Kajora

By Daniel Thornton

Native American and Japanese cultures meet during a chance encounter back in AD 464. Kajora is a tale of a young boy who is the merging of these two different groups of people as he is half-Indian, half-Japanese.

Kajoras life leads him on a path of acceptance, honor, and shame as he strives for redemption after he falls from grace and attempts to reemerge into his life after losing everything. Through Kajoras efforts to rebuild his life, he must make a hard choice between hope and despair through God and the devil. Who will win the battle for his soul?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503541481

Daniel Thornton

Daniel Thornton has worked in the newspaper industry since 1990 and has covered a wide range of subjects during that time frame. His works have appeared within the pages of the Kalamazoo Gazette, the Allegan County News, the Courier-Leader, Michigan High School Athletic Association website, as well as several other publications. A writer and high school and college basketball coach, Thornton has worked as a professional actor and studied Native American and Asian cultures since his childhood. Thornton holds a BA in journalism, a BS in media studies, and a BA in photography from different American universities. He currently resides in Michigan.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Thornton.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015901837

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-4146-7

                Softcover        978-1-5035-4147-4

                eBook             978-1-5035-4148-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/11/2015

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Contents

Chapter 1 The First Day of the Rest of a Life

Chapter 2 A Story Begins

Chapter 3 The Dawn

Chapter 4 To Every End There Is a New Beginning

Chapter 5 Birth of a Son—A Son Named Kajora

Chapter 6 A Boy Becomes a Man

Chapter 7 The Two Become One

Chapter 8 A Twist of Fate

Chapter 9 A Life of Sorrow

Chapter 10 Into the Shadows

Chapter 11 The Abyss

Chapter 12 A Day after Tomorrow

Chapter 13 An Unlikely Hand

Chapter 14 A Story Remains

List of Characters

Chapter 1

THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF A LIFE

It was another in a long line of less-than-eventful days for me at work. The windblown, bitter, biting cold and cloudy gray skies only added to the bad fall weather we were already having here in Detroit. As if this place needed more things to bring me down.

I moved here for my first writing job with a daily paper after having spent time working for my college newspaper and interning with a few online websites. Let me tell you something; there is nothing more boring in this world than to be subjected to sitting in and listening to school board meetings for hours just so I could write a short review for readers.

A few weeks ago, I received the biggest break of my young career when the Detroit News hired me. At the time, getting this hire made me feel like I had won the lotto as I had a dream job, a job as a beat writer getting paid to watch the Tigers play or practice nearly every day of the spring, the summer, and the early part of fall.

As luck would have it, though, I quickly started regretting my decision to take it and move here.

People living in hell don’t put up with as much pain as those who live in the wrong parts of this place. The pain that comes from living in a town that has seen its better days leave Detroit long ago. There are some parts of this town that are indeed very nice, and then there are other parts that time and progress have simply forgotten. It’s hard for me to believe I’ve only been here a month so far. Walking down these streets every day is tough. Today I’m stuck looking at how many homeless and, more importantly, hopeless people I pass in the heavy, nonstop rain. It makes me feel even worse.

The gloom of this place had started to really get under my skin and affect my personality. Today marked the fifth straight day this city had seen rain and the fourth straight day the Tigers game had been called off. Some people at the paper had told me that Detroit’s mood goes hand in hand with how its pro sports teams do. If there is a night when the Tigers play and win, the town comes to life with happiness. If they lose, the bad tends to come out of everyone and anyone. Personally, I’d started to think that living here would be a good reason for someone to question their own sanity.

Weather like this, with no sun in sight and not a single break in the monsoon-like rain, can really test you. I know I’d started to really feel it.

This was just my fourth week at the News, and as a recent college grad who found himself with an overabundance of student loans and other bills, I was eager to make a few bucks doing some stories on the Tigers. Since I was just a rookie, the paper paid me by the published article, meaning this rain was quickly turning me into a nearly unemployed writer who was going to have a bad paycheck even if the games were still going on.

Oh, the life of a newly graduated college kid. I’d started to wonder if I would soon become one of those people I walk past on the streets. Sitting there on the side of a building with their eyes glazed over, as if they were just sitting and staring into some abyss. They talk to you but never really look at you.

I could only imagine what it’d be like to be one of them. I’d pray I’d never have to go through what they had gone through. A life without a home.

The first few days that I worked for the News and found myself walking past the homeless people, I tried to give them any spare change I had. After a while, though, the money started to add up. You can only walk past a guy asking for cash so many times before you become numb to it.

It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? When you’re working, all you ever want is a day off, and when you’re not working, you’ll do just about anything to find a couple of bucks to put in your empty pockets.

All week long I had been hanging out at the Post. It’s a local pub not far from where I work and live. The place is kind of a dive, but I love it there. I don’t know why I do, but it’s comfortable and welcoming. The rumor is it was once an old house that had been remodeled into a bar about fifty years ago. I swear the building must have been built back in the early 1800s because of the foreboding and ominous vibe it gives off, which probably drives most people to drink. There’s something about this place, as if those red brick walls are staring down on you with evil eyes that are coiled and glaring.

There are two levels to this bar, and when there is a rock band playing music at night on the upper level, you can hear the old wooden floors creak and bend. At first I was always worried as I questioned if the ceiling was about to come crashing down on top of my head. Like most things in life, you get used to the sounds and worries they bring.

The place carries the smell of beer-stained carpet that has seen the beverage slowly soak its way into the fibers of each blade and into the wood below it. When you are in there, you better have some good eyesight. The staff never really keeps too many lights on. There’s just enough light for you to foggily see where you are walking, and at times, who the person on the other side of the table is. Other than that, looking eighty feet down a walkway, a person would find it hard to make out a face at the end of that hallway.

This place makes me feel like I am being viewed and judged every damn time I step through that dark old wooden oak front door. At times, when I was really drunk, I thought the old iron lion’s head on that door had eyes that followed me. Like I said, it seems as if this place has a soul and it places judgment on me, not by anyone here, but as if the building itself has a spirit and that ghost looks on me with judging eyes, either approving or disapproving of me. It’s just one of those gut feelings that’s hard to explain, I guess.

Many of the regulars told me the Post used to be the home of some doctor that had passed away in his chair months before anyone discovered him. They went on to say that eventually the mail couldn’t fit into the slot on his front door any longer that the mail courier called the city and informed them something was wrong.

When they opened the door, they found a mound of mail just behind the front door and then found the guy sitting in his rocking chair, with the floor covered in empty bottles of rum. Apparently, the good doctor passed away after more or less trapping himself in the house after his wife died and drinking himself into the ground. He loved her so much he couldn’t bring himself to go outside or continue on with his own life. I can tell you, after I heard what the regulars had to say about this place, I came to believe more and more