Sunday Six

I'm well into Ghost Story and feeling good about it! Just gonna post the opening of Chapter 1 because I kinda love it. I think I've mentioned the basic plot already, but just in case: this is an AU where the SID members (most of them) are international graduate students in English on a year-long grant/exchange program.

The lollipops weren’t cutting it.

Zhao Yunlan ground his teeth on the candy’s stem and tried to direct his irritation at Da Qing, two seats over, passed out against the window he’d insisted on having for the flight. Between them, Zhu Hong turned the page of her magazine and slid a glance sideways.

“I thought you were going to bring nicotine patches,” she said in the prim voice of someone who quit smoking in undergrad.

Zhao Yunlan shoved his sleeve up to reveal the patch on his arm that wasn’t helping at all as far as he could tell. His fingertips itched. His lungs ached for sweet, heavy, comfort. He closed his eyes to imagine it—shaking a cig from the pack, placing it between his lips, holding a lighter to the tip, the sound of tobacco and paper catching flame, then that glorious sensation of smoke and chemicals flooding his lungs and bloodstream.

He threw back the last of his watery whiskey soda in a last-ditch attempt to keep from clawing the skin off his face.

Full disclosure: the story absolutely takes place at Kansas University (where I worked for 20 years) which really does house the specialty programs/centers I incorporate into the story--The Confucius Institute, The Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and The Project on the History of Black Writing. I name the programs, but leave everything else vague (yes, I'm using some of my besties from the English department in the fic--even asked them what they wanted me to use for their names). I don't plan to name even the country they're in (or the one they're from) to avoid political shadows and other potential weirdness. It's non-powered AU (there's no Dixing or aliens) but it's not this world. Also, the house they move into is the house where I lived for seven wonderful years here in Lawrence. The only changes I made to the layout is it's not broken up into an upstairs/downstairs apartment. Everything else is accurate, including the terrifying basement.

I hope people like it. I'm having a blast writing it. Just over 5k in.