Prologue for my upcoming book, "Mother's Keep."

The ancient Greeks thought all their Gods lived in this area.  I know that now. And I know the truth. But you have to decide for yourself.

            The end of my life was a stupid  accident. We were down at the wharf in Gibsons. It was a hot sunny day with a low curdled tide and black mud flats.

            We'd cover our bodies in black slime, head to toe, then dive into the warm shallows and trail the black behind us in the salty chuck. I had done it a million times. I walked to the end of the wharf, laid down, and let the black mud dry in the hot sun. It pulled my skin and tinged. 

            It cracked as I stood up on the wharf, steadied myself, and dove off the end. Sailing underwater I felt the mud chipped and trailed bits, soothed water massaged me.

            Then I struck my head on something sharp. Turned out it was an old steel chemical barrel that someone had flung overboard years ago, instead of taking it to the dump. Stupid, like I said.

            I drifted in and out of consciousness. I could vaguely hear everyone on the wharf calling.

            "Louis, Louis!"

            But I drifted under the water, caught in a current  that pulled me into the estuary on a rising tide. I was cold.  Maple leaves glinted through the water and blue sky: green and blue, a shimmered nothingness.

            I am a stone. But a stone has life. I can prove it.

            That's what this story is about, that, and, like I mentioned earlier, the god stuff. You can think of me as someone in heaven looking down on everyone. It's not like that, but you can think of it like that.