Happy New Year! (Featuring "New Years on Rue Bourbon")

Happy New Year everyone! As some of you know, I am currently preparing myself for a trip down to Orlando for New Years. Last year, I was prepping for a train ride to New Orleans. I'll be making the drive tomorrow with my co-captain, Rylan. For a good six-eight hours tomorrow, we'll be driving on down and chilling to some Willie Nelson. Well, a bit. I don't know how much he'll enjoy that.
In honor of the holiday, I'm gonna put up something I wrote last year to commemorate the journey out west to NoLa. I hope y'all enjoy it. In the meantime, please keep us in your prayers, and watch the game. Go DAWGS! Sorry for the lack of biting wit and interesting comment, but I don't have time. See y'all in Mickey Town!

New Year's Eve On Rue Bourbon

The weeping city of New Orleans sits on the banks of the Mississippi River. Most unfortunately for them, these banks tend to get above their limits on occasion, which has caused much suffering for the people living in this Pearl of the Mississippi Delta. Thankfully, the city of New Orleans rose from the proverbial, and in some places quite literal, depths to restore such a beautiful Mecca of the South to its former glory.
An annual tradition in this Paris of the American South is a classic gridiron match-up known as The Sugar Bowl. New Year’s Day in New Orleans usually features fans of the best football team in the South preparing to defend the region from some interloper from another part of the country, either the East coast, the mid-western plains, or in this one particular case, the Hawaiian Islands. My good friend and I partook of a gentle train ride from our home in Atlanta to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve so we could enjoy this elegant contest of football.
These shut-eyed college students we were could never have anticipated the experiences that lay ahead for us in that fair city. Before stepping foot in town, there were Appalachian Americans drinking beer and cajoling up and down the aisles of the train! It was senselessness on rails, I tell you. Yet this was only the beginning.
Being New Year’s Eve, we decided to stretch our usual bed-time of strictly 10pm a little more so we might enjoy our first Midnight on New Year’s. After meandering through the shabby streets littered in trash and conspicuously passed-out individuals, we were starving. So we tried to find food on what we’d heard was the fanciest, most reputable, cleanest place in town: Rue Bourbon. I’d expected the sweet aroma of Creole cooking to waft through the vine draped walls of white and iron-wrought balustrades to my delighted nose, but not the noxious fumes of some unknown substance between battery acid and a thick fog that won’t lift. The smell was suffocating. I later learned it was the smell of alcohol and stogies, things that I’d only rarely seen before, coming from such a prestigious, upstanding Southern university. People crowded on the street by the hundreds, blasting out loud music that led my ears to bleed and tripping all over each other. I had never seen such shameless fondling and random hurling of beads, which I am proud to say I have not seen since. When I thought we’d found safety in a girl I knew from class, she did something I shutter to recall, yet will for the benefit of my reader. She lifted her shirt in front of us. I was startled and appalled, and successfully dodge her to this day, for fear of public blushing.
The worst event of the night was when a man-yes, a man-brushed up against me and took hold of my overcoat. Fortunately, it was a cold night and I had a coat, or else I faint to think of what else he may have gripped. I pushed him away in disgust and kept on walking. I tell you, I am yet to experience so much sin and personal degradation in a month of Sundays as I did on that one street the last night of the year. And I tell you now, if I ever visit that deplorable town again, it will be with armed guard for enough time to see the game and leave. I assure you, I will never spend New Year’s on Rue Bourbon again.

Adam W.

As The World Turns...Without Me (Featuring "The Miracle")

Hey, y'all. It's me again. Sorry it took so long to update. Since the last post, I've finished finals, the Dawgs have finished their season (and on a sad note, I might add), and the rumors of the Hadron Collider destroying the Earth have mostly finished. So, the world goes on as it did and as it has and as it likely will until someone invents something that will follow through on it's promise for complete world destruction.
But do you ever feel like the world moves on without you? As Christmas gets closer, and we get more excited about the coming season, and I am certainly in that number, I feel as if life moves on without me involved. I look around at the lives of people around me and wonder what I'm waiting for. There are those who are married, pregnant, raising their families, people who are in love, people who are in careers, and people who are changing their world. What am I doing? What am I up to, and when will I join the ranks of society? I feel like I'm sitting in stasis right now, and I gotta tell you, it isn't fun. Please keep in mind a couple things as you read this little time waster before I get to latest publication. I do not wish to be married with kids immediately. That is simply an example of people moving on that I wanted to post. And I'm not some anxty teenager sitting in a dark corner with lines on my arm and lines in my hair, but someone who just wonders what is going on. Being in stasis is not fun, but I guess I should just resolve to pray for movement or patience, whichever comes first. I should pray for growth in this time of stasis, because Heaven knows, when the world around keeps moving, and I decide to jump on, growing won't be as easy or nearly as fun. It'll hurt. So I guess I should keep growing now, and wait for stasis to end. I'll keep praying for that. Because it's right to pray for something...
And on that note, I humply present to you another original short by Adam W. Wynn, "The Miracle." This story is interesting in that it comes out of a personal experience, much less dramatic than the one included herein, but in my own twisted way, appropriately similar. I prayed for a miracle, only to receive it in the most unlikely way. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave comments, and take no notice of the missing Hindi Word of the Week. I didn't feel like including that feature today. No one ever responds to it!

