Julie and I's popular Kindle book "Abandoned Places: Abandoned Memories (Desert Edition)" is now out in print on Amazon! With the photos and graphics, as well as the storytelling, it was an ideal match for a print version.
This book is an interesting and unique genre. We went to 12 abandoned sites around the desert where Julie photographed them extensively and I did a psychic read at each site and brought to life a scene from the past in this now bleak setting. The lesson in this exercise is that even after the people leave a site, they still remain in some form for others to take note of, whether it's a feeling of deja vu, a shiver, or a sense of being watched. Humans leave information behind and it just takes a tuned person to unscramble it. Below is a sample from an abandoned motel on Gila Bend:
The slender bleached blonde dumped the contents of her massive purse onto the motel bed. The harsh desert light shone in, creating dust motes and clouding Mike’s vision of the loot. Joelle was very adept at shoplifting, but her choice of items to steal was like the men she slept with; indiscriminate and purely based on a whim at any given moment. Apparently, today she raided a Circle K on the aisle filled with cat food, can openers, paper cups and tin foil.
“What the hell is this shit?” Mike tossed aside a bottle opener.
Joelle slid down onto the bed and sighed, leaning against the headboard and studying her afternoon’s work. She bit her lip and looked up at him with big pleading eyes.
Mike ran a hand through his hair and took a slow breath. He could swear the woman wasn’t 42. She seemed younger than his 29 years any day. Sometimes, she was so childlike he felt responsible for her and that did not sit well with him. He entered this turbulent relationship with the assumption that she was older, wiser and had a plan.
“Baby, we can’t do shit with this!” He tossed aside a chewy dog bone. “Why would you pick that up?” He gestured.
She shook her head and looked down, her dark roots showing. “I don’t know. I just wanted to get a dog.” She sighed. “A dog?”
He chuckled hopelessly and got up, pacing the floor and testing the air-conditioner again. God, he hated the fucking desert! Why had he let this woman pick him up in a bar in Houston and have him zigzagging the Southwest with some promise of going to California? It had been four weeks and they were plenty close enough in Arizona. Why was she putting it off?
"We’re living in a ratty motel and you want a dog?” He snorted.
It wasn’t until her silence alerted him and her narrow shoulders shook that Mike realized she was about to crash again. Joelle never admitted she did coke, but it was pretty obvious. She’d almost gotten knifed in an alley behind a bar in Albuquerque doing a deal. It was one of the first signs something about her was broken inside.
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