Silhouettes: Poems & Songs Read online

I was born Jesse Contreras in Long Beach, CA February 22nd 1991, the forth child to my mother. I started writing when I was twelve, but took it more serious when I was sixteen. I not only wanted to become a published author, but a singer and an actor. Each aspiration growing as the years passed. I told myself that I should not only follow what I wished to become, but to at least try and give every thing a chance. With that my list grew and continues to do so.

  The name Francis R. Guevara is dear to me because of my God-father who, since a child, always welcomed me and treated my brother and sisters with the same devotion as he did I and his two sons. Not to exclude my God-mother or God-brothers. This name gave me the opportunity to thank them in a different manner than by just being there or dedicating a few words. This gave me a whole new format to say thank you. And my love for them is as great as that to my family and friends.

  My main wish is to inspire people in all parts of the world. Also to share my imagination that dreams up so many different worlds and characters that even I can’t comprehend at times.

  I write from many genres and different points of views. And I hope you enjoy my work. And though this is about me, it’s not about me, because it is life that gives us meaning, as well as those who we surround ourselves with. This is why I didn’t want to do an About The Author segment.

  [email protected]

  www.facebook.com/EthnicConflictOff

  Sneak Preview: Savior of Liovaryn (Short Story)

  The autumn winds were cool as the evening sun began to drift behind a fleet of mountains beyond the forest as the elderly woman, known as a servant by the name Dexanary, gathered fruits and vegetables into a woolen basket she had made in the early hours beforehand. She looked to the sky and knew the time had gone without question. Aware of the wildlife, she knew that she had better return before the wolves drew from their shadowy plains to feast. She quickly gathered her basket and secured it over her shoulder and made her way past Syla, better known as the Land of Harvest, north to Liovaryn.

  As she continued ascending towards the kingdom, the sun faded deeper in the shades of the mountains, and dark clouds drawing overhead. In the distance abreast the ledge of a twenty foot cliff, just right of her, she came to notice that a man lay on the ground. She then heaved the basket from her shoulder and placed it down onto the ground and walked cautiously towards him.

  “Hello,” she said with a moderate tone of concern and curiosity. “Are you all right, dear?”

  She waited for his reply but the man was unresponsive. She drew herself closer and closer, contemplating to herself. Is he dead? Perhaps he’s just resting and lost track of the days time. But as she drew closer, she knew that was far from the case before her. Through the small illuminations of the moons light which wove through the branches of the surrounding trees, she seen that the man had a gash in which the blood had dried over time just over his left eyebrow and down the side of his face. There was a large blackness imprinted over his abdomen, scratches over his chest which weren’t deep enough to bleed but to swell, and his left arm had a bone fragment sticking outward from his elbows flesh.

  She raised her palm to her face, “oh, dear.” She knelt abreast him and heard his faint breaths as she lowered her head towards his chest. Dexanary then drew away from his chest and questioned herself on what must be done. She knew she could not leave the man to the wolves, but also that she was far too weak to carry him all on her own. The unconscious man then moaned as if having a bad dream, or perhaps from her finger gently tracing the blackness above his abdomen.

  “I‘d best take you home with me,” she insisted. She then removed her brown satchel and threw it over the unconscious man before lifting him over her shoulder without struggle to her surprise. He wasn’t as heavy as she thought him to be for a man of his lean, muscular stature.

  Later that night eyes slowly drew open to a fluorescently lit room of candles and the sound of crackling wood hissing in a small chimney with a dimming fire and the humming of Dexanary coming from a shadowy corner just right of him. He tried lifting himself from the bedding he had been laid upon but had very little strength and fell back against his spine. “It‘s best you get some sleep, dear.” Dexanary gently whispered before continuing her hymn.

  The man’s eyes drew heavier and heavier and he was soon welcomed by oblivion as the humming faded into silence.

