Here is the beginning of one of my stories that never gets published. Others may not, but I like my own style.
How many roads lead to Heaven? If you trip on the bridge, do you fall? Had some event marked Una, did a single moment fix her to her chair? Or was it an accretion of forces, a slow accumulation; a maze of impasses that calcified her bones to the rock? It may be either or both, as damage comes at every speed and the effect is the same.
Ought she to find someone to cultivate, and not simply care for her? Had this been Frank’s desire before he was cast in her mold? Love loves and does not coerce, but would he love her without her wounds? Then there was the farm, the mere duty of it that drained her, although she wanted it. Suffering and balm were the coin of her realm.
We had been expensive and must make the debt good. Our value varied with the markets, which careened. We received love; our debt increased with undeserved kindnesses. Still we dreamed of loving an object that would not set itself below us, or above. A diamond or a comet, we thought, a fiery gem that would hit us right in the chest.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 