The Kingdom Romance: Episode 1

By Michael Basham

Find a world you never knew existed, and always knew existed - the realm of the Spirit! Join Annette in her adventures through the mysterious town known as Eleneth which sits upon a majestic secret. This first episode of The Kingdom Romance is the launchpad into a journey of a world that exists just outside our world's known histories, sciences, and religions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Basham
• Release date: Jan 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310571312

Book preview

THE KINGDOM ROMANCE

EPISODE ONE

MICHAEL BASHAM

SMASHWORDS EDITION

COPYRIGHT 2014, MICHAEL BASHAM

Chapter 1: What Is Eleneth

Chapter 2: The Highly Unlikely Stranger

Chapter 3: Lavish Revelries and The Real World

Chapter 4: Rowdy Rushings and Escapings

Chapter 5: The World Beneath

Chapter 6: The Red Beyond

Chapter 7: Dallas

Chapter 8: A Woman's Place

Chapter 9: The Fifth Floor

To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

–G.K. Chesterton

Chapter 1: What Is Eleneth

Closing a thick leather bound book with a sigh, Annette looked up for the first time in hours. She glanced around her to see if anyone else was in the library. The sun was shining brightly through the stained glass windows, making reading there a sheer delight. She tried guessing the time judging from the sunlight’s reflection through the stained glass, which always deposited a lovely barrage of color all around the library. As it was was her custom to sit in that exact spot of cushioned seats underneath the beautiful Elizabethan paintings, she had learned where certain colors shone where and at what time. She was almost to the point of naming certain hours and times after their appropriate colors based on the refractions of the stained glass on different locations of the oak desks and cherry wood book cases, ‘but now that would be a little too nerdy’ she thought. If she started saying I’ll be need to get out of here by Turquoise O’Clock and not a minute before Violet! —that just would not lend a helping hand to her recent resolve to become more sociable.

Confident that there was no one around, she stood up, stretching her back and neck, reaching her slender arms up towards the ceiling and then down to her feet, shaking some of the gold dust off her dark red dress (not that these two colors didn’t go well together) as the dust from many gold-leafed classic and ancient bound literature tended to find its way into every corner of the library. As she gathered her things, she reminisced on the events that had led to her moving in to this town. They all seemed far too dramatic to be real.

All she had wanted was a quiet life: to simply learn a variety of things, have a simple love of life maybe find a nice boyfriend and eventually settle down, perhaps find a nice job teaching literature somewhere. Or, rather, at the very least this is what she thought she had wanted as it was seemingly the most natural course of action for someone in her position– a daughter of two professors from Cambridge University whose parents were also teachers, also teaching the same sort of subjects (mostly Math and the Sciences), and their parents also, and on it went down the family tree. Actually it was downright uncanny to think that for nearly 6 generations her ancestors had all been teachers, and almost all the subjects were related in some way. During her 18 years of existence, despite this legacy running through her blood, she really didn’t feel any smarter for it. She had for some reason developed a deep thirst for researching and enjoying the Classics and so had somewhat rebelled from her family’s tradition.

For the first time in her life, she was away from all the people she knew. This was by her own choice, too. ‘I will now carve my own path!’ She had thought, choosing to break the vicious cycle of endless education, teaching, and studying. And now look where she had ended up! The past 6 months had been spent with every free moment hardly anywhere else but inside this beautiful library. Still, this was completely understandable if you considered the exceptionally rare collection that had been kept here. The biggest shame of this whole town was seeing how little the rest of the town folk seemed to appreciate their own wealth of knowledge stored up here, which could hardly be found anywhere else. She had taken upon herself to love up these unloved works of art and beauty which had obviously been sitting here for years and years untouched. At least it seemed like the rest of the townsfolk rarely read anything along these lines, considering the absolute riveting nature of the contents of most of the books! Most of the townsfolk seemed more often than not preoccupied with the enjoyment of Relationship-Related Revelries (the three R’s, as Annette had personally dubbed this silly past time). In other words, the majority of people who could have otherwise been spending glorious hours, like Annette, reading in this beautiful library were all out busy socializing and focusing mostly on relationship-type stuff.

Walking up and down the aisles, lightly, almost dancingly, she enjoyed the sound of her shoes on the wooden floors echoing around everywhere. Her mind was hardly able to breathe a thought outside the story she had been presently so engrossed in: A great catastrophe had been averted by a simple song of a woman, singing longingly for her distant lover. The titanic struggle and massiveness of the armies striving against each other were at a climax when one lone voice, it is said, brought them to peace.

Finally she stepped outside to the gentle air of an approaching Malacandrian evening. Far away mountains that were impossibly high stretched up, up, up and disappeared behind clouds. Birds sang songs she had not heard back home. The tunes and melodies these birds sang almost carried with them actual themes, which, of course was impossible! But if you spent enough time listening, you’d swear they were not only singing actual self-created songs, but they were also composing new ones and learning even how to harmonize when one bird’s voice sang over another’s. This added a lot to the effect the actual scenery had on your eyes to begin with: Everything about this place just made you want to stop and paint pictures, even if you weren’t an artist.

Annette enjoyed these solitary moments, since the beauty encompassing one everywhere around here made her feel so warm and loved. It was as though the world itself embraced you wherever you went.

She stopped for a few minutes and it was just the birds, the wind passing through the mountains, and her own breathing. She wasn’t hungry, but she realized she had an appointment for dinner and was already running late if she didn’t hurry.

The librarian greeted her, coming up the stairs from the market place which was situated at the foot of this steep hill, on top of which sat the library itself. The look in his eyes seemed to manifest the fact that he had obviously been a little bit forgetful in his duties that day while getting lunch. Crime was nonexistent here, so why bother with security in a place like a library?

Taking your time out and about again today Mr. Faulkner? Don’t worry! Your secret is safe with me! Hope you enjoyed lunch. . . and dinner! Annette said with no small amount of spunk in her voice.

Ah you had better not tell anyone! replied Mr. Faulkner, who was always full of wit and entertaining retorts. By the way, young lady, you’ve been going non-stop today, haven’t you? Your rose colored dress goes majestically with that gold dust! I am sure no one will guess where that’s from. Ah– look, it’s getting to be orange-blossom-thirty, which is the time I usually write a poem about a beautiful girl. You’re my victim this evening, I’m afraid. I really had better get back to the library now, and write that poem! And before Annette could answer, Mr. Faulkner hurried off, but after he was some distance away, just as she’d predicted, he pulled out his pipe and leisurely strolled around the gardens surrounding the hill on which the library was built. She felt warmed even by the actions of the townspeople here, who seemed at once both industrious and able to relax and enjoy themselves. She was learning little by little, but she still felt it would take her some time to achieve THAT level of lazy productivity!

Eleneth was a relatively small town, built artistically into a valley with a large river separating it into two halves. The deepness of the valley made you feel as if you were in a self-contained bubbled reality. You felt miles away from the typical hustling bustling big crazy world with so much insanity all pressed in upon itself. Such was life in London, where she had spent the last few years. Even a quiet moment was usually spent checking your iPhone’s Facebook updates or listening to some new Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus song. Here though, Annette had strangely lost all taste in what used to occupy most of her life.

Just what exactly was it about Eleneth? The architecture was a mix of high-tech Modern buildings and 18th Century European styled inns and homes. One had to admit they had very lovingly preserved the culture of this