Introduction Professional Services • Developmental Editing • Copy Editing • Manuscript Critique • Proofreading • Major Revision • Ghostwriting and Collaboration © 2008 Ricky Weisbroth |
<back Journey of the Heart is a 340-page manuscript that I ghostwrote for Anfu L. The following excerpt is from the Introduction.
A full moon. I am lying in bed awake, as are many others in the compound, when the insistent whine of the air raid siren cuts through the silence. All around we can hear the sudden rush of activity. Our Cantonese maid, called Number 4, scoops Junior from his little bed and dresses him in heavy quilted leggings and a jacket. He doesn't cry. He's been through this before and, in fact, thinks we are in for a whole lot of fun. Vincent and I dress hastily in our warmest clothes. By the door we keep a bundle with an extra blanket, crackers, and some powdered milk and water, in anticipation of these evacuations. The cave will be damp and cold.
In the street outside the courtyard, an old transport truck idles loudly and belches exhaust. People are already scrambling aboard. Despite the rush there is a certain orderliness, a sense of urgency but not panic.
The transport takes off, joins a host of trucks and buses from other housing compounds, crammed with bank employees and their families, administrative workers from the factories and international firms, hundreds of people, taking us to the outskirts of Chengtu, to the safety of the caves. The winding gravel road is rutted and bumpy, the slowly moving caravan a snake of jiggling lights.
In the distance we hear the drone of the Japanese fighter planes. The caravan abruptly stops, headlamps are doused. People dragging children and old folks erupt from the bellies of the transports and stream toward the fields. I clutch Junior tightly in my arms. My resolve is clear: only death will loosen this hold. I am moving, yet I feel frozen. Where is Vincent?
The low-flying planes approach rapidly and my ears vibrate from the appalling noise.
They are overhead now, flying in formation. I look up to watch and am startled to see daylight, sunshine. Relief surges through my body. My daydreams have carried me back more than five decades. In reality it is 1996, I am in San Francisco, and the Navy's Blue Angels are doing an air show over the Bay.
Since emigrating from China in 1956, I have lived in the United States. Forty years. I am an old woman now and this is a story about change. I, like most people, have lived my life with varying degrees of success. In the hope that my story may be of interest to others, I am satisfied. <back |