Short Fiction

This short story took much longer than I planned to write it. After three attempts and multiple different approaches, the story is now finally rough drafted. It will sit in “the tomb” (for those who have not read my blogs on a regular basis, I am referring to a file drawer where the story will sit until I begin redrafting it) until next week.

I was driven to complete this story despite the depressing feel and darkness behind it. To borrow a phrase of a friend when he was reading a book on the ravages of the American Civil War, “I had to walk away several times, start singing happy songs and feel sunlight on my face before I could come back.”

The story was finally drafted from the first person point of view and I am very grateful for all the first hand accounts of life in concentration camps be them from the days of Nazi Germany to more modern camps. Remembered conversations I have had with survivors of such camps came heavily into play and I learned something new. I know I bobbed my head appropriately when I listened to those stories when I was younger. I know that I was driven to near tears after visiting the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC a few years ago. I didn’t really understand it until I tried to write a story set in that setting—that is when my eyes truly opened.

Like many other authors have said, I hope that I captured the tragedy like it is meant to be. True, I did not write about the Holocaust or about other historical events. Yet, they were in my mind as I wrote of one possible future tragedy—what may happen one day with those are The Indebted.

Thank you for reading. Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on the short stories, novels and blogs I am working on.