tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985369609788972042024-03-13T01:51:14.345-07:00AnthologyRoman Brandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629585643911689213noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98536960978897204.post-43613443307411742972013-12-29T18:14:00.000-08:002013-12-29T18:14:03.340-08:00Anthology Volume One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Welcome to the new Anthology website. Anthology Volume One is two years in the making, and is due to be released in the next few months in both ebook and print formats. The stories on this site are back in production, being expanded and edited. In the mean time, enjoy the previews of the individual stories to be released from Anthology Volume One. I look forward to hearing from all of you about your experiences reading my work. Some of the previews already lead to ebooks you can download for free or at most a dollar. It is worth your time to check out my writing if you haven't, and if you already have a favorite story, chances are it will be in Volume one. <br />
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In the mean time, downloading the individual stories released from the collection gives you access to exclusive features including, at bare minimum, the following: the complete text of the first draft, commentary from me about the story, and exclusive cover art created specifically by me for the story.<br />
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Thank you for the experience, and stick with me for this new chapter of my career.<br />
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Much respect,<br />Roman Theodore Brandt<br />
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Cover art for some of the individual releases from this collection. Literally minutes of hard work:<br />
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Roman Brandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629585643911689213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98536960978897204.post-81218139320555149642013-12-29T18:00:00.001-08:002013-12-29T18:20:48.809-08:00Our Lives in Ruin (Preview)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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CONTEXT: Joey works at a movie theater in a truck stop town. Franklin is the stranger he's met, the one who makes his sad little life okay again. But is he just another form of self-harm for Joey? This scene is of them breaking into Joey's place of employment after hours. Franklin knows too much about the layout, and the movie starts with no projectionist running the machine. What follows is one of the most intense scenes I have ever written.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
We walk past my apartment instead of stopping at it, and
I breathe a sigh of relief. Our footprints cross flashing red light
intersections until we’re standing in front of the theater where I work. <br />
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“You’ve got a key, I assume,” Franklin says.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I stare at him. “We can’t just walk in the front door
after it’s closed.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
He smiles and starts walking, and I have to follow him.
We go around the building into the alley behind it. “The key works on the
basement door,” he tells me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Down the stairs at the back of the building, below street
level, I put the key in the door and turn it. The door opens. “I never realized
that,” I told him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
He pushes the door open and grabs my hand, pulling me in.
I close the door behind us and reach for a light switch, but he grabs my hand.
“You don’t turn on the lights after you break into a building, Joey.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
We move down the hallway quickly. It’s like Franklin
knows the layout down here in the basement, and soon we’re up the back stairs
and into the rear exit corridor. The emergency lights illuminate ghosts in
hallways until we get to the auditorium. I’ve never been here this far after
hours.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“The movie’s about to start,” Franklin says. He pulls me
by the hand into one of the rows of seats and we sit down. “What do you want to
watch?” I look over at him, and he smiles in the glow of the emergency lights,
his eyes liquid black again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Before I can say anything, I hear the flicking of the
projector and the auditorium is lit by the beam coming from the back of the
room, painting the screen at the front a pale white. I look at him again, and
he’s looking at the screen. Between us, I feel his hand around my wrist, his
fingers moving to find my pulse. His hands are like electricity. I want to tell
him to cut me open. That’s weird, I know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
His hand moves to my hand, and suddenly, all the light in
the room goes out. It’s so quiet, I can hear my heart beating. I hear Franklin
shifting in his seat, pulling my hand to his body, pulling up his shirt and
pressing my hand against his chest. There ought to have been a heart pounding
there, too. I can feel his breath against my neck and earlobe, and I’m
terrified. I want to pull away and run. I want to curl into fetal position and
cry, but his voice is soft in my ear, his hand holding mine to his chest. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“Are you afraid?” he wants to know. I close my eyes
against the darkness, and I feel his mouth on my neck. Oh my God, his teeth are
sharp.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“Yes,” I tell him, but my voice is inaudible over my own
heartbeat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LIKE THIS PREVIEW? Our Lives in Ruin comes out in ebook format on January 13th and print format on January 20th. There will be discounts, events, fireworks, Gatsby parties, and I will become Oprah for exactly one minute starting the second the ebook comes out, and lasting well over a month. You shall buy it, because it is only one dollar. It is only one burrito. It is only one bottle of cheap soda. Trust me, for the level of work I put in this story for you, it is worth the dollar. I promise.</div>
Roman Brandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629585643911689213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98536960978897204.post-32720699862999716792013-12-29T17:44:00.001-08:002013-12-29T17:44:13.739-08:00Michael (Preview)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On
the night of my fourteenth birthday, brushing my teeth before bed, I heard a
tapping on the window. I looked at my shirtless reflection in the mirror and
then at the window behind me, and I saw Michael’s face pressed against the
glass, grinning.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Hey,”
he said, his voice muffled by the insulated window panes. “Open up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
tried to ignore him, but he kept tapping, and I bet he was cold; he never wore
anything but underwear. Eventually, I went to the window and slid the sash up.
