Sitting at a desk in a corner office, an older man talking. “Amnesia?” he asked in an incredulous tone. “You mean to tell me that my daughter is missing for three weeks, shows up in a wrecked stolen car and now she can’t even remember what’s happened?”

“I’m afraid that’s what the doctor tells us Mr. Foley.” Lt Clark’s voice says from the speakerphone. “Hmph. We’ll just see about that.” Foley said. “What’s this doctor’s name?” “Dr. Lyle Benson” Clarke responds.” “I’ll deal with Benson, you get busy finding out where my daughter’s been.” he ordered and then pushed the disconnect button without waiting for a reply.

He presses another button and a womans voice answers through the speaker “Yes Mr. Foley?” “Tell Walters to bring the car around, then call County General and tell Dr. Lyle Benson that I’m on my way over there to see Tricia and and he’d better have some answers.” He barked. “Right away sir.” she answered, followed by a moment of silence.

“Amnesia” He mutters, “The last thing I need is for her to not remember.”

Tags: the watchtower chronicles, marcus foley, soap opera, serial, tricia foley, ongoing story

I know it’s way overdue but I can now finally announce that there is a title to this story: The Watchtower Chronicles.

I’ve changed the categories that I was using before into tags and from here out categories will be reserved for individual stories. Also, in an effort to make it easier to follow things, each post will also have a scene number as part of the title and yes, I’m going back and editing the titles of the parts already written to comply with this new standard.

I have to thank my wife for the title and for the idea of how to organize things. She’s doing some really good story writing of her own. Check out “Burgers In The Dumpster” and you’ll see that I’m not just being a biased husband. *grin*

Tags: the watchtower chronicles, categories, story title, site news, tags, organization

A dark haired woman in her forties is sitting at a desk in a large open style office with a dozen other desks. Several of the desks are occupied by men and women, some of which are obviously suspects. Uniformed officers and other people are about the office dealing with prisoners, questioning suspects and talking on the phone.

There is a nameplate on the desk with “Det. Sylvia Brennan” printed on it. She hangs up the phone and walks over to a door with a large frosted glass window and “Lt. Clark” knocks twice on the door and opens it. Inside another woman is reading through paperwork. She looks up “Yes?”

“I just got a call from County General” Brennan said. “The Foley girl is awake and get this, the doc says she’s got amnesia. Can’t remember a thing.” The woman at the desk pauses a moment. “Wonderful. as if Daddy dearest isn’t enough of a pain.” she says with a grimace, “He’s gonna love that bit of news, as if her disappearing and showing up in a wrecked stolen car wasn’t enough, this is gonna set him off for sure.”

“I’ll bet.” Brennan replied. “Get over there and talk to her and check it out.” Clarke ordered. “Her father is throwing his weight around, demanding answers yesterday. You’d think he’d be glad she was ok.”

“On my way.” Brennan said as she closed the door. Sighing with a look of resignation on her face, “I can see this is going to be one of THOSE cases.” she says aloud to herself as she leaves the office.

Tricia begins looking through the contents of the purse, Dr. Benson says “Why don’t you go through your things and see if that jars your memory at all. I have an appointment and have to go. I’ll be by to check on you later.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot here but I’ll give it a try.” she replies. “Good luck.” he says, and leaves. As he leaves, Janna says “If you need anything, just hit the call button.” and she follows him out, closing the door.

Outside the room, Janna follows Dr. Benson to the Nurses station where He is dialing a phone. He hears two rings and then a woman’s voice answers “Fulton police department, Detective Brennan speaking, how can I help you?”

“Detective, this is Dr. Lyle Benson at County General. You wanted to be informed when the Foley girl was awake.” “Yes, how’s she doing? She say anything about where she’s been? Her family’s been pretty worried.” The voice asks. “Well,” Benson beings, “Physically we haven’t found anything wrong with her, although she appears to have a temporary loss of memory. She didn’t even know her own name until she saw her driver’s license. And honestly, she didn’t look all that sure to me, even then.”

“That’s just great. She disappears one morning without a trace, leaves for work and never arrives, is missing for three weeks and then turns up in a stolen car smashed into a telephone pole on the edge of town. And now you’re telling me that to top it all off she’s got amnesia and can’t even begin to explain any of it?”

“That’s what it looks like for now anyway.” he answered. “In the meantime I have patients to see. I assume you’ll be contacting her family?” “Yes, Lt. Clark has them on the phone now. I’ll be by to see her later and ask a few questions.” she answered. “Ok, goodbye” Dr. Benson says. The detective says “Goodbye”, and there’s a click as she hangs up the phone. Dr. Benson hangs up the phone and walks away.

Tags: tricia, accident, detecitve brennan, ongoing story, janna, soap opera, amnesia, dr benson, serial, Hospital

A hospital room door opens and Janna exits the room. As she closes the door she says to the girl “And don’t fuss about your memory, these things happen and you getting all worried isn’t going to help. Just try to rest.”

Turning from the room she walks down the hall to the nurses station and calls out to another nurse, “Gracie, have you seen Dr. Benson? That girl in 304 is awake.” “Yeah, He’s in 310.” Gracie replies.

