A memory, a memory of a boy who wanted more than pain, of a girl who wanted more than death, and an Isle that should not exist.

The Isle of Red is a small, unassuming, quiet place. It is just large enough for a college, a small town, and maybe even a few more unusual sorts of places. Of course, the townsfolk practically know each other as family. Flush-faced regulars can be found toasting just about anything in the Briar's Brew, then, a few streets away, the same haggle of older women stationed themselves on their perch as they did every day from one of the few balconies in Central Square. They fuss away now, spouting the usual gossip as they watch us all from on high. Then there is the College here on the Isle of Red. My college. It has been often described as an unusual place by a good deal of people on the mainland. If they only would visit -why I am sure they'll soon have a change of heart, they may even come to find it a quaint sort of place, odd but in the same way a tattered old quilt can be both odd looking and warm, and especially soft. We teach mostly the same sort of disciplines here, with fantastic and absolutely normal professors.I must conclude that I am quite smitten with myself. The stage is set with a level of perfection that would have astonished me in my youth. They are coming. Derek will follow her. He knows the weight of reality too intimately, but she will be his true north if only for a short time. A beacon in the storm to show him the stunning pastels and brightness the sun may yet refract through his thinner, sharper pieces. Theoline will lead as she always has- well not always, not yet. She holds onto questions feverishly tight, that one. Lights them up inside like a new type of fuel without the slightest worry of being burned. She knows... There is but a certain few who can look at a map and find nothing where I stand but the Atlantic Ocean. And still, there is earth beneath me, a noisy pub down the road from me, and several people clucking conspiratorially on a balcony above me. She knows... that the Isle of Red doesn't belong here. Neither, technically, do I.

(Hello! Chapters will be posted regularly on this website and also at Booksie: Almost a Good Person, book by KenjaminButton (booksie.com)Stay tuned for Chapter 3 to be uploaded on 5/28/2022!)