"The Miracle"

Little Jimmy Wilkins prayed for a miracle. He prayed for a miracle every night for three years. There was no reason. There was nothing specific. Little Jimmy Wilkins just figured it was right to pray for something, and since he did not know what else, he prayed for a miracle.
Little Jimmy Wilkins prayed for a miracle every night for three years. And every day for three years, he expected a miracle to arrive. It never did. There was the time his mother’s car was struck by a semi on the highway. Though she lived, the family fell to a terrible financial burden. Then there was the time his sister went to the hospital with cancer. Though she lived, she was never the same again, refusing to speak or love, or let people get close to her. Then of course there was the time his father was fired. He did not live. The strain of all that had happened drove him to park his car with nothing but a gun and a note.
Little Jimmy Wilkins prayed for a miracle every night for three years. Though it never came, he prayed on nonetheless. He prayed for a miracle because it was right to pray for something. After a while, Little Jimmy Wilkins knew that what he needed truly was a miracle. Nothing short of this would save his family. He wanted nothing less than a miracle. Nothing big. Just enough to maybe lift their spirits. Little Jimmy Wilkins was in a dark place.
In the time of his prayers, seemingly everyone had rejected Little Jimmy Wilkins. His sister would not talk to him, as she took an involuntary vow of silence from the world. His mother couldn’t afford to not work and be with the kids. His father would just as soon die as spend time with him. And nobody in the world wanted to love Little Jimmy Wilkins.
Little Jimmy Wilkins was denied a miracle every day for three years. After a while, this got to him. Little Jimmy Wilkins couldn’t stand being ignored. He wanted a sister to talk to, a mother to hug, a father to play with, and a God to listen. More than any, he wanted a hand to touch. There wasn’t a girl in the world he wouldn’t have talked to. Not a girl he wouldn’t have given a chance. But there wasn’t a girl in the world who would ask. Little Jimmy Wilkins was, in every way, alone.
Little Jimmy Wilkins stood atop the Tanner Bridge. After looking out over the river below, Little Jimmy Wilkins decided to make his own miracle. The one thing that never left his mind since that day a few years back when his father died was this. Little Jimmy Wilkins’ father was smiling. The man in the coffin had a wider smile than he ever had before. Most people explained this away by saying that he needed some way to fit the gun in, but he didn’t use his head. He shot his heart. Little Jimmy Wilkins’ father appeared happier dead than he did alive. He smiled.
Little Jimmy Wilkins prayed for a miracle every night for the last three years. In three years, it never came. Little Jimmy Wilkins knew that the time had come to ignore every voice around him and just make his own miracle.
By this time, Little Jimmy Wilkins was Eighteen. The river moved on underneath Little Jimmy Wilkins, unaware of the struggle above. The river moved on to a place that he would never see. The river moved swiftly on back towards the life that Little Jimmy Wilkins willingly left behind.
It was a cold evening, the night that Little Jimmy Wilkins decided. The moving air pushed back the hair on his arm. The cold caused Little Jimmy Wilkins’ eyes to tear. He wasn’t sad. Little Jimmy Wilkins knew what was coming, and for the first time in three years, he laughed. Standing there, arms open wide, ready to move his weight just a little more forward, Little Jimmy Wilkins laughed. This was such a hard laugh that he nearly lost balance and fell backwards. Little Jimmy Wilkins had never felt so free, and never felt so ready for anything. His anticipation was finally gone.
Little Jimmy Wilkins had prayed for a miracle every night for the last three years. But tonight, he knew it would come. Little Jimmy Wilkins no longer anticipated, no longer anxiously sweated, realizing it was all but a step away. There he was, above the tree line, the gray clouds above, ready to wash Little Jimmy Wilkins away from the world, away with the river. People would wake up the next morning to see him in town, just passing by, and something would strike them on Little Jimmy Wilkins’ face they had not seen in three years.
Little Jimmy Wilkins would be smiling.
Little Jimmy Wilkins had prayed for a miracle every night for the last three years. He had been ignored every night for the last three years. He knew that tonight, nothing would ignore him. Little Jimmy Wilkins commanded the attention of the world tonight, as he stood there, arms open wide, eyes readily shut, and feet moving forward.
Little Jimmy Wilkins did not leap. Little Jimmy Wilkins stepped over the edge. The air drowned his lungs, forcing in like a bad realization just now arriving. Once more, Little Jimmy Wilkins prayed. Little Jimmy Wilkins knew it was right to pray for something, and now at the moment of his death, it was even more apt. Little Jimmy Wilkins had prayed for a miracle every night for the last three years. And every night, he had been ignored. What made him think this would be any different?
Little Jimmy Wilkins hit bottom; he looked up. There, Little Jimmy Wilkins saw his father smiling. Not like in the coffin, a smile of release, but anew. A smile of unsure acceptance. It could be inferred that he was glad to see Little Jimmy Wilkins again, but not so glad about the manner in which it was done.
“Father, why did you forsake me?” Little Jimmy Wilkins requested of his father.
“Forsake you I did not, but rather tried to save you. I was not enough for you, and never would be. I wasn’t who you needed,” was the answer so strangely given by father.
“Father, why were you smiling?”
“Between the bang and end, there was an eternity of thought. And in that fierce moment, it occurred to me. This was true folly. But for once, I was glad I wouldn’t be there to accept it. For it was all over. And I’d never deal with it again.”
Little Jimmy Wilkins hit bottom.
Little Jimmy Wilkins was still laughing as the water freed his lungs.

