Taking Forever: Tales of Reading Road, #6

By Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The first wat.

 

The fall of humankind.

 

Where the strange world of Reading Street meets the marvellous land of Yecelenta. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sixth Planet Productions
• Release date: Feb 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224570683

Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

Kevan Kenneth Bowkett is a Winnipeg writer and researcher. His writing has ranged from an International Convention on the Evaluation of New Technologies to poetry to Elizabethanesque drama in Time’s Fancy: The War of King Henry V and Joan of Arc. He’s also done door-to-door sales, built and slept in an igloo, and run for Parliament. .......... To sign up for Kevan's e-newsletter to keep in touch with his new books, productions, and other projects, please go to http://eepurl.com/g1dX6z

Book preview

Taking Forever

Tales of Reading Road, Volume 6

Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

Published by Sixth Planet Productions, 2024.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

TAKING FOREVER

First edition. February 10, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Kevan Kenneth Bowkett.

Written by Kevan Kenneth Bowkett.

Also by Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

Tales of Reading Road

The Day Between Wednesday and Thursday

A History of Manufacturing in Winnipeg

A Taste for Treasure

A Quantity of Yearlings

When My Hands Give Out

Taking Forever

Yecelentan Tales Short Reads

The Wizards of Wand Street

Sweet Acorns

The Tower of Torn Faces

The Six Sailmakers of Mumuray

Standalone

The City of Sapphires

Seachild (Volume 1)

Watch for more at Kevan Kenneth Bowkett’s site.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

Taking Forever (Tales of Reading Road, #6)

Also By Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

About the Author

Show me the map, Fiara, Fernando had said. Can’t you bring it over?

Well, I’ll show you, replied Fiara. But I don’t want to take forever doing it. I have to be back by three at latest to see Uncle Adelard.

A few minutes later Fiara had told her mother Myra that she was going to Fernando’s after basketball practice.

Okay, said Myra. But be back in good time so you can spend some time with Uncle Adelard. He wants to see you before he goes, and he has to leave us at four. He can’t spend long visiting now. I think—I think maybe he wants to give you something. Something for your future. I know he thinks this might be the last time we see him, because he’s ill. I’m afraid—I’m afraid he’s not expecting to come back from this trip.

I know this, said Fiara. You know I’d never be late for Uncle Adelard, mother. She touched Myra’s arm. I’ll be back by three at latest.

Now, standing in Fernando’s blue-ceilinged bedroom in his house on Reading Street, Fiara unrolled the map on his desk, and adjusted the goose-necked desk-lamp to give it the best light. She put books—there were a lot around—on the corners to hold it open. It showed mountains, rivers, seas or large lakes to the north and the southwest, plains, marshlands, and what seemed like two cities, one of which was decorated with a many-towered castle, though the map gave no names.

It’s by Uncle Sorokin, she said. He copied it from one left to the family by his great-grandfather Peter.

You have a lot of uncles—and a lot of fantasists in the family, said Fernando.

True, she replied.

But you said Great-grandfather Peter made it in like 1903—that’s long before imaginary worlds were fashionable.

"We’re always ahead of