New Foreword

Here is a new prologue that I wrote for my short story "A Drive In a Car". I will be including these in my new book "Collection of Short Stories" which comes out next week.



A DRIVE IN A CAR by Roger Gerald Scott

Foreword
My father died in 2006, aged 78 years old. Despite the huge shock, I remember thinking that I had no right to complain since there were so many people out there in the world who never knew their father. I was able to appreciate, especially in retrospect, that my dad died a “good death” ; the heart attack that killed him within 10 minutes actually spared him of the likely prospect of years of mental and physical degeneration and all the pain that might entail. Besides, my father, by all accounts, had lived a full and happy life. Even if I got to play God for the day and could preside over his mortal fate, what life sentence would I be passing on to him if I let him continue to live?

Whatever the hidden blessings, his death was still a nagging reminder of my mortality. Yes, someone seemed to whisper in my ear as they pinched the skin on my naked arm, you will die one day and your children will grieve for you just as your grandchildren will grieve for them. Here's a hard slap in the face just in case you were ever tempted to forget. There is no comfort to be found in death, only a path littered with unanswered questions. There were so many things I wish I had told him and so many apologies I wish I had made. Most of all, I never got to say goodbye or tell him how much I still miss him.

All these things were in my mind when I wrote this story. How to write and explain my loss and his influence without getting soppy and sentimental was a challenge so I came up with the idea of writing about our relationship in the form of a metaphorical children’s story. Writing this way, I found it easier to accurately illustrate our relationship and depict the empty void that his death left inside of me. I only hope that you may find the same perspective and comfort in reading it as I did when I was writing it.


You can still buy this book at a very low price (99 cents!) at :

Smashwords