be in, “We found it.”

“You found what?” my father asked.

There was a bit of silence that built the moment to lip biting anticipation for me.

Sounding a bit maddened he repeated himself pausing between each word, “Julius – we – found – IT!” with a robust prominence to the word, ‘IT’.

I was so keyed up at this point that I had no perception that my bladder had let loose a steam that was running down my leg and soaking my pants while standing there fit to burst with the moment. This also wasn’t something unusual for me since I had a problem with wetting my pants whenever I get too excited, scared, or worked up. I also have a problem with wetting every time I go to sleep and it doesn’t matter if I am asleep for fifteen minutes or an entire night, I always wake up wet. So having it happen this time wasn’t anything new which is probably why I didn’t notice it right away.

Again there was an instant of silence only disturbed by what I guessed were the footsteps of my father walking back across the room.

“What are you saying?” my father’s voice was queer but sounded very urgent.

“You-you’ve got to be joking with me! Tell me you’re joking!” Father sounded quite disturbed now.

“This is no joke, Julius,” Lillian reassured.

I heard footsteps again and I could help myself but to wonder what it might be that they had they found? What could it be? My heart was racing like a train.

“Where?” There was distress in my fathers voice now and when Lillian didn’t answer right away father nearly screamed, “Damn it woman! Where is it?”

Lillian answered in a prideful tone that sounded as if she were in orgasmic ecstasy, “My dear Doctor Browning, it is right where you said it was all along.”

“My god!” father exclaimed nearly shouting, “I… I can’t believe it!”

Still unaware of the situation in my pants and the puddle that was steadily growing around my feet I hung on every word while still safely tucked away in my hiding place. However, when I shuffled my feet, was when I realized what I’d done.

I whimpered to myself, “Oh no, not again!

There was nothing I could do about it just then, if I moved I would surely be heard so I held my place and continued to listen to the mystery unfolding in the other room.

“Well you can believe it!” Lillian persisted, “We’ve actually found your Lost City!”

All other emotions now fled from my fathers voice leaving only an almost childlike giddiness, something I had never heard come out of him before, “And is it, I mean, is HE there?”

I shifted my position as much as I dared as my now urine soaked pants were starting to chill against my skin.

“That is why I have been waiting for you.” Lillian said.

“We have found the city, but we need you! We need you to show us where to dig now!” she sounded almost as if he were pleading; “Only you can show us where to find the burial shrine.”

I again heard footsteps, this time coming closer to the door I was hiding behind and then I heard my father, who’d apparently regained control of his emotions, speak in his normal tone, “Let’s take this downstairs. I really need that cold drink now.”

I stood motionless hoping against hope that my father would not come through the door where I was hiding. I strained to hear anything and was startled when my father called out, “Jonas, we are going down for a cold drink at the bar. When you’re done with your bath get yourself to bed, we’ll have an early day tomorrow.” I’d never heard my father talk to me like that; his voice was cold and commanding like he were ordering some lowly peasant.

I listened as the door opened, two pairs of shoes stuffed away and then the door close again.

Still standing in the puddle I’d made, I looked down and viewed the considerable flood and the gleam off my wet shoes where my urine had washed away the dust from our journey. I swallowed hard against my still vigorously thumping heart that was firmly lodged in my throat. With a breath-full sigh and rushed to the bathroom, pulled off my pants and underwear, grabbed a towel and rushed back to clean up the mess on the floor. I then retrieved my soaked pants and underwear from the bathroom floor; tossed them, the towel, and myself into the tub to wash off the urine and the crud from the journey all while replaying every word in my head over and over again.

After I was satisfied that I my fingers were well pruned, I climbed from the tub and hung my pants over a chair in the bedroom to dry along with the towel. I had to put on my wet underwear, as they were the only pair I had since my father and I had to travel so light.

I sat on the edge of the bed and the springs under the mattress gave out a squeak. I thought about what my father and Miss Hassley were talking about. Still I replayed the conversation over and over again in my mind until I drifted off to sleep. I slept soundly until a very loud knocking at the door awakened me with a jolt. I flew off the bed not even noticing that I had wet it while I had slept. With a degree of difficulty I managed to pull on my now dried pants that were a bit stiff and had taken the form of the chair they had been hanging on to dry.

The pounding on the door was louder and someone was yelling on the other side of it in such broken English that I could hardly make heads or tails of it. As I raced for the door, I realized that I shouldn't open it. If father knew that I’d almost opened it, he would have whipped me right to the end of death! I can’t remember the number of times he’s told me never to open a door to anyone but him. I raced back to the other room, opened my father’s bag, and pulled out a small revolver. My heart was pounding within my chest as I ran back to the door and with my short fingers; I was able to cock the gun.

