The Chamber of Life
()
About this ebook
Floating gently, I lay there for a long while before I even looked about me. There was a vague confusion in my head, as if I had just awakened from a long sleep. Some memory seemed to be fading away, something I could still feel but couldn't understand. Then it was gone, and I was alone and empty, riding on the water.
I glanced about, puzzled. Only a few yards away rose the gray stone side of the embankment, with its low parapet, and behind that the Drive. There was no one in sight—not even a car—and the open windows of the apartment houses across the Drive seemed very quiet. People slept behind them.
It was only a little after dawn. The sun, blazing and tinted with pink, had hardly risen from the horizon. The lake was still lined with dark shadows behind glittering ridges of morning sunlight, and a cool breeze played across my face, coming in from the east. Over the city, the sound of a street car rumbling into motion, rising and dying away, was like the crowing of a rooster in the country.
I shivered, and began to swim. A few strokes brought me to the embankment, and I clambered up, almost freezing as I left the water. I was fully clothed, but without a hat. Perhaps I had lost it in the lake. I stood there, dripping and chill, and suddenly I realized that I had just waked up in the water. I had no recollection of falling in, nor even of being there. I could remember nothing of the previous night.
A glance along the Drive told me where I was, at the corner of Fifty-third street. My apartment was only a few blocks away. Had I been walking in my sleep? My mind was a blank, with turbulent, dim impressions moving confusedly under the surface...
Related to The Chamber of Life
Related ebooks
The Chamber of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chamber of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chamber of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Body on the Lido Deck: A Toni Day Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZero Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes from the Other Side of the Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlitches - The Little Black Book: Glitches Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe final eclipse (The return of the Big Mother) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles: A Novel Inspired by True Events Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnottspeed: A Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrumps of Doom: The Chronicles of Amber Book 6 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Venus as a Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5THE MYSTERIES OF THE ISLAND OF THARA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMacLeish Sq. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConsume: Other World Demonios, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInner Tube: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clueless Dead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Twin She Lost Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gentle Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNinety Nine Posts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWrapped in the Stars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween the Blood and the Sun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDKMH: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wokokon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Is For Blood: John Devin, PI, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bean Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Relatively Public Life of Jules Browde Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDivisions: The Second Half of The Fall Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Science Fiction For You
The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silo Series Collection: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wool: Book One of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Psalm for the Wild-Built Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Authority: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England: Secret Projects, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is How You Lose the Time War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sarah J. Maas: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein: Original 1818 Uncensored Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shift: Book Two of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rendezvous with Rama Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cryptonomicon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm And 1984 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dust: Book Three of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Chamber of Life
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Chamber of Life - G. Peyton Wertenbaker
THE CHAMBER OF LIFE
G. Peyton Wertenbaker
ENDYMION PRESS
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2016 by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
Published by Endymion Press
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
ISBN: 9781531297909
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Strange Awakening
Melbourne’s Story
A Chance Strain from Grieg
The Chamber of Life
Baret and Selda
And So to Work
A STRANGE AWAKENING
MY FIRST SENSATION WAS ONE of sudden and intense cold—a chill that shot through my body and engulfed it like a charge of electricity. For a moment I was conscious of nothing else. Then I knew that I was sinking in cold water, and that I was fighting instinctively against the need to gasp and breathe fresh air. I kicked weakly and convulsively. I opened my eyes, and squeezed them as the bright green water stung them. Then I hung for an instant as if suspended over the depths, and began to rise. It seemed hours before I shot up into the open air again, and was drinking it deeply and thankfully into my tortured lungs. The sun touched my head warmly like the hand of a benign god.
Floating gently, I lay there for a long while before I even looked about me. There was a vague confusion in my head, as if I had just awakened from a long sleep. Some memory seemed to be fading away, something I could still feel but couldn’t understand. Then it was gone, and I was alone and empty, riding on the water.
I glanced about, puzzled. Only a few yards away rose the gray stone side of the embankment, with its low parapet, and behind that the Drive. There was no one in sight—not even a car—and the open windows of the apartment houses across the Drive seemed very quiet. People slept behind them.
It was only a little after dawn. The sun, blazing and tinted with pink, had hardly risen from the horizon. The lake was still lined with dark shadows behind glittering ridges of morning sunlight, and a cool breeze played across my face, coming in from the east. Over the city, the sound of a street car rumbling into motion, rising and dying away, was like the crowing of a rooster in the country.
I shivered, and began to swim. A few strokes brought me to the embankment, and I clambered up, almost freezing as I left the water. I was fully clothed, but without a hat. Perhaps I had lost it in the lake. I stood there, dripping and chill, and suddenly I realized that I had just waked up in the water. I had no recollection of falling in, nor even of being there. I could remember nothing of the previous night.
A glance along the Drive told me where I was, at the corner of Fifty-third street. My apartment was only a few blocks away. Had I been walking in my sleep? My mind was a blank, with