  When it came dawn and the new sun had settled into the sky, the man awoke in wonder. But before he could question anything, Dexanary entered the room with her woolen basket of harvested fruits and vegetables. “Ah, you awoke at a good time young man,” she insisted, placing the basket on a wooden stool and then walking over to the man as he laid with his head tilted enough to see who had entered. “Would you like me to fix you a meal?” she asked, now standing abreast him and helping him seat himself.

  For a second he said nothing, but upon mannerism he found the words and replied, “Yes, please.” Dexanary smiled at him and walked over to the chimney where a newly lit fire with a metal plate had been preheated over a small cauldron. She then grabbed a piece of cloth and retrieved the metal plate and placed it on a stone counter, reached into a small bowl and cracked two eggs which sizzled as soon as they touched the surface of the heated plate and shifted from a clear substance to a shining white.

  The man watched only for a moment until his focus was broken by the realization that his left arm had been neatly placed in a tourniquet with a brown satchel. Besides that, he was only wearing briefs. “Excuse me,” he called. Dexanary replied with a ‘there is a shirt and pants just beside you’ and he continued. “Thank you.” He then reached for the white fleece shirt with long sleeves and did his best to place it over his bare chest and then proceeded to dress himself with little struggle into the brown pants Dexanary had laid out for him atop a small stool. He then proceeded, “may I ask what happened last night?”

  Dexanary looked puzzled, thinking he would have answered that very question she contemplated all morning long. “Wish I knew,” she replied, now pouring water into a wooden cup then walking over a small round table in the corner. “I found you while picking from Syla,” she announced. “Well, come on before it gets cold.” The man rose from the bedding and felt a sharp pain in his abdomen which made him cringe briefly. “Are you all right dear?”

  “Yes‘m,” he lied.

  He walked over to join Dexanary at the table and thanked her for the meal before taking a single bite. Dexanary simply sat, peering out a small window. Once the man had finished his meal and beverage, he questioned the whereabouts of Syla. “I‘m not from around here,” he insisted before Dexanary could question how he could not know of Syla. So she answered, looking to him instead of what was beyond the window. But before she could finish answering his first question the man asked another. “Where am I?”

  “Liovaryn!” she replied, reaching over the small table and taking the dishes over to a counter across the room next to the chimney. The man wanted to ask much more questions, but instead asked the simplest of all.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I am Dexanary Enavo,” she declared proudly, seating herself back down across from him. “Servant to Lord Nacel and his daughter, Princess Calbar. And you?”

  The question pierced the man with confusion and he began to contemplate for a moment, trying to remember the most obvious of things. But he couldn’t recall anything. What was his name? Where did he venture from? Where was he going? Dexanary intervened his thoughts by asking his name a second time. “I don‘t know,” he announced. His violet eyes shifted side to side, his mind pacing to recall who he was, but nothing surfaced. He was no one. Inexistent.

  “Must‘ve been that bump on your head,” suggested Dexanary, reaching over the small round table and placing her index finger over the man’s left eye brow where she had sewn his open wound. “My guess is you lost sight of the cliff‘s end and fell down. Likely shifted as you fell and broke your arm before hitting your head.” The man thoug
ht for a moment, wanting to recall what he had been doing out in the middle of nowhere, but still nothing came to him. “Don‘t worry yourself, dear.” Dexanary insisted, a smile lifting her frail lips. “It‘ll come to you, eventually.”

  The man then asked another question, “how did I get here?” He began to feel guilty already sensing that Dexanary, the old woman before him whom had to be nearly sixty-five had carried him all on her own. However far or near Syla was, it wasn’t something an elderly woman should have had to endure. As if knowing his building guilt, Dexanary assured him she was stronger than she looked with a closed smile.

  It was later that day, as the evening hours progressed and the evening sky was luminously clear of any clouds, in which Dexanary gave the man a brief tour of the castle. She walked him through the entire first and second floor corridors while explaining her tasks as the head servant to Lord Nacel and Princess Calbar. The man was astonished as to what Dexanary did and how she did it so well.

  “With the help