Little Jimmy Wilkins did not die.

Little Jimmy Wilkins was denied his own miracle.
Due to a drought, the river was barely at waist height for Little Jimmy Wilkins. It was just high enough for Little Jimmy Wilkins to break both legs and suffer extensive shock, leading to a lengthy coma.
When Little Jimmy Wilkins woke up, there was a young woman there he’d never seen. This nurse had apparently taken great interest in his case, and decided to devote herself entirely to caring for Little Jimmy Wilkins. She wasn’t unattractive. She was indeed lovely enough that when Little Jimmy Wilkins first saw her, it felt like Heaven. Or just another dream, there was no way to be sure. To put it simply, she was beautiful.
Little Jimmy Wilkins was soon flooded with visitors. It had been three years since he fell asleep. And every night for three years, the town prayed for a miracle. Finally, on this very day, Little Jimmy Wilkins was awake, and their prayers were answered. For the first time, Little Jimmy Wilkins heard sister scream his name. Apparently, the shock of his own actions drove her to cry, and then to speak. For the first time, he felt his mother’s arms wrapped around him. For the first time, Little Jimmy Wilkins knew that father died for him, not to get away.
Little Jimmy Wilkins spent the next few months in the hospital with the nurse. By this time, Little Jimmy Wilkins was twenty-one. And so was she. When she had free time, it was spent with Little Jimmy Wilkins. She would read with him, feed him, and do all the things he could do on his own, but would much rather not. Little Jimmy Wilkins would never walk again.
However, she spent her life with him. For the next three years, Little Jimmy Wilkins grew accustomed to his new pair of legs, the ones that pushed him around. To be frank, he grew quite accustomed to these legs. Finally, they married. Every night after that, for the rest of his life, Little Jimmy Wilkins never once prayed for a miracle, but he knew it was right to pray for something. Instead, Little Jimmy Wilkins spent every night for the rest of his life thanking God for the miracle that was his wife. And his sister. And his mother. And his father. And ever day that God had ever blessed him with, for that indeed was the miracle of Little Jimmy Wilkins.

Well, I hope y'all enjoyed "The Miracle." It is probably one of my favorites. A feature you may or may not have noticed is that most of my works take place in the fictional town of "Horizon." In many ways, Horizon resembles the very real place of Dacula. However, it is also a place of my own creation with it's own particular mannerisms and inhabitants. The best part about Horizon is that it is home. Wherever you are from, my purpose in creating Horizon is to create home. When people look off into the Horizon, where is it they look? I say that they are looking towards home. Whether this is a home they've been to and grown in, or a home they are still searching for, people look towards the place they feel at home. And I hope that Horizon can grow to resemble that place. Thanks, y'all. Have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, and as we approach this most wonderful of holidays, please do me the honor of remembering the first miracle of Christmas, along with the miracle of Little Jimmy Wilkins. We are blessed for each day we are given, and Christmas Day most of all. Thanks.

Adam W.

Phil. 3:12-14