Chapter One from The Last Grain of Rice...a novel

First read prologue from my blog...

 Chapter 1 

The Anthropologist/Primatologist: Mark Penner  (2005). 

The temperature plunged as the sun set over the Gulf of St Lawrence, Mark’s bentwood rocker creaked over the old and worn pine floor boards of his Port Hood home as he sat contentedly beside his wife Celine. An onshore breeze slid across the cold water invading the porch over looking the Gulf causing him a slight shiver. His body conceding to the temperature. He savoured the first of the invigorating Spring weather.  Not much for meditating he did absorb the cleansing and tranquil feeling of detachment and the contentment of solitude his home provided. His thoughts lulled by the rocking motion of his chair revelled in the joy of simplicity.  His thoughts were interrupted by the vibration of his Blackberry.  He allowed the epileptic device to bounce across the coffee table, observing it with disdain and resentment, as the persistent noise disturbed his silence.

  

  Unwilling to pick it up, but unable to ignore the plaintive sound, he reached for his cell. Koko, his Chocolate Lab, lay contentedly at his feet jumped up as Mark broke his rocking rhythm stretching his arm across to the driftwood coffee table muttering, who the hell is calling me now?”  He pressed the green button to accept the call.

   

  “Mark Penner speaking.”

   

  A brisk polished voice came through. “Mark, it’s Julia Harrow from Harborline Publishing.  Do you have a few minutes to discuss your manuscript?’

   

  “Depends, Mark said, leaning into his rocker. “Is this about syntax or potential lawsuits?”

    A soft laugh. “Neither.  We’ve been reading over your draft of ‘Under the Canopy,’ describing your time in Borneo. Your experiences are extraordinary and we are definitely going to print.  We realize you are reluctant to leave your sanctuary to come into the office to discuss the book further; so I have a few questions to run by you. A few details about Izzy Tan and her father and of course ther enigmatic Ernest Masters.

    “You mean parts you want me to soften for public consumption?”

    “Not soften so much as to clarify, as you make some pretty strong accusations about culpability, corruption, money laundering and so on.”

    Mark was silent for a moment.  “The issues as I outline are about corporate responsibility, forests disappeared and so did people. It’s not complicated.”

    “We agree totally Mark your environmental perspective is valid and powerful,” Julia said. “But we need more context.  For example, your description of Ernest Masters is complicated?  What happened to him?”

    Again silence from Mark. “Ernest championed the Penan and Dayak.  He was viewed both as villain and saviour.  He was somewhere in between,” Mark said quietly, “that’s the problem with real people.” Mark ran a finger across a scar on his wrist he had received during a forest barricade protest directed against Tan Lumber organized by Ernest during his Borneo days.

    “Ernest believed that progress did not mean roads, as they meant destruction, not progress.  To him the forest was infinite. The forest wasn’t land. It was legacy. It was memory. Cut the trees and you cut both.  I’m writing it all down because memory dies faster than trees, people forget and issues fade.  I don’t want what Izzy Tan and her like did to be forgotten, or forgiven. Another pause.

    “Mark,” Julia said gently, “we want this book to reach people who’ve never thought about these issues. That means more nuance.”

    “You want nuance.  I want honesty.”

    “They can be the same thing.”

    Mark smiled despite himself. “Maybe he said but don’t ask me to make Izzy Tan a hero and Ernest a villain. It doesn’t work that way.

A gull cried outside, absurdly loud in the winter air.

    “So,” she continued, “would you be open to expanding those chapters with more detail on the Penan and their perspective, some of the internal conflicts?  Let readers sit with the issues longer.”

    “Yeah,” Mark said finally. “I can do that.” He glanced down again at his well worn manuscript laying on the table in front of him.  His labour of love, and of pain dedicated to a cause he hoped the publisher and readers could grasp.

    They said their good-byes.

    Mark sat quietly with Celine listening to the winds and the waves their memories lost somewhere between the waters of Port Hood and the forests of Borneo.  The final story, at least the book version, was still taking shape years later, after the events. He would start with his own story, the anthropologist, because that was the easiest starting point, then move on to the social activist, his friend, Ernest Masters, and finally to the villain of the story, Izzy Tan. Where the lives of these three people intersect brings one to the threshold of understanding, to the intricacies of the very heart and soul of the equatorial rain forest itself.  It is to know Borneo.