Supernatural Central Short and Quick Interview
1. Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.
The main character is named Fingal, and he’s a fine Scotsman who runs a respectable hotel—which is actually a proper Scottish castle. The problem is he’s not content to live the life of a hotel manager. What he really wants to do is resolve the riddle of the universe. Seriously! He wants to know once and for all what are the origins of the universe, what is the meaning of life, and what exactly is the purpose of humankind and/or civilization. He reasons that he can stumble upon the answer if he can only release a projection and/or personification of his innate knowledge—which is to say that body of knowledge that Plato always believed to be housed in the deepest recesses of a person’s psyche. Anyway, despite all that, Fingal is more or less relatable. He loves cats. He worries about harming others with his experiments. Perhaps most important of all, he knows right from wrong and doesn’t hate anyone. In that sense, he’s a right and proper Scotsman.
2. Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
Of course, I believe. My most awesome experience with the paranormal and/or spiritual world happened to me in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. At the time, I was living at the Citadel Youth Hostel then run by one Auni Moustapha Atara of Ramallah. One night we had a really big winter storm, and in the morning the whole of the city was carpeted in glistening, beautiful snow. So, I walked outside to look things over—and almost immediately a hummingbird darted over toward me. At that point, every instinct told me to stick with it and to follow it. And the hummingbird guided me down the street and then this way and that through the Arab market. Finally, we reached the staircase leading up to the mosque and the Dome of the Rock (the Temple Mount as it were.) Because there was no one around, it seemed okay to ascend the stairs. Then, not a moment or two later, the hummingbird simply vanished. The winged creature did not fly this way or that or take shelter somewhere specific. Rather, the hummingbird vanished—and I found myself totally alone up there. All these years later, I’d like to think the hummingbird vanished into some heavenly realm. Why not? A person has the right to believe.
3. What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
At present, nothing commands my time and attention quite like my coming-of-age manuscript—which I hope to release in 2025. Given all the content editing and such, it’s got to be my best work to date. More importantly, it’s a tale that almost any reader can find relatable. The reason why readers love the coming-of-age genre probably follows from the fact that we all go through big changes in our teenage and young-adult years. What makes my work a bit different is that I focus in on the kinds of problems (mental-health issues) that often crop up at that time in a young person’s life. The tension is exacerbated by the fact that my tale takes place in the WW-I era—specifically in Egypt and Sinai at a difficult time when the British Empire ruled over those lands, much to the chagrin of the Egyptian people.
Excerpt:
Autumn, 1907: late one morning, some kind of torrid, invisible beast seemed to wrap itself all around Fingal T. Smyth’s body. Each one of his toes twitching fiercely, he exited the castle and scanned the distant, Scottish Highlands. Go back where you came from. As the entity wrapped itself tighter all about his person, Fingal blinked back his tears. I’m melting, I am. Aye, it’s the heat of fusion.
Gradually, the beast’s heartbeat became audible—each pulsation. At the same time, too, the illusory heat of transformation emitted an odor as of oven-roasted peppercorns dissolving in a cup of burnt coffee.
Over by the gatehouse, Fräulein Wunderwaffe appeared—the little German girl wearing a plain-sewn robe and square-crown bowler. In that moment, she no longer seemed to be a sickly child of seven years: her inscrutable expression resembled that of a wise, indifferent cat.
Perhaps even some kind of lioness. Fingal cringed, and he recalled a fragment of conversation from three weeks earlier.“She suffers from a most unnatural pathology, an anguished, maniacal obsession with cats,”
Doktor Hubertus Pflug had explained. “Ever since the poor girl was a baby, she has always regarded it her fate to one day metamorphose into a glorious panther, for she believes herself to be ein Gestaltwandler. Do you know this word? It means shapeshifter and refers to someone who possesses the power to take the form of anything in nature.”
The heat radiated up and down Fingal’s spine now, and his thoughts turned back to the present. Aye, it’s a change of phase. I’m melting into a chemical compound. Despite all, he greeted the girl and willed himself to flash a grin.
Fräulein Wunderwaffe did not return the smile. Hand on heart, the little girl drew a bit closer.
Then, as the hot, animalistic presence undulated all across Fingal’s body, the little girl’s eyes grew wide. Until the little girl’s expression turned to that of a vacant stare.
A moment later, her feet pointed inwards, she removed her hat and undid her long, flaxen hair.
Again, he cringed. “If you’ve noticed something, ignore all. This hasn’t got anything to do with you.” A third time, he cringed.
A most ethereal, lyrical, incomprehensible hiss commenced then: from the other end of the winding, decorative-brick driveway, each clay block shining the color of blue Welsh stone, a sleek Siamese cat with a coat of chocolate-spotted ivory had just appeared. And now the creature raced toward his shadow.
As he looked into the animal’s big, searching, blue eyes, the chocolate Siamese studied the off-center tip of his nose. Then the animal turned away, as if to compare the peculiarity with that of some disembodied visage hovering in the distance.
Out upon the loch, meanwhile, a miraculous rogue wave suddenly arose—and now the swell crashed against the pebbly strand.
Not a moment later, a cool flame crawled across Fingal’s throat. The strange fire rattled, too—not unlike the sound of fallen juniper leaves caught up in the current and dancing against the surface of a stone walkway.
Crivens. By now, the alien, pulsating presence held him so tight that he could barely breathe.
Before long, he fell to the earth, and as the dreamlike flame continued to move across his throat, he rolled all about—until the illusory sensation of cool warmth wriggled and twisted and dropped into his neck dimple.
He crawled over to the little girl and grabbed her ankle. “Get on up to your physician’s room, eh?
Please. Go on and wake Doktor Pflug and tell him what’s happened.”
The cover looks really neat!!
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