Stirrings
About this ebook
Stirrings:
Every morning, in cities
across America, people arise to the dawn of a new day, sometimes to the ringing
of an alarm clock, sometimes awakening to some other stimulus. In Martin’s case
it was shouting he heard outside his hotel window. How was that possible? His
hotel room was on the 11th floor. To the couple necking in a car on Mulholland Drive,
it was pink glow of dawn that reminded them that the night was over. For
Shirley, music from her clock radio meant time for coffee before work, although
the thought of going to the office depressed her. For an immigrant Vietnamese
boat woman, morning labor pains meant her son was going to be born an American
citizen. Chris, waking at 5:00 P.M. knew it soon would be time to hit the
streets again, avoiding the police while trying to find a customer for the
evening. On a remote mountain hillside, a bobcat hunting quail perked its ears
at the sound of a pickup truck carrying a man and a boy as it drove on a dirt
road in the valley below. Elsewhere, Mr. Kobayashi reflected on his good
fortune in meeting Thomas Ellesmere. Eight people, living vastly different
lives, each longing for a better day—what if their paths should cross?
Fantasy Boutique:
Shirley broke the mold and
left her dead-end job, went back to college, earned a degree against the odds,
and fell in love. On the verge of a new life, a vacation was warranted and she
flew to a Caribbean island to relax and
contemplate the future. Wandering along pristine beaches and in small shops in
the village, she found a shop called Fantasy Boutique. The proprietress shocked
Shirley with a prophesy that she might realize her dream—an unspoken
fantasy—while on the island. A boat sailed into the harbor with a stranger on
board, but then sailed out again. Then a ferry arrived with Martin on board.
The Night is Far Spent:
Thomas Ellesmere grew up in
Honolulu, attended Stanford University,
and then joined the Army. At Schofield Barracks in Hawaii
in the summer of 1941, he married his childhood sweetheart before shipping out
to the Philippines.
Six years later, after combat in the Philippines,
a stint as a POW, and several years with the occupation forces in Japan, Thomas
returned and entered MIT as a graduate student. Thomas was recruited to work
for a computer science company in California,
saw a different future in the explosive growth potential of small computers,
and decided to start his own company. He called Elsa in New
York and asked her to fly out to California for a few days. “Why?” she asked.
“So we can shop for a wedding dress,” he replied. Under Thomas’s guidance and
with his partner David’s technical skills, the company grew and soon was in key
partnerships with former enemies in Japan
and Germany.
Thomas recruited Akira Kobayashi as Chief Financial Officer and made other strategic
hires. Elsa succumbed to cancer, leaving Thomas wondering how many more blows
he could sustain. When David decided to move on, Thomas created a new
operations manager position. The woman he hired for that position ultimately
transformed the company and gave Thomas back his life and dreams.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
Craig B. Smith: During his professional career, Smith wrote over 100 technical publications but also published poetry and short fiction. He wrote a textbook, Energy Management Principles (Pergamon Press, 1980), in addition to serving as editor of several books on energy conservation and efficiency. In 2003, he began writing full-time and published How the Great Pyramid was Built (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004). A paperback edition was published in 2006 by HarperCollins and a Spanish language version, Guiza: Cómo Se Construyó La Gran Pirámide, was published Editoria Crítica, Barcelona, Spain, in 2007.
In connection with this work Smith was featured on the Arts and Entertainment Channel’s “Great Builders of Egypt” and in PBS’s three hour series “Secrets of the Pharaohs.” In 2006, he appeared in the History Channel’s “Egypt: Engineering an Empire and in the National Geographic Magazine’s “Naked Science series: Pyramids.”
A sailor, Smith has always been interested in the sea and Extreme Waves was published by the Joseph Henry Press of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, followed by Lightning: Fire from the Sky in 2008. His latest non-fiction book, Counting the Days, will be published by Smithsonian Institution Press in May, 2012. It tells the amazing survival stories of six POWs from both sides of the Pacific conflict in WW II. In addition, he has published three novels, House of Miracles, 2010, Stirrings, 2011, and Malaika’s Miracle, 2012.