EXPERIMENT

Okey dokey, I'm goin to try this; The following is the prologue of a book I've written (nearly - 260 down, bout 140 to go).

Have a look - tell me what you think.

Thank you for your time.




High above the ocean, the lone albatross made its way to the North, as it did every year.
Directly beneath it, deep beneath the smooth, lazy ocean, 450 miles east of Sri Lanka, at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal, a change was afoot. The bedrock had lain quietly for centuries not advertising its presence. Now, like an old arthritic man shifting in bed, the rock did some shifting of its own. The energy of the shift started an almost unnoticeable swell, witnessed only by the albatross soaring above the waves, which squawked in a vocalization of warning and fright. Deep inside, she new what this meant. At the same moment, hundreds of miles away in every direction, on land, animals of all shapes and sizes, with the kind of sixth sense humans would pay handsomely for, registered the shift and deep in their minds knew to start moving from the danger.
With silky-smooth progress, the wall of water travelled unseen towards its destination.
On the bridge of a cruise liner, as the holiday makers frolicked in swimming pools and lounged on deck chairs, the instruments registered a bigger than normal swell which the officer on duty dismissed as an anomaly. Several other ships of varying sizes also had the same reaction.
Silently, the monster beneath the waves rolled on, gathering momentum and power, the devastation to be wrought, hidden. Tourists on the beach at Banda Aceh, unaware of the impending doom, frolicked in the surf, in much the same fashion as the carefree cruisers. As the swell approached land, the water on the beach was sucked towards it, adding to its power, leaving people standing in ankle deep water where previously they had been up to their necks. Confusion seemed to reign with most of the bathers simply gawking at this freak of nature–not connecting the dots.
The behemoth began to rise, drawing up out of the ocean, until it was an unstoppable 15 metre tsunami travelling at 100mph.
Trevor Keys wasn’t a religious man; what he was, however, was a global climate expert, on holiday with his wife and son. He worked for a government department, studying the effect of global warming on weather patterns. He had to liaise with other departments, one of which was Kevin Peters’ department. Kevin was an expert in all things tsunami; causes and results, and had told Trevor that if ever he was on a beach, and witnessed the tide drawing away from him, he was to drop everything and run for his life.
As the ocean retreated, like Moses’ parting of the sea, Trevor did just that. He swept Daniel up in his arms and shouted, ‘Jenny, follow me, right now–hurry’! He reached for her to pull her with him and as he did he saw it. Fear almost paralysed him, ‘oh sweet Jesus’, he muttered, then shouted, ‘Jenny, LET’S GO! And nearly pulled her off her feet as he wrenched her towards him. He started sprinting away towards the beach in the hope of making it to some sort of protection, if not high ground, pulling his wife with him. He ran harder than he’d ever ran in his life; if he could get them to the tree-line, maybe they would have a chance–another hundred yards. He re-doubled his efforts, his heart bursting. His extra effort was more than Jenny could handle and her hand slipped out of his as she stumbled and fell. He pulled up and turned to help her. The monster wave was virtually upon them. They had lost; he hugged his wife and child to him and gritted his teeth, silently praying it would be quick.
The other tourists on the beach didn’t stand a chance either; the wave sped across the shore, sweeping all before it. One second they were there–the next, gone–forever, never to be found. It slammed into the beach development with as much force, completely destroying everything in its path. Boats, furniture, trees and plants, cars, and bodies, thousands of bodies, alive and dead were caught in its deadly grasp.
It was all the more awesome because the entire world saw it moments after it happened, the pictures broadcast almost immediately.
The kind of devastation suffered on Banda Aceh was felt throughout the beaches that surrounded the Bay of Bengal. Hundreds of thousands of people died, the same amount injured, at least. Total villages were swept out of existence. An immediate relief program was launched from multiple nations.
One of the many results of the disaster was the increase in orphans. Human nature (in fact, nature full stop) being what it is, meant that in the process of trying to save the lives of their young ones, many adults perished. The flip side of such sacrifice was that, with so many orphans, came as many predators.

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Acacia avenue could have been any street in a thousand cities. A quiet street in the ‘burbs’, lined with gum trees, with the landscaping round the bottom, the pavement cracked and ruptured by the roots. Several of the neighbours were out in their gardens, tending their lawns, pottering about. Others were indulging in that great Aussie pastime–drinking beer. A group of kids were playing a game of cricket using a makeshift set of stumps, made, rather ingeniously, from the inner rolls of kitchen roll, joined together with sticky tape and filled with paper. A young boy bowls toward his competitor, who swings at the oncoming ball but misses, the ball hitting the stumps.
‘YOU’RE OUT,’ yells the boy, to the chorus of ‘yay’s’ from his team-mates.
The crestfallen batter walks away from the ‘crease’ with his head down and hands the bat, reluctantly, to the next boy.
Inside number 22 lives an old man with his small Jack Russel terrier (he had never married). At this very moment he was just finishing cleaning and preparing himself for his shortly to arrive guest. Freshly ironed trousers and shirt, and clean underwear. He enters the living room and sits in his favourite armchair. On a small coffee table in front of him there is a newspaper, opened at the crossword – it half done, and an envelope. In the envelope was money and on the front was written a name in the typically scrawled and shaky writing of an old, arthritic hand. The clock ticks monotonously, counting down the minutes.
‘It’s almost time, Bessy’, he says to his little dog, who reacts with a frantic wag of her tail. Percy reaches down and gives his long time companion a scratch on the head and behind the ears.
Despite having washed and cleaned himself, Percy has the white saliva collecting at the corners of his mouth. He licks his dry, cracked lips with a moist tongue, the slight wheeze of his elderly lungs audible in the silence of the room. The little dog, finally realising she had got all the attention she was going to get, pro tem, laid her head on her paws with a sigh.
All in the house is quiet, and the old man whispers, almost imperceptibly, ‘she’ll be here soon… she’ll be here soon’. Unlike a lot of men his age, he has never had a problem with impotence and can feel his erection straining against his underwear.



In another city, far on the other side of this wide, brown land, a young girl walks home to the apartment she shares with 3 other girls. Her shoulders are slumped, and her head is bowed. Her body aches, from every orifice having been penetrated, brutally at times, by four ‘clients’. Although she’d had a shower afterwards she could still feel the semen leaking out of her, making her underwear damp. She also felt slightly ill from having performed fellatio on all four as well. When is this going to stop? How do I get out of this? she asked herself.
Oh Lord, help me, she silently wailed.
This is not what she had come here for. She had been promised work as a secretary, in a plush office and had been looking forward to living in this beautiful, free country, carving out a good life for herself, maybe bringing over her family, later. She remembered how excited she had felt at this chance to make something of her life, even when ‘performing’ for the skipper of the boat that brought her here; closing her eyes and thinking ‘this won’t last forever, once I get there, I can forget it ever happened’. Horrified at her current predicament, she despaired.
Reaching her apartment, she hoped there was one of her friends there; she felt the need of some sympathy. Many a night the girls would comfort each other, being as they were, in the same position, often physically. She hoped she would have a few days respite before having to repeat last night’s ordeal.