Seven Weeks of Winter: Part 1 - Lessons in Isolation

By David Schipp

After recently losing his wife and becoming estranged from his children and friends, Thomas Shaw finds himself alone and adrift. A week away in isolation is just the thing he needs to pull himself together. It is only when he believes that his is life is all but over, that he is ready to find love and hope in the most surprising of places...

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Schipp
• Release date: Jan 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370105175

David Schipp

David J Schipp lives on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. He is an emergency nurse, musician and software designer. Currently he is completing his fourth work of fiction, is writing a non-fictional work relating to music recording and completing an application that allows for the remote controlling of music software.

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Seven Weeks of Winter – Part I – Lessons in Isolation

By David J Schipp

Copyright 2016-2018 by David J Schipp

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PART I: LESSONS IN ISOLATION

JUNE, 2011

MONDAY

Tomas Shaw was lost.

Getting lost is not an easy feat in this day and age. We have devices to prevent such occurrences from happening. But even then, on the odd occasion, the things that we depend upon to tell us exactly where we are and where we are going fail us. We find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, amongst unfamiliar faces. Fear rises in us. Everything becomes uncertain. Our footsteps become unsure. 

And that was exactly the feeling that Tom had. Only he knew where he was and where he was headed. In truth, he was not literally lost. But, none-the-less he was adrift. He was rudderless. The future, if he allowed himself to even consider that such a thing existed, was dark and uncharted. 

It hadn’t always been that way, as was often the case for people in his position. His life was good, even wonderful at times. He had a loving, beautiful wife. He had two children that he adored. He had a successful job and he worked hard at it, slowly climbing the ladder. He had friends. And then, in an instant, everything changed. 

And wasn’t that how these things often transpire? One day you’re whistling a tune as you cross the road oblivious and then next you are in a wheelchair with a broken back courtesy of the bus that ran you down. Well, Tom had been hit by a bus and his back was broken. Not literally. 

Eight months later and he was alone, the wife that he loved was gone. Grief had taken him over in those last months. He lashed out at any hand extended to help him. He lost his children, he lost his friends. He lost his home. And finally, he almost lost his job. 

For the last two weeks since she was finally taken from him he seemed to be in a haze. He knew what had happened, he accepted it, at least in theory, but parts of him seemed to refuse to accept it. He expected her to return from work, place her keys on the kitchen bench and come to him, wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him deeply like she had done when they were first married. She hadn’t done that in over a year, and he missed it now, though he didn’t realise it at the time. It was a symptom of something terribly, terribly wrong. 

And then, when there was no avoiding the truth of her malady, he turned on her in grief and anger, drove her away until she was lost. Forever. Now only the memory of those lips remained. 

Tom knew where he was going. It was a place marked on the map, an actual place, south from the city, many hours away, on the edge of a lake that runs into the sea. 

Music filled the air, eventually caught in currents and dragged out of the car and left behind on the highway. It was early winter and the road was clear of the shimmer of early warmth. As he left his apartment hours ago, he grabbed a box of CDs from the top of his stereo. He preferred the music on his phone usually, but there was something about his selection that called to him. She had given him those discs four years ago on his birthday – a compilation of songs from his youth. He had them already on various albums, even on old-school vinyl, but this was better. And now, as he hurtled southward, perhaps a little faster than legal, he allowed himself to remember times when he was happy, in love, and the weight of the world was not yet upon him. Every song had a story, and he told himself each