The Big Blue Sky-Title

The Big Blue Sky

A Novel
By


W.C. Turck

Exclusively
At
Blogspot


CHAPTER ONE




Western delegates protest Ahmadinejad speech to UN(AP)
Western Delegates walked out of the United Nations General Assembly chamber on Monday hours before Clinton's speech as Ahmadinejad began his address at the opening of a nuclear review conference,.
Representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and New Zealand were among the countries that walked out as Ahmadinejad took to the podium. Israel was notably absent from the summit as it began a review of the Non Proliferation Treaty at the UN headquarters in New York.
Ahmadinejad blamed in his address the failure for global nuclear disarmament on the "policies and practices of certain states, as well as the inefficacy of the NPT and the imbalance that it curtails."
"Some” he went on to say, ”including the Zionist regime, have been equipped with nuclear arms, despite international measures to promote disarmament,"
"The Zionist regime too consistently threatens Middle Eastern countries with its nuclear arsenal," adding that the NPT signatories consider "any threat to use nuclear weapons or attack against peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international peace and security."
Both the United States and Israel have suggested the use of military force against Iranian nuclear facilities, which they allege are part of a covert nuclear weapons program. Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons, insisting its nuclear ambitions are for peaceful electricity. The US says that by not being forthcoming about its nuclear ambitions Iran is becoming further isolated in the world community…



One

The sky was overcast and as dull as antique pewter. The occasional rain had fallen heaviest during the graveside service, pattering upon umbrellas. The rain lingered and glistened upon neighboring stones and awakened the autumn scent of wet grass, fallen leaves and pine.The day felt as deep and dark as the surrounding forest running almost unbroken along the Lake Superior shore west to Minnesota and east to Canada. That endless forest, spotted by hidden lakes, deeply troughed logging roads and cold rushing creeks was a blessing to the hearty souls of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a burden to the unaccustomed and punishing to those who failed to grant her ultimate respect. In the rain it felt like a lament, as if the land and sky and lake had joined in the grief of that tiny little cemetery in Marquette.

Doug Springer was last to leave the grave, pausing a moment to say one final goodbye to his wife of almost eighteen years. His daughters were ahead of him, nearly to the appropriately black Lincoln Town car provided by the funeral home. The funeral director, a tall, broad-shouldered man waited at the open door, offering the girls a sincere and sympathetic smile. Doug, tall enough in his own right, with neatly trimmed dark hair and stormy brown eyes was thinking about nothing more than getting out of the dark brown suit and into something less constrictive and funerary. He wanted to be alone with his grief and his thoughts. In this suit he felt like it was some sort of costume to the conventions of death.

And he worried about the girls even more. Megan and Dana had taken their mother’s death very differently. Megan, at sixteen, was the spitting image of her mother. Like Jane, she was athletic and slender, with shoulder length auburn hair and rich emerald eyes. She dreamed of following her father into journalism, and seemed to take all this with a deeper perspective by being there for her younger sister. Like her father she accepted the sense that nothing in life is fair. Dana, two years younger, with short dark hair and moody brown eyes, wore her grief as though she was victim of some eternal injustice. For her this was proof of some Karmic punishment for her father’s absence traipsing around the world all those years. She chafed at the feeling she was being punished for her father’s sins as well.

Between Doug and the girls, Arnie Hamlin stared off thought the trees, lost in thought. A cigarette burned slowly away in his fingers In a long black raincoat he was a silhouette against the sea of gravestones. Arnie, who had been editor of The Times of New York for going on thirteen years now, seemed fully out of place here, like he should be hailing a cab in Manhattan than in a lakeside cemetery in little Marquette, Michigan. Doug stopped when he reached Arnie, who came up and hook and arm in Doug’s. Together they walked slowly up to the waiting car.

“Take as much time as you need,” said Arnie, patting Doug’s forearm gently. “The paper will keep. But you’re a talent, Doug, and there’ll always be a place for you at The Times.”

Doug stopped. He drew a long breath and looked up into Arnie’s eyes. “I’m done.”

“Tough time, my friend. No pressure whatsoever.”

“Arnie, I appreciate that. I’m finished with dangerous overseas assignments. I’m done with being away for months at a time. When we invaded Iraq I didn’t see home for thirteen months. I’ve missed so much. I missed time with Jane, and I’ll never get that back. I want to see my daughters grow up. I want to make as much of those lost years as I can.”

Arnie nodded. “I won’t press the issue.”

“Thanks for that,” said Doug. “And thanks for coming all the way up here for the funeral. It really meant a great deal.”

They began to walk again. The girls were already in the car. Their public tears were over. Now they were just numb. Like Doug, tears would come in private.

“You were the best, Doug.” Arnie began again. “Both Gulf Wars, Afghanistan. You’re the only Western reporter the Iranians will talk to with any measure of respect. Hell, Doug, you’ve managed to go places and get stories in the Mideast most Western reporters would sell their mothers to get. You have a very rare talent.”

“Not much of a talent,” he replied. “I just try to be a good guest everywhere I go.”

Hamlin smiled wistfully, recalling the impossible days during the Iraqi Invasion. The flood of information, from wild and uncountable sources overwhelmed even the most seasoned and well-staffed newsrooms. It flowed in torrents, the true, the false, lies, confusion, an avalanche of images, endless streams of video, much of it without context was stunning. The paper hung on at enormous expense to its team journalists in the field. First among them Doug Springer was at the forefront of the invasion, calling in dispatches while rounds popped and shells burst all around. Fever was the only word that adequately described those wild and insane days. God, thought Arnie Hamlin, those were the days!

“Think I’ll work on that novel I’ve been tinkering with the last couple years.”

“A novel, huh?”

“safer that way,” Doug said. These days if you tell the truth and call it non-fiction people will sue ya.”

They stopped beside the car and shook hands. Arnie held Doug’s with both hands. “All right if I keep in contact?”

Doug nodded. “Hope so.”

He watched as Arnie walked slowly up the hill and through the gravestones. Doug let out a long deep breath. There was just too much to sort, and it was just too soon to try. He still had not taken the time to grieve, and knew the days and months ahead would be excruciatingly difficult for the girls Ana Doug wondered over the rest of his life. He wondered whether he could ever love again, or if he should. He watched Arnie walk away and wondered if he wasn’t watching the world walk away as well. Nor could he know that history and fate, and the hubris of men who believed they were stewards of either would soon find him again. For now there were the girls and his sorrow, which seemed like an impossible chasm to cross.