Nodding, Janna says “Thanks.” and heads down the hall. As she arrives at room 310, The door opens and a blond haired man in his early thirties comes out wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. “Dr. Benson, that girl in 304 is finally awake. When I asked if there was anyone we could call, she couldn’t remember anyone. She also couldn’t tell me her name.” “Ok.” He answers. “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

Janna heads back to 304, knocks briefly on the door and opens it. “Dr. Benson is on his way, he’ll be here in just a minute.” she tells the girl. “Thank you.” the girl answers.

Dr. Benson stops at the nurse’s station to pick up a chart with “304″ printed on it. He opens it and looks it over briefly and then heads for 304, arriving just as the girl answers Janna.

“Good morning” He says, “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad except that my memory seems to be on vacation. I still can’t even think of my name and I don’t mind telling you I’m kinda freaking about it.”

“Don’t worry, That mystery will be solved soon enough.” He turns to Janna “Would you get her things?” “Right away.” Janna answers and leaves the room. Turning back to the girl he says “You had a purse with you when you came in, we put it in the safe until you awakened.” “In the meantime, lets see how you’re doing.”

He checks the monitor and listens to her heart. “Do you have any pain?” he asks. “Not much.” she replies, “I kinda ache all over and a have a headache but nothing else.”

“Good. And you can’t remember what happened at all?” “No.” she answers, “Not a thing. It’s as if my life started this morning.”

There is a knock on the door and then it opens. Janna enters carrying a medium sized black leather purse. “Here you are.” she says, handing it to the girl.

The girl takes the purse and slowly opens it. She looks inside and says “There’s a wallet, that should help.” she gets it out and slowly opens it. On one side of the opened wallet is a drivers license in a plastic holder. The picture looks like a recent photo of the girl. The name printed next to the picture is Foley, Tricia Meredith.

“Tricia Meredith Foley” She says slowly. “Now that I say it out loud I know it’s right. That’s my name. But I still don’t know what happened or much of anything else.”

“That’s ok.” Dr. Benson reassures her. “We haven’t found any serious injuries so I’m sure you’ll remember the rest soon.”

Tags: accident, tricia, serial, dr benson, Hospital, tricia meredith foley, ongoing story, janna, amnesia, soap opera

In a typical modern hospital room a girl lies in the bed, covered except for her face and arms. In the back of her right hand there is an IV and a blood pressure cuff is wrapped around the upper portion of her right arm. Several wires snake their way under the covers from the monitor on the IV pole. There is a soft buzzing sound as the cuff is automatically inflated. A few moments later there is a soft clicking as it slowly deflates.

A nurse enters the room and looks the girl over briefly and then writes down readings from the monitor. She gets out an infrared thermometer and gently holds it to the girl’s ear, waits for a reading and writes that down as well.

She examines the IV in the girl’s hand and starts to leave when there is a soft moan from the bed. “ohh” The nurse returns to the bedside and says “Hi, I see you’re finally awake. How are you feeling?” “I’m not sure.” the girl replies softly, “Who are you?” she asks.

The nurse replies; “I’m Janna, your nurse. Do you know where you are?”

“I guess I’m in the hospital, What happened?”

Janna tells the girl “I’m not really certain, you came in late last night and I just got here a little while ago. I think you were in an accident.”

“Oh, I guess that’s why I ache all over.”

Janna nods and says “anyway, now that you’re awake we’ll get the doctor in to see you in a few minutes. In the meantime, Is there anyone you’d like us to call and let them know where you are?”

The girl starts to say something and then stops, a puzzled look on her face. “Um, I don’t know.” she says. “I can’t remember.”

“You can’t remember?” Janna asks, “Can you tell me your name?”

The girl first looks puzzled, then frightened as she replies softly, “No, I can’t. I don’t remember. How can I not remember my own name?”

Janna quickly tries to calm her, “Don’t worry about it. This sometimes happens in accidents. You’ll probably remember something in a little while. Don’t worry yourself about it right now. I’ll go call the doctor and let him know you’re awake.”

“Ok, ” the girl answers in a slightly shaky voice, “that sounds like a good idea, I’d like to see the doctor right away.”

Janna nods, “I’ll go make that call right now. The doctor should be by in a little while. In the meantime just press the call button if you need anything.”

Tags: soap opera, new character, lost memory, amnesia, ongoing story, serial, introduction, janna, memory loss

In the months since I first said that I was going to start writing short stories here I’ve managed to write precisely zip. All that is however, about to change in a big way. What will be following is the beginning of an ongoing story.

It’s going to be a serial type of thing with each post being very much like a single scene in an old style serial or soap opera. With that for an introduction, it’s time to introduce the first character.

Tags: ongoing story, soap opera, site news, short stories, serial

I’ve been thinking lately that something I’d like to do is improve my short story writing skill. What little I have has seen fairly little exercise over the years. Obviously the best way to improve something like that is by practice.

I’m not entirely sure what these stories will be about. I am sure that they’ll qualify as fantasies of one sort or another, which I believe most fiction could be called but I cannot say with any certainty that they’ll all be any kind of comfort.

One of the reasons to work on this is the fact that dialog has always been hard for me to write. The little bit that I have written has, with few exceptions, been the result of clawing or every word. Getting my characters to talk hasn’t always been easy. Getting them to sound like they’re not half brain damaged or cloned from some other fiction is another trick entirely.