On the Eighth Day

Hi, browser! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest of Canada. If you buy this collection of an old man’s memories, you will not be purchasing a history book, or a novel, or even a biography. The old man once taught English at a small University in the hinterland mountains of British Columbia, the Kootenays. The old man has Parkinson’s, a disease with a sense of humour. Parkinson’s patients suffer hallucinations. Our sleep is tormented by pieces of memory that flash like bolts of lightning on a hot summer night. The book is a collection of twenty-six vignettes, numbered, mostly untitled, so you never know if the vignette will be funny, or sad, or shocking, or nostalgic. The old man is watching the last of his life crumble away.

The publisher told you that Wendell Roland Snark was a pseudonym. That is a lie. Wendell was born to Roland and Merry Snark in Pathway New Zealand in 1935. He has a twin sister, Wendella Merry Snark. She was a famous erotic dancer until arthritis of the colon ended her career. Merry Snark has knitted thousands of tea cosies. She was knitting a tea cosy when she died. Merry fainted and fell on her knitting needle and bled to death on their front porch. Roland ran a chicken farm his whole life. He hated sheep. Roland chocked to death on an organic chicken bone. Wendell never married, but fathered three illegitimate children named: How, What, and Why. Naturally, he became a successful head librarian in Pathway. His lifelong companion was transgender. She even hiked in high heels. Even though Wendell is afraid of water, as a child he nearly drowned in a puddle, he has published a series of successful submarine novels. The latest titled Dry Doc. The physician on board struggles to remain sober. Wendell drinks only the local beer. His urine smells of sweet hops.