“Who is it?” I shouted at the door.

The banging stopped and what was unmistakably an Englishman now shouted from the other side of the door, “Open this door at once!”

I am not a stupid kid and there was no way I was going to open it. I just stood there holding and pointing the gun at the door. The barrel was shaking and weaving in my trembling hands.

The voice came again, more forceful this time, “OPEN THIS DOOR!”

I mustered as much bravery as I could and shouted back, “NO! GO AWAY! I HAVE A GUN!”

There was silence, then the sound of someone running away down the hall. For a moment, I thought I had scared away whoever it had been but then I heard someone rushing back toward the door. There was a tremendous thud against the outside of the door; a groan and the knob began to wiggle and there was the sound of a key in the lock.

“I SAID GO AWAY!” I shouted again and without meaning for it to the gun I was holding fired a single bullet into the door.

With absolute fright I dropped the gun to the floor. It hit with a thudding crash as I fell against the wall behind me knocking an oil lamp from the table to my right, which fell to the floor as well. In an instant, everything became engulfed in flames.

Panic rushed through my entire body but I managed to get to my feet and ran for the bedroom to climb out the window. I threw open the curtains to find that the window was bricked up. I screamed at the bricks as I pounded them with my fists, “Oh damn, no!”

I grabbed my few belongings stuffed them into my backpack, raced out to the other room and grabbed father’s bag as well before returning to the bedroom. With my lungs now burning from the black smoke that was beginning to fill our small hotel apartment, I tried to cram Father’s bag down into my small backpack.

Suddenly remembering the gun, and fearing fathers wrath if I let anything happen to it, I ran back to get it but as I stepped through the doorway I found the front room was totally engulfed in flames. I could hear shouts on the other side of the wall but I couldn’t make them out. I tried to shout back but I choked on the smoke.

My eyes felt as if someone was stabbing them both with a hot poker and the black smoke burned in my throat and lungs making it impossible for me to see or breath. Panic filled, I managed to stagger back to the bedroom, closed the door, grabbed my pack, and crouched down under the bricked up window.

Even close to the floor, the air was boiling and hard to breath. Every breath caused me to cough. The room steadily grew darker as the thick black smoke billowed in around the edges of the door eventually choking me to unconsciousness.

With great effort, I somehow managed to open my eyes again. Above me I could see the blurry image of what I knew must be the brilliant shining of one of God’s angel shining over me but after several blinks my vision cleared enough that I realized it was not a heavenly angel but a nurse dressed all in white, as they always are. She was pretty enough to pass for an angel though and she was just finishing pinning a thick cloth diaper onto me but I was so groggy it didn’t really register with me right away. I guess I thought it was a big bandage or something at first.

My blurry eyes met hers; she smiled and spoke, “Welcome back young master Browning. You gave us all a very big scare.” Her voice was twice as sweet as she looked, almost as sweet as sugarcane.

I squinted my eyes and then reopened them to clear away some of the haze from my vision. “W…w...whh...where am I?” I managed to stammer though my throat felt like I had been eating broken glass, razorblades, and hot coals and washed them down with a nice tall glass of boiling acid.

She smiled, place a finger over her lips and said, “Don’t try to speak. You are safe and that is all you need to know for now. Please try to rest.”

She pulled a brown blanket up from the foot of the bed that smelled of lilacs and antiseptic. She pulled it all the way up to my chin, and then tucked it all in around me, much the way Mother used to do when I was very young. Despite how much it hurt to do so, I managed to squeak out another question, “W...w...where’s my father?”

The smile as well as the slight rose color that had flowered her cheeks suddenly left her face and she quickly turned away without answering my question.

I watched as the nurse left the room. I blinked and refocused my eyes again to see that I was in what looked to be a crude hospital or clinic. The walls were dingy beige, but appeared to be as clean as scrubbing could make them. The ceiling was the underside of the roof slats that held the roof tiles in place. On the wall to my right hung a small crucifix with a strip of purple cloth draped behind it. For a reason that totally escapes me, the purple clothe seemed to be totally out of place in such a place, although I’d seen very similar presentations in thousands of other places.

I lay looking at the purple cloth, trying to focus on it though my eyes were not cooperating like they used to. I lay there until through the doorway, I could hear muffled chatter that broke my concentration. I rolled my head back over so I could see the doorway again, and then in walked Lillian Hassley, the short woman that had come to see my father.

