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Six Senses©
Six stories, themed and built around each of our major senses, aim to warm your heart, touch your soul, and invigorate your imagination… “Six Senses – It’s a about perception; how we choose to perceive things in life and how these small decisions determine our reality.” – S. Combs EXCERPT #2 FROM SIX SENSES:
A few months after my ninth birthday, at the beginning of summer, I came home on the last day of school to find my grandmother greeting me at the front door with the biggest grin. “You’ve got a surprise lying on your bed.” “What is it?” I remember lighting up. “Just go see!” I ran down the hall, dropping my backpack halfway there and found a large gift wrapped rectangular box on my bed. As I tore back the wrapping paper the last letters in the word Guitar, caught my eye, but before I could finish imagining myself playing along with the endless Jazz and R&B tapes left to me from my father’s belongings, my heart dropped back down just as quickly as it had been lifted. It was a brand new, glossy, beautiful, ACOUSTIC guitar. I was so mad and sad at the same time. I stormed to the kitchen and laid the reclosed box, with guitar inside, and wrapping paper beside the trash. When asked ‘why’ by my grandmother, with eyes full of tears I said, “I wanted an electric guitar! E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C!” My grandmother just looked at me with that look that has always been more powerful than any beat down. I saw she felt my pain but I could also see her disappointment in me. To this day I have felt and still feel so bad for what I did. But of course, before I could ever overcome my spoiled nine year old pride and apologize on my own, my grandfather reintroduced my butt to his thick country leather belt. He told me that I would learn to play that guitar and that I would play it every day of the summer and that I was an ungrateful spoiled child. Why did he care? I remembered thinking. My grandmother had saved every day, cleaning people’s homes for little to nothing, and bought me that guitar. He never even wanted me to have it! So what did he care? It’s funny, my grandfather didn’t want me to have a guitar. He didn’t want me to have anything, I guessed. But when I got one he made me play every day. Maybe he thought I would hate it so much that I would give it up. But I learned how to play an ACOUSTIC guitar. And then I learned to play the piano, the saxophone, viola, and drums. Though he never took time to tell me I was good or come to my shows given by the band I put together in high school, he did find time to drink and work all the time. He never had time for me. Throughout all of my school years, he never came to anything. It was only my grandmother. He always had to work all night, and on the weekends he had his two-day hangovers from drinking all week and didn’t want to do anything else unless it was whipping my butt. I’ll admit, I can remember two times, and only two, that he tried to talk to me about my music. Both times he was half drunk and I was running late for a performance. At that time and even now nothing was important enough to deter me from my musical aspirations. I just told him we would talk later. But of course, when he was sober he never said anything to me or had forgotten about it so I never said anything to him. I figured that when he was drinking he just got mellow and probably wanted to make up for not being there for me. But what could he ever tell me about music? My memories of my grandfather are of him always working or being drunk three hundred and sixty days out of the year. What could he possibly ever tell me?...
EXCERPT #1 FROM SIX SENSES: Dinner, came and went without many words. Sean managed to avoid eye contact. Raven, silently blaming herself for his reopened wound, relentlessly tried to entertain him. She offered to learn the card game he had talked about. She inquired about the many attractions around the metro area. He only gave brief answers, and in between chewed in slow motion, his mind far, far away. The taste of the Dak bulgogi could not stimulate him. The heavy spice of the Bibimbap never even made him twitch. To the broken hearted all life taste bland. When night had come, Sean, alone in his room, lying in darkness, turned and looked out through the window, beyond the raindrops, past the tree peaks, and out to the stars –those stars that had kept him company so many nights without Angela – those stars, had become his best friends. And within those stars, barely visible through the rain, he believed his lost love somehow resided and was there, looking out, watching him. Even with the tears beginning to cloud his eyes, with this thought came his familiar self-consoling smile. Tap, tap, tap. A slow soft knocking on his bedroom door played with his mind. Was he dreaming? Was someone really there? With his eyes closing and his mind fading to unconsciousness he vaguely heard the door knob turning as the door’s hinges squeaked and its bottom slid across the carpet. And if not for the deep echoing thumps of his heavy heart vibrating in his half-conscious brain he might have noticed the feathered footfalls coming closer to his bed. “Angel?” he whispered, his eyes now fully closed. Realizing the unrecognized voice had come from the conscious world, he awoke sharply, his eyes adjusting and hunting through the darkness. And there, on the right side of the bed, where Angela used to be, Raven sat perched upon her knees and shins. The light from outside shined through the falling rain, making flickers dance on her radiant black hair and glimmers sparkle in her coffee bean eyes. Through the faintly lit darkness he could see the black silk camisole that hung from her sleek shoulders and draped flawlessly over her breasts. Without hesitation, with ease of familiarity she reached out and slowly caressed the tear tract beneath his right eye. “Let me help you heal,” her nurturing tone beckoned. And before he could reject her with words, before he could turn his head away back towards the stars, her lips were across his with warmness and softness. Then she rose back up from him, and as her long black strands fell against his face and brushed his neck, they both stared into one another’s eyes. Her right index finger was now tracing the definition of his left cheek then gently following the curvature of his neck and down to his toned ebony chest. Her dark eyes still locked with his, she waited for his response. And somewhere, in that moment, in his mind, he believed that he was yelling a refusal, but the sound of his lips saying no was drown out by the tense of his body saying yes. Then she lowered towards him again, tasted and locked onto his lips once more, and without resistance, without conscious broken hearted barricades to stop her, she threw back the sheets… AVAILABLE NoW AT: ( Click on links below to purchase ) NOTE TO MEDIA: For a review copy of Six Senses, please, contact the author at: Connect@scombs.com |
