SOL AND LUNA a political fiction by P. Bruner Summary: Sol was just another frustrated young man from Seattle. But now that his years of servitude peddling top sirloin have come to an abrupt end, he finds himself seeking vengeance against the system that enslaved him. With help from a group of neo-pagan politicos known as 'Griffins,' he begins carrying out sinister plots targeting the city's financial infrastructure. When after a few weeks Sol starts showing signs of increased radicalization, his girlfriend Luna desperately tries to help him uncover a path to inner peace, before it's too late. Excerpts:
Chapter 2: "Sol sprinted across the on-ramp at 7th Ave and Union in front of two approaching vehicles traveling at high speeds. The further one from him almost clipped his heels as it blazed by, horns blaring. Indecipherable shouts echoed from the passenger window. With tremendous effort he sprinted up First Hill and past the mighty Patriot Bank towers before coming to a stop outside an abandoned storefront. His heart felt as if it might burst through his breastplate. Fog brewed in the early evening, thickening fresh shadows. Sol decided this was a good thing, the atmosphere would make for better hiding. But with three blocks still to go, little was of comfort. Irreversible damage had been done. As of five minutes prior, he had become a wanted criminal en route to the most obvious location."
Chapter 4: "Everywhere he looked he saw faces of desperation, some angry, some crude, some completely insane. The contrast was impeccable. In every other direction on any other street he could see masses of wealthy patrons huddling under covered pathways, carrying enormous shopping bags, chuckling and chit-chatting. Then, not more than a few feet away, there were pimps, dope fiends, schizophrenics, banging their heads against the walls, trudging through polluted puddles in overused shoes. Here, in the heart of the city, the juxtaposition between rich and poor, safe and unsafe, loved and unloved was illustrated as clearly as pictures in a children’s book. It was as though the inner workings of the city were those of a finely oiled machine where the cycle of supplying and buying moved on at a steady pace like the interior cogs of an enormous clock. The entrepreneurs turned their cranks steadily inside their stores, while the tourists and local patrons revolved around the downtown diameter, held in place by some subconscious centrifuge. Those who wiggled loose – the beggars and thieves, the mentally unsound – were but scattered nuts, springs and bolts that had fallen out of place and onto the city floor, to be swept away and forgotten. They were the dysfunctional pieces and parts, perpetually out of service; scraps of discarded metal, left to gather rust in the winter storms."
Chapter 7: "Her bag jingled with the sound of jumbling honey jars as Luna trekked along the canal. She walked carefully, conscious of her weight upon the clovers, weeds, potato bugs and fleas, so as not to disturb a single living thing unnecessarily. A few ambitious stars showed through the clouds in the April sky. Their images shimmered in the water, twinkling as though they had ignited from some mysterious light source in the depths below the surface. Trembling birch and cherry blossom trees swayed above the footpath that meandered westward. Gently, she reached up to caress their branches as she strode, collecting pink petals in her hair while humming a tune she knew not the origins of. She crept by benches where couples were touching and tasting and smelling and seeing each other and listening to each other’s hearts beating and she praised them, secretly by smiling while invisible in the scattered shadows. Soon she found herself nearer the water, where the grass was wet and the scent of earth abundantly sweet and soothing."
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