Hindsight: The Shirley Primrose Story

By Bob Suggs

Shirley Primrose had a simple dream, leave behind the small town life in Garden Plain, Kansas but fate had other plans, life altering events were in motion and Shirley was about to learn an important lesson.

Life is a road filled with potholes that leads to countless destinations; there are signs, crossroads, detours and dead ends. The choices we make are the fuel that drives us forward and we never know what lies ahead until we get there.

Hindsight is approximately 22,000 words long.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Suggs
• Release date: Apr 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476467641

Bob Suggs

Bob Suggs currently lives in Pensacola, FL with his wife and a little cat monster named "Rocky". My Creative journey has carried me into writing and art, I have a fascination with all things creative. It all began on a cold November morning, in Chatham, Ohio. "But in my defense, I was drawing trees and mountains, and writing about birds in trees and sunsets, until one day my Mother came home." I was seven years old and she gave me a "Savage Sword of Conan" magazine. So this is where my imagination switched and I started drawing barbarians with swords and decapitations and writing about dragons and knights in rusty armor. When my Mother read and saw my new work she was "shocked" to say the least. As I said, "It's not my fault." Because of my Mother's reaction, I went back to drawing trees and mountains but my writing stayed the same. Until I turned sixteen years old and made a friend who had hundreds of comics and magazines. He loaned me a few including, "Savage Sword of Conan", "Epic Magazine", and "Heavy Metal". Armed with this new material I went back into the world of fantasy and science fiction and have never found my way back out. The years of silence, now broken by the whispers of inspiration. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "Don't follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail".

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HINDSIGHT

The Shirley Primrose Story

By Bob Suggs

© 2012 by Bob Suggs

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art: Bob Suggs

Photo: Duke Ingram

Model: Sharmain Mya

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Bob Suggs.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other Works

The Journey: The Last Testament

Contents

One

~ Destination Home ~

Two

~ The Arrival ~

Three

~ Pieces of Memory ~

Four

~ Reflection of Youth ~

Five

~ Reality’s Grip ~

Six

~ A Pinnacle Moment ~

Seven

~ A Barrier Falls~

Eight

~ Darkness Dispelled ~

Nine

~ Three Days Later ~

Dedicated To:

Effie, my wife,

a light in darkness.

Life is a road filled with potholes that leads to countless destinations; there are signs, crossroads, detours and dead ends. The choices we make are the fuel that drives us forward and we never know what lies ahead until we get there.

~MaryBeth Ann Primrose~

One

~ Destination Home ~

The last of the sun’s rays gleamed through the windshield as dark clouds started to blanket the sky. The sparks of light lingered and danced on the surface of the motionless, gridlocked vehicles that littered the street. The usual afternoon frenzy that accompanied people trying to get home after a long day at work was in full flow.

Damn, this traffic is killing me, exclaimed the driver to his passenger in the backseat of his taxi, as he stared into the rearview mirror.

The passenger was Shirley Primrose an attractive young woman with rich red hair that rippled to her shoulders and cupped her face, framing it like a picture. No, more like a painting by a master artist, the driver thought.

Her milky white skin stood out in stark contrast against the sea of red that flowed around her delicate features. Her dark-green eyes sparkled like emeralds in the late-afternoon light. She glanced up briefly looking into the rearview mirror and saw his brown eyes looking at her. But she said nothing as her eyes drifted back toward her lap and the open book she was holding.

Unabated the taxi driver continued his one-sided conversation with his silent passenger. Killing Me! How can you make a living driving around if the traffic is always stopped? I really hate this city sometimes, but my country is worse. He said with a heavy accent.

Shirley didn’t think much about his comment, she guessed, based on the sound of his voice, that he was either from India or maybe Pakistan, or from one of those other Asian countries, she had read about, but never visited.

The man said a few more things, but Shirley’s mind drifted away, and although she could hear the words, she didn’t pay attention. A few moments passed, and she realized the man obviously wasn’t going to stop talking. She closed her book and looked at the back of the cab driver’s head. His black strands streaked with grey flowed out from under a white hat, that to her looked more like a rag wrapped around his head. She glanced at the meter $8.85 read the little red digital numbers. Near the meter was an identification tag showing a mug shot of the driver and his name along with other information that didn’t much interest her. Looking out the windows of the vehicle and seeing gridlocked traffic all around them, and realizing they hadn’t moved an inch in the last ten minutes, at least it seemed like ten minutes, maybe longer, and with the cabby wanting to talk after the day she just had, she decided walking the remaining distance would be better than just sitting here. Shirley reached into her purse, pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to Patel a name she now associated with the driver after seeing it next to his photo.

Keep the change, she said with a slight smile as she grabbed the handle and opened the door.

She stepped onto the hard asphalt of the street, breathed in a gulp of air and closed the car door. The pungent smell of exhaust from the traffic made her feel light-headed and dizzy for a moment, but it felt better to be in the open air and not stuck inside the claustrophobic taxi anymore. She was accustomed to the wide-open spaces back home in Kansas on a farm with nothing around for miles. There she felt small and insignificant. Life back home was the complete opposite of living here in the big city. Everything was cramped and crowded, there just didn’t seem to be enough space, something she still hadn’t gotten used to, but it would take time to adjust to Chicago and the new lifestyle she had chosen. Shirley’s senses cleared, and she started walking around the vehicles weaving between the bumpers like playing a game of hopscotch when she was younger. She hopped up on to the sidewalk that would eventually lead her straight to her apartment building.

She felt exhausted, her feet hurt; hunger had begun to set in, and she still had nine more blocks to go. Heels, who ever invented heels should be shot, the thought pierced her mind as she felt a jolt of pain shoot up her right leg.

It was a short journey but dodging the cracks in the sidewalk with her feet feeling twice the size of normal made it more difficult. She took one painful step in front of the other and navigated her way through a sea of people. The myriad of storefronts she passed along the way were of no interest