He came through effortlessly, dropping down onto the floor and standing up
quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Took
you long enough,” he said quietly. Through the open window I could hear the
roar of the freeway in the distance, and I looked at him in the quiet bathroom.
It had been a long time since I’d last seen him. The last time had been right
after Mom told me he wasn’t real, and she still would have told me that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“How
old are you now?” I asked him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“How
old are you?” He asked me in return, dew dripping down his bare chest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I asked you first.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
shrugged and smiled again, and I remember all the times we had run around town
at night in our underwear, breaking store windows and heaving soda bottles at
parked cars, alarms piercing the quiet and announcing our departure as we
scurried half-naked into the shadows between buildings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Do
you believe I’m real yet?” He wanted to know, and he waited for my answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Maybe
I did. Maybe I didn’t know. The only thing I actually knew, I realized as we
both stood there in our underwear, was that I had missed him. Years had passed.
We had both gotten taller, filling out, growing hair in all the places we were
supposed to around this age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Finally,
I opened my mouth to speak. “No,” I told him, and that one simple word struck
him so that his smile faded completely, leaving only the face of a boy I knew
years ago, now grown old beneath a teenaged face. He came over to where I was
and looked in the mirror with me, and we were visions of youthful manhood
reflected side by side. We could have been brothers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
looked over at me, his hair still wet from the night air outside. “Maybe I
don’t believe you’re real,” he said to me, and he looked in the mirror again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“I
am,” I told him. His reflected eyes grew colder, and there were the beginnings
of tears in them. He blinked them away and sniffed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“So
am I,” he said finally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Mom
says you aren’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Without
warning, he punched the mirror, his fist sailing into the glass hard and
sending mirror shards everywhere, slamming the toothpaste and deodorant and
rubbing alcohol beyond it into the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
looked at me, and my heart was pounding in my chest. “Fine,” he said, and he
went back out the window, leaving a trail of red drops across the tile floor in
his wake. I stood there breathing hard after he left, my chest heaving, and I
heard Mom running up the stairs. She burst into the room, looked at the smashed
mirror, looked at me, and her eyes went wide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“What
on earth happened in here?” She asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
looked down at my right hand, bleeding on the tile floor with a shard of
silvery glass stuck in it. The trail of red now led from the sink to where I
stood, rather than to the window. “I don’t know,” I told her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
LIKE THIS PREVIEW? Want the whole story? Download it for a dollar at <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/388215">Smashwords</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/michael-roman-theodore-brandt/1117759884?ean=2940045520348">Barnes & Noble</a>. Make sure you rate and review the story where you download it. I love hearing from people who have read my work.<br />
<br />
Remember to watch for Anthology Volume One when it hits online stores in ebook and print formats in March 2014.</div>
Roman Brandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629585643911689213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98536960978897204.post-85207866417409755652013-12-29T17:33:00.002-08:002013-12-29T17:33:56.147-08:00Ghosts (Preview)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
don't remember when we stopped being human. I'm sure if I could put it as a
date on a calendar, I could have some kind of closure.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There
are always dishes to be done, and dusting. I just don't want to touch any of it
anymore. The dishes are rotting in the sink and the house is blanketed in
centuries of dust. I feel like you and I are day vampires now, rising from
coffins in the morning to face the latest day just like the thousands before
it. You go out to the fields and I stay in here and I wash dishes, bleeding out
from the boredom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
just want to take the car and leave. Why don't you ask me to dance anymore? Why
don't we fuck anymore? Am I that awful?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">God,
I hate these dishes splashing around in the water with my angry fingers
scratching the mashed potatoes off of them. I need to remember to soak the
dishes or wash them as they get used, because I hate washing them so much right
now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Maybe
I'm not the person I was when we met in the drug store downtown, or when we
came out here to get away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
came here to get away after all, I tell myself when I do the dishes, and it
makes me scratch them harder until I've abandoned the scrubber and I'm just
using my fingernails.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Looking
down at the red water, I pull my hand up and see the blood staining my fingernails.
We came here to get away, and all I want to do is go home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<br />
Thanks for reading.<br />
<br />
Much respect, <br />
Roman Theodore Brandt</div>
Roman Brandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629585643911689213noreply@blogger.com0