Thursday, November 21, 2013

Joan Harbor - Writer at Red Staircase


Hi Everyone,

I want to tell you about my new book that I just published called Mattie.  It is on Amazon.  The idea of Mattie came to me when I was watching a cute little girl in a television commercial.  She was going door-to-door in her neighborhood trying to persuade her neighbors to purchase an item from her.  When her neighbors opened their doors she greeted them with a big smile.  Her hair was in two cute, neat little pigtails.  She looked adorable.  But even her adorable looks could not hide the devious side of her seemingly innocent personality.  Her neighbors’ expressions indicated that they picked up on it too.  This was part of what went into Mattie.  The rest of Mattie came from inside my head from previous readings and observations.

For example take this quick short story:

“Coming Home”

I put my key into my apartment door and turned it.  I opened my door and walked inside.  The apartment was dark.  It is always dark at night.  I do not leave a light on.  It wastes energy.  My security alarm went off.  The way it was supposed to.  I closed my door and turned the deadbolt lock.  I then walked over to my alarm to reset it.  My light switch is ten inches away from my alarm pad.  My routine is to reset my alarm and flick my light switch to on.  That is what I was doing.  But when I reached for the light switch someone or something grabbed my wrist.  I am almost positive it was a hand.  The hand was enormous.  It covered my wrist and a large part of my forearm.  I tried to yank my wrist free.  The hand was like a vise grip or blood pressure cuff wrapped around my wrist and part of my arm.  I was not going anywhere.
 
The hand yanked me into my living room.  The force was so violent and fast that my feet left the floor.  The next thing I felt were many sets of hands all over my body.  They tore my blouse away.  At the same time they ripped my pants off.  I struggled hard.  But they had me pinned to the floor.  The sound of my clothes being ripped away was so loud that I feared my appendages would be torn off with my clothes.  Within seconds I was completely naked.  My socks and boots were even gone.  I could feel cold settling down onto my body.  Then it felt like a group of people piled on top of me.  Like the game played when you were a kid where more and more kids jumped onto the pile.  But this was not one at a time.  Everyone all at once piled on.  My first thought was rape.  Then I must have fainted or passed out from lack of breathing.

The next thing I remember was someone pounding on my door.  I was too exhausted to stand up and go to the door.  Next I heard a loud crack.  Light poured into my apartment.  Shadows rushed in with the light.

I later saw the pictures of how I was found by the police.  They were the ones who broke in the door.  Someone had called the police and reported loud noises coming from inside my apartment.  It was not a neighbor.  That person was never identified.  But the police said the person who called left details of my condition.
 
The pictures showed me lying in a large pool of blood.  I agreed to a rape kit.  I was examined by several physicians.  I had not been raped.  There were no cuts or bruises of any kind.  But it gets even stranger than that.  The blood found in my apartment was not mine.
 
Physicians said that if I would have lost that much blood I would have died.  Weeks later I was asked to go down to the police station again.  They had the report on the blood.  It came from several different animals—bulls, pigs, wolves, and some could not be identified.  They were as baffled as I still am.

I did not go back to my apartment.  I moved out of that state.        

Initially I knew the police were suspect of me and my story.  No other evidence was found at the scene.  No witnesses or friends had come forward.  There were no leads to follow.  I knew what they were thinking.  Thirty-year-old woman comes home after a party high on some illicit drug.  Does something she wants to forget about.  So she creates a fictitious scene to appease her conscious.  That theory could have allowed them to ignore me.  But in the last twelve months fifteen similar cases have occurred in that city.  Women my age have been the victims.  This is hard to ignore.

I hope you enjoyed the short story.

Love, Joan
            

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