This will be unlike any post you’ve read here before.  A brief digression by way of preamble – this is a concept that has been kicking around my brain for a while.  My fiction muscles are a bit rusty and they need flexing, so I thought it might be worthwhile to try them out on you, my cherished and loyal readers.  Mostly, I need to prove to myself I’ve still got the chops.  This piece is tangentially related to my novel in that it is a side story, set in the same world (i.e. same rules), though a thousand miles removed, in a different country, maybe not even at the same time.  And the tone is significantly different, as is the protagonist, the style and so on.  My thought is posting this as an ongoing saga, with new chapters released periodically (shamelessly cribbing the strategy from Amira Makansi with her wonderful “Porous” tale); a story unfolding in real time, witnessed by you, evolving as it goes.  I’m eager to hear what you think.  So, without further ado, here is VINTAGE.

Update (8/24/2021):  Well, after mulling it over for a long time, I have decided to try to pursue having this professionally published, so I will be removing the copy from my site.  I will leave the comments up however, because I really did appreciate the feedback way back when.

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Part Two can be found by poising your cursor ever so delicately upon the following words and applying the gentlest pressure of a click.