Extract

Here is a first draft extract from Chapter Two of Inter Vivos - warts and all - for your enjoyment. After I've done my first edit, I may show you the same passage after it's been cleaned up. The extract is not very long, I know, but I wanted to keep it short and sweet, so you have time to read it! Enjoy.

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I was never allowed to go into the board room. Though to get even as far as the corridor that led to that part of the house would have been a monumental achievement for my eight year old self. To say I was watched is an understatement. ‘Kept prisoner’ would be a more accurate term, although my parents did it mainly out of concern, at least, they did at first. Even though Inter Vivos had not yet been officially announced, there was word on the grape vine that things were not all as legitimate as they appeared. My father's people went on the defensive, and I was not seen in public again, not as ‘Nox Izotz’ anyway. Around the white facade of my family there popped up protesters, placards and chants, and for the first time since my father came to power, there was opposition. But what did I care, at that age? All I was concerned about then was firstly, to get well and away from those stupid machines, and secondly, to get my parents to allow me to go out and play.
The months after the operation were almost worst than the time before it. I was sealed in a clean room, allowed no physical contact, no food that wasn't through a tube. But I couldn't really complain, seeing as I was weak and sore from the procedure. Ghost nurses would float around my bubble, the plastic overalls they wore making distinctive creasing sounds that would wake me even from pill induced sleep. My mother did many of the check-ups herself after that, and I guess part of it was because of her protectiveness of me, and the other was out of necessity, to keep me hidden, to keep me a secret. As the months passed, I grew stronger, and my mother was forced to unplug me and let me move about a little. The clean room stayed however, white and clinical, insipid and horrible. The light was harsh and unforgiving sometimes, and I, a pale ghost with jet black hair in the middle of all this whiteness. Though even the whiteness and the sterility couldn't keep out the heat when summer hit, and that lead to me being allowed to sit out on the veranda.
“What's the point of a clean room now, when the child's just been exposed to all the elements?” My mother sobbed when I got my way and was allowed to sit in the shade on the porch.
“She's fine, isn't she?” My father replied, condensation from his iced tea staining the front of his white shirt.