She didn’t look as happy and jovial as she did when I had first met her. She now looked grim, her left arm was in a sling, and she had a sizeable bloodstained bandage on her forehead over her left eyebrow. Hanging at her side, gripped in her right hand, was a brown, leather bag. I recognized it right away as my bag, my backpack, though it looked to have suffered from the black smoke much like me.

I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything as I was abruptly hit with the recollection of what had happened. Miss Hassley stepped closer to me, placed the bag on the wooden chair beside my bed, and almost as if my body knew before my brain did, it began to shake uncontrollably. She gently placed her free hand on the blanket over my stomach just above the diaper the nurse had pinned me into only moments before.

She looked at me, then the ceiling, and then back to me before she spoke, “The nurse told me you were awake.” Her voice cracked, and she tried to smile in a futile attempt to disguise her emotions.

I started to open my mouth again, but stopped at the look in her eyes. I couldn’t stand it, and averted my gaze down at my pack on the chair. The smell of smoke was quite definite, even from a couple of feet away.

She cleared her throat quietly; “You would not let go of it when I found you. I tried to pull it out of your arms, but I couldn’t get it away from you.”

I looked back to her, but tried to avoid looking directly into her eyes. She pulled from the pocket of her jacket that was draped over her shoulders, a small, worn, leather book. Seeing that book, my father’s book, I still somehow managed to deny the truth to myself.

“Jonas... I am afraid I have bad news. Last night the hotel you were staying in caught fire and burned down.” She looked at the ceiling again, apparently trying to regain her composure.

Taking in a breath and letting it out again she continued, though I noticed that the hard mannishness I’d seen in her before was very much gone now, “Thank the gods I was able to find you and get you out before the whole place came crashing down.”

I swallowed hard then spoke in very hushed and broken words, “Where . . . father?”

Lillian looked at me as if she were loosing the fight with her own emotions. “Oh Jonas!” She spoke as if I were a five year old, “Some very bad men came into the bar last night looking for your father.”

She paused for a second and gave the book she was still holding a squeeze, “They said they wanted something of your father’s. Your father and I managed to fight them off and he ran back to your room to get you while I went to get my car but he . . . he didn't make it.”

She sighed heavily and her voice changed to a quivering anger, “One of the men must have surprised him in the hall and shot him before he could get into the room.”

I managed to arrive and get you both out before the whole place totally went up in flames but I’m sorry I was too late to do anything for Doctor . . . I uh mean, your Father.” She corrected herself and then held the book forward and placed it on the chair next to my pack.

My ears were buzzing with the sound of millions of angry hornets and I felt like I had the mass of the Great Pyramid trying to burst out of my chest. I wanted to scream, I wanted to lash out . . . I wanted my father.

As I finished reading the first chapter of Lowell’s story, I found myself sitting there in the bottom of my closet weeping softly for Jonas and gravely feeling his anguish as he yearned for his father to still be alive. As I sat the printed pages on my very wet diapered lap, I turned off my flashlight and wept silently there in the darkness of my closet while marveling at how Lowell was able to so easily grab my emotion and draw me into some fictional characters life. I leaned my head back against closet wall closed my eyes and eventually cried myself to sleep.

Next Installment:

Chapter 3, Part 1 – Tuesday, March 02, 2004 – Secrets, lies and Vanishing Cream

I want to make it clear that the original story of Hamunaptra was begun by my dear friend Leolo Prime. However, early on in the story he got bored with writing it and asked if I would help him finish it. It quickly became apparent to me that he was more focused on college (as he should be) and turned full ownership of this story to me.

I re-titled the story from his original ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ to ‘Hamunaptra – City of the Dead’, which I personally like better. I have also rewritten the story since it tended to bounce between the third and first persons and now is entirely in the first person. I’ve also changed several of the names as I didn’t like some of the ones Leolo had chosen to use. Though it is several weeks away for you the reader, since Leolo had no idea how he was going to end the story, I believe I’ve come up with an ending that I think honors his original idea for the story and yet puts a spin on the spirit of the story at the end, which you will get to read in the later chapters of Thirteen Nights.

** For the latest news on how each installment is coming along as well as answers to questions asked by other readers and much more, visit me at www.talkhard.5u.com. As always, your thoughts matter to me, so please send comments, questions, suggestions, or criticism to me at: [email protected] and I promise that everyone that emails me will receive a personal reply! **