T.F. Torrey's Things Worth Reading

My friend Susan M. has a theory about life: that every good or bad thing that happens has a corresponding Equal But Opposite Reaction, or EBOR for short. She thinks that the EBOR phenomenon is a certain feature of life, and if you watch for it, she just may have a point.

Earlier this afternoon (Wednesday, I’m writing this late at night), I received a proof copy of The Desert King, and it looked very good. It was very nice to hold, and it had no obvious typos or other errors. It looked as though I could approve the proof, and, at long last, The Desert King would finally be available in print. What does this have to do with EBOR, you may wonder?

Well, about an hour later, my wife took our car to drive her mother to a dinner engagement, and a few minutes later I got one of those dreaded calls: “This is Norma. We’ve been in a bad accident.”

After that, it was a busy afternoon and evening. Apparently, they were slowing down, almost to a stop, at the red light at Earll Drive, when a black Lexus behind them didn’t see the traffic stopped (the light is rarely red) or something. He slammed into the back of our car, which threw our car into the car in front of it, and that one into the car in front of it. The impact was hard enough to break the driver and passenger seats in our car, crumple all four doors, knock Ceyshe’s glasses off her head into the back seat, and knock out her cell phone (which is why her mother was calling me). Ceyshe’s mother was taken to the hospital (which is adjacent to the accident scene), where she was treated and released. Luckily, there don’t seem to have been any serious injuries, but our car is seriously totaled.

EBOR: I take the accident as a sign. This evening, I approved the proof of The Desert King (and Winter Kills, by the way), and it is now available at my Lulu.com storefront. It will soon be available at Amazon.com as well, followed by other online bookstores and bookstores around the world. After I post this, I will be updating the pages for The Desert King and Winter Kills to reflect the new editions, and then … I don’t know what will happen, but it seriously might be big.