MISSING CAROLINA
by Jacobus Jornada
Copyright © 2008
All Rights Reserved
This is a novella set in a fantasy world which is similar to our own, but as if technology
had developed in a different way. It borrows one character, Harrison Beckman, plus his wife,
from the unpublished novel Threshold of Twilight, by Frederic S. Durbin, author
of Dragonfly, which is available on Amazon.com. As currently
envisioned, Missing Carolina ends with a jump into Durbin's Earthwithin,
which, like many fantasy worlds, is similar to Tolkien's Middle Earth. Threshold
mentions a sequel, The Delving, which I plan to undertake at some point. There
are currently 31 chapters to this effort. The storyline is to a large
extent autobiographical; the main characters, with the exception of Harrison Beckman and
Sheldon Horton, and most of the minor ones, are all modeled on real life the year
after I graduated from high school.
The tandem bicycle club mentioned in links at the bottoms of these
pages offers a "real-world excursion,"
if you please, into a different world which bears some resemblance to Placebetween. A half
family coach is the same as a tandem; a quadruplet--bike for four riders--is
known as an articulated family coach; a quarter is the same as a solo
bike.
Here is a thumbnail of a full family coach (known as
a Rhoades Car in our world).
You've probably heard that truth is stranger than fiction, and if you don't
believe it, here is a picture of Steel V, where I actually lived during one
school year. I stayed in Steel IV during summer camp.
If you would like to sample this world,
please click HERE for Chapter 1.
Following that are links to Chapters 2-13, 20, and 23. Please direct comments
to: carolina@totalusa.net
If you like what you read, I will let you know when more chapters are available; I'm
working on poems for all the chapters, and revising them as I go along. I also have to
decide whether to have the characters jump into The Delving or simply continue
in the world where they started. I'm leaning toward The Delving.
-Jacobus Jornada, 11-12-2008
The Mileposters Web site has information and
many pictures about this tandem bicycle club, which has made several trips over
300 miles as well as many shorter ones, on bicycles built for two, three, four,
and five riders.