Excerpt from
The California Concerto



by Jean Shields Fleming







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Gert saw the light on the wall. A vertical shaft, white, thin at the bottom, widening as it rose, something about the slant of the sun that time of day during that season of the year, maybe that was it. She lay on the floor – she’d been falling a lot, hadn’t she, this old human body deserting her at last. Of course she knew it would leave her eventually, but had assumed that day was far off and could be pushed back indefinitely by the force of her wanting it so. But no. The body had its own ideas.

Her left hip ached. That was the first sensation that arrived as she came back into this room. The room where she was. But she’d been someplace else. She was here, and Rudy, he’d been here too, then he pushed her out of the chair, and she’d gone someplace else. Where was that place?

It was not a bad place, that place. Animals that she loved were there, waiting for her, tails wagging, whinnying, barking, bleating, when she came toward them. Nothing was gone. No one was gone. What a thing to know. Sunshine and blue sky on her skin. Her muscles, strong and lean, thighs hugging horse, directing, left then right, course correcting with the lightest touch. Ease, delicious ease that she could drift on, drifting to a place called bliss. It was there, in that other place, where she wasn’t right now.

Here, it was hard floors and right angles. Injury and pain. This place was a fight brewing. She could see the conflagration of it, burning toward her, the rage, the endless hunger that could not let a thing be. She opened her eyes to look at it square. It would not catch her napping.

“You think this is how it ends,” she said, addressing the fire greedily eating the far wall. “Not on your life.”

At first camp fire warmth. Then real heat. Too hot heat. Then flames, orange and alive, hollow, blue, dancing along the wood plank floor, excited to meet her, kissing her forehead, caressing her hair, the steel strands of it sizzling in her ears and she too became flame dancing.


Tinker nickered, nosing her shoulder. Hey there beautiful boy. A carrot she didn’t know she had, offered and accepted. Then the joy of being on his tall back again. Then hooves beating, hair flying, riding fast and free for the endless horizon.



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Author’s Note:
This excerpt of my novel-in-progress was written during the WRITING INTO PLACE residency. I didn’t know this character was going to die, but this is where she does. The excerpt explores the intersection between this place, earth, and the next, and I’m grateful to Tracy Mackenna, Emily Orley, and my fellow residents for creating the space for this writing to happen.