Copyright 2019 James LaFond

A Crackpot Book

Editor/Publisher/Inheritor: Lynn Lockhart

Proofed by:

No Dust Cover or advertisement or summary is desired by the author.

Author’s Notes:

Although this novelette might best be described as horrific xenophobe fantasy, I have attempted to render it as realistic, near-future science-fiction. Hopefully my fictional predictions shall prove terribly wrong.

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Addendum to Notes: January 13 2022

As Western Civilization spews its laboratory diseases at us like some Young Apollo or a twisted Yahweh over Egypt, I now wish that these predictions would come true in America, mostly because I think it likely and have found no greater meaning in life than to say ‘I told you so.’

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Disclaimer

I apologize for the writing of this book. I have been suffering from extreme vertigo, nausea, dizziness and disorientation and can only maintain consciousness for extended periods while writing. I believe I have gone insane. Last night, while reading the Sotweed Factor, written in 1707, in Maryland, the land of my birth, I was stricken with the story idea that my great grandson might face the same fate as my distant ancestors, who were replaced and displaced according to the will of Mammon some 300 years ago. What if the same happens to my descendants some 30 years from now?

This entire, terrible story leaped full-blown into my overwrought mind on this day, as I walked back from the dollar store with my soft pretzels and cream cheese, a Thursday, I think, yes it is Thursday says the old paper calendar behind the screen.

It is a work of pure fantasy, inspired by a 312-year-old curse placed upon me and mine by Ebeneezer Cooke. Despite the improbable nature of this fantasy, some portion of my ravaged mind surely believes this shall come true, as I write this disclaimer with clammy hands, cold feet and a chill creeping up my spine.

-James LaFond, 4/4/2019, 8:11 P.M., Portland Oregon.

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For The Leveler, who asked me to write a story set in 2048 about a boy of our hated kind who might be his grandson or my great grandson

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“May Canniballs transported o’er the Sea  

Prey on these Slaves, as they have done on me:”

-Ebenezer Cooke, 15 January, 1707

Contents

Disclaimer 4

Rico 12

The Skinnies 16

Uncle Cholo 20

Mom 22

Dream Boat 28

The Tent 32

Hadith Road 36

The Gas Station 38

The Caravan 48

Long Joe Stackhouse 66

The Cornfield 80

Run to the Hills 84

Afterward 94

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Afterward

While not a prequel, the above story could have been the backstory for Malediction Song and Reverent Chandler. However, more realistically it is the actual predictive swan song of a people without a race, of a mongrel population cursed to yearn in a place unearned.

My apologies to my kind proof reader and my darling editor for what tumbled from my brain yesterday evening and today.

-James, LaFond, 4/6/2019, 12:27 A.M.