Would you read this book?
This is an excerpt from a book I’m writing; I hope some of you will take the time to read it. I’m 43, with two books already in print, and I’m hoping to finish this one by the ned of the year. I just wanted to see what people thought. This is from the middle of the book, so forgive me if it doesn’t make much sense as a story. I just want to see if anyone had any suggestions. Is it clear? Is my style of writing okay? Is this interesting? Any feedback is helpful. The names of the characters mentioned here are Sgt. Iago King and Nathan (Nate) Moore. Thank you all!
The cars on the ferris wheel were the usual beat-up plastic buckets, shaded from the sun by beat-up plastic umbrellas. They hung, swinging from the outer spokes of the great wheel, perilously high over the hard, dusty ground. Iago experienced a moment of nausea. Why people liked these things he would never understand.
Nate reappeared within a few minutes, and the man in black vanished before it occurred to Iago to watch where he went.
“Let’s talk, Sarge,” said Nate in a flat tone, a hint of a smirk in his voice. He motioned for Iago to step into the next empty car. Sgt. King hesitated a moment. He didn’t know how well he would fare: whether he could carry on an intelligent conversation or, should an argument arise, maintain his composure and stand, if he was suspended midair from a dubiously sturdy, rotating Erector set. Nate looked as if he was well aware of this fact, and waved encouragingly at the open entrance to the car. Iago took a deep breath, and in his most rigid, military stride, stepped into the bucket and sat down. Nate took the opposite bench, and the wheel slowly creaked upward.
For several minutes their conversation consisted of silent stares, each trying to size up the other. Both were doubting their knowledge of the other’s mind, wondering what would be the result of this conversation. Nate’s face disclosed nothing; that, in addition to the harrowing rotation of the ferris wheel, put Iago ill at ease. With all that had gone on in the past few days, his once-sure knowledge of Nate’s personality and motives had evaporated, and Sgt. King had no idea what to expect of this encounter. There was a subconscious hope, on his part, that Nate would be able to offer a rational explanation to justify what he had done, or, better yet, deny it entirely, say he’d been framed. In this, however, Iago was doomed to disappointment.
The wheel had slowly completed its first revolution and their plastic gondola had begun its second ascension before either spoke. It was Iago who broke the silence, leaving the single syllable “Why?” hanging between them, a question Nate took his time in answering.
“Look down there,” Nate instructed. “You see all those people? They’re all people, too, just like those kids.” Iago obeyed and, against his better instincts, looked down to the ground, which was fast slipping away beneath him, and all the happy people at the carnival unaware that they were the subject of a twisted demonstration. “If you’ll notice,” Moore continued, once reasonably sure he had Iago’s attention fixed on the people below, “The farther away from them you get, the smaller they appear. You can’t tell exactly what they’re doing or hear what they’re saying. You can’t see their faces. All those details that define them as individuals disappear.”
Iago felt a slight chill, despite the heat, not knowing what Moore might say next, not really wanting to find out. Their car was nearly at the top of the wheel when it eased to a stop. They swung slightly, alarmingly high above the ground, and Sgt. King’s attention was momentarily disengaged from Nate as he thought he might be sick. Iago recovered quickly, and Nate started talking again, his tone cool, even, and detached.
“And when you’re all the way up here, all those people are just little colored dots.” Nate paused and Iago looked over at him. Nathan Moore’s expression was placid, unfathomable, unreadable, unemotional. There was another long silence between them as the distant sounds of the carnival drifted quietly up to their little plastic bucket.
“Iago, let me ask you a question. You don’t have to answer me, but think about it and be honest with yourself. If one of those little colored dots just . . .” he searched for the right way to say it, “. . . stopped moving . . . would you care? Would you care if one of those dots went away forever, if you had something to gain from it?”
Silence regained its hold on the conversation as Iago attempted to absorb the question he’d just been asked and the implications it conveyed. Nate’s expression did not change as he watched Iago. Sgt. King’s mind reeled, fighting furiously to suppress its frightening first answer and to keep any traces of his reaction from crossing his face. This lasted only momentarily before he gained complete military control of himself. Iago’s brain produced a satisfactory response fairly quickly: He’s crazy. He’s completely off his rocker.
It was probably true.
Iago looked down again at the tiny little people below, reminded himself they were people, eliminating any traces of another answer he might have had to Moore’s question.
His back was to Nate, and without turning around, in the same flat, impersonal tone Nate had used, he said, “I’m calling the police.” The ferris wheel slowly began to move again as he fished for his sister’s phone, taking their car up the last stretch to the top of the wheel.
Thank you, Maggie, he thought emphatically as he pulled the shameful pink phone from his pocket. As his fingers searched the keypad, he turned, just to make sure Nate wouldn’t try anything. The seat was empty. Nathan Moore was gone.
Forgetting the call immediately, Iago looked over the side of the car. The figure of a man cold be seen climbing expertly down the slowly rotating spokes and beams of the wheel. Reaching the bottom, the figure looked upward and saluted him before quickly walking off through the carnival, unnoticed.
Sgt. King sighed, put Maggie’s phone away, and watched him go.
From where Iago sat, Nate was only a colored dot in the crowd.