The Book of The Wounded Healers
(a study in perception)
Frame and Chapter 1 – The First Communication

I finished Tag on Sunday, 1 May 2022, at 8:11:40PM (aren’t time-stamped files great?) and took a few weeks off to catch up on other things. The May Tag posts were already entered so I let them run their course (I put posts into my blog week’s ahead. Usually).

I edited The Absolute Limit of Sound (a longish story at about 8.5k words), started on another section of the Tales of the Northern Clan arc, and started work on The Book of the Wounded Healers.

My first draft of Wounded Healers dates from 12 Sept 1991 at 9:14:08AM (that time-stamped file thing again. Gotta love it). The next was in Jan ’92, March-May ’92, Aug ’92, Nov ’92, a few rewrites in Dec ’92, the next spans mid Dec ’92 through Jan ’97, and there were two complete rewrites in Sept ’99.

I’ve always thought this a powerful story and must have realized I was not up to writing it.

Until recently…

Told in first person, the storycrafting and storytelling hold up pretty well. There are some edits, yes, and not enough to have me toss it out.

My greatest challenge this time through is time. The story is firmly set in the New York of 1991. Things and places which gave the story relevancy are gone or changed.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

I’ve decided on a story frame (the opening of the story shared in this post).

Let me know what you think.

The Book of The Wounded Healers
(a study in perception)

DCS #2105302036/JSOC PWBL501122 – THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT IS THE LAST EXISTING PUBLIC RECORD OF THE INCIDENTS OCCURRING 4 JUNE 1991 TO 4 AUG 1991 CODE NAME IRON SNOW AND IS THE WORK OF THE NAMED BEN MATTHEWS (1955-2021)

ALL PUBLIC RECORDS (INCLUDING THIS) HAVE BEEN EXPUNGED. THE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN PROPAGATED – FILMING OF A NEVER RELEASED SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE – ACHIEVED A 99.83% ACCEPTANCE. THOSE NON-ACCEPTING WERE ANATHEMATIZED AS CONSPIRACY THEORISTS.

ALL RECORDS AND DOCUMENTS ARE CLASSIFIED UNDER THE WARREN PROTOCOL AND ARE SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE IN 2041. THIS COMMISSION WILL DETERMINE AT THAT TIME IF THE PUBLIC’S INTEREST WILL HAVE WANED TO THE POINT OF DISINTEREST, AND IF SO, SHALL BE RELEASED.

PLEASE ADVISE REGARDING FULL SECURING OF ALL IRON SNOW MATERIALS.

Chapter 1 – The First Communication

{Hello.
My name is Ben Matthews. I am a mathematical linguist. My specialty is simultaneous/spontaneous languages. I’m thirty-six years old. A black man, a little over six feet tall and around 173 pounds, once leanly muscular and now going to pot, brown eyes, slightly graying at the temples, and never able to grow a real beard.
Who am I?}

Continue on to Chapter 2 – First Meeting