Nathan Gemmell
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Nathan lives in the Derbyshire Peak District in the UK. He
lived with his parents and two sisters and in 2019 he
successfully moved into his own flat.
He is a young man with high functioning autism.
He struggles to speak his thoughts and feelings; he finds it
difficult to meet and socialise with others. Writing enables
him to express himself, to verbalise his thoughts and feelings.
He is caring, he has a great dry sense of humour, and he is
very creative.
He enjoys writing imaginative short stories that incorporate
some of his personal feelings and his past adventures. He also
enjoys building clay and plasticine figures. He gives these
figures individual names and character back-stories and then he
writes short stories about them.
He attended a mainstream school but he found school difficult.
His classmates were extremely supportive, but children from
other years and classes not so much. Despite this he continued
to attend every day and he was given an award for the pupil who
had made most advances in his secondary school.
He tries to not allow his autism to stop him from fulfilling
his dreams. He has travelled widely and has even swum with
sharks.
This is Nathan’s first book, about one of his characters. The
name ‘Ruby Crab’ comes from his birth stone, Ruby, and his
zodiac sign, the Crab.
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Bored, dreaming of a different life with
adventure, success and family… Well, that’s just around the
corner, but the path to our dreams is never straightforward.
Nat lives a mundane and solitary life. Day after day, nothing
changes; he wakes up, goes to work, eats, then sleeps—and it all
starts again the following morning. Always he dreams of a better
life and to find someone to care for and to love.
Then, one day, he finds Ruby Crab. She is a beautiful childlike
creature made of pure ruby. She has been abandoned! A refugee,
Ruby Crab exists in a society in which she does not belong.
After spending a lot of time together, they develop a loving
father-daughter bond. Will the world continue to reject her
existence? Will society accept their connection? Will their love
for each other prevail in this world—or in another?
Excerpt
Word Count: 10200
Buy at:
Smashwords (all formats) ~
Barnes and Noble ~
Amazon
Price: $2.99
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| Excerpts |
Ruby Crab |
Chapter 1
Day by day my life was mundane, uneventful, with a humdrum job
at a corner store that paid very little. It seemed as though I
had no future. My daily routine was predictable: I woke up, ate,
worked, slept, and dreamed of a better life for myself; one with
adventure, fame, and—more sentimentally—the start of a family.
The days were so alike that the years passed unnoticed, and
while there were moments of bliss, they were outweighed by the
rest. Once in while something compelling happened such as
meeting a distant relative or an old friend I had not seen for a
while. Or I would get lucky and earn a bonus at work or run into
trouble like an angry stray dog or a small-time thug desperate
for money. Other times I would play games or watch videos on my
laptop. However, nothing compared with making up stories about
the Furries in their own land and writing them down. I hoped
those stories would one day make me rich and successful.
The street I lived on was run-down, grim and boring. What had
once been lively and colourful now looked like a dystopian
future. And the heavy rain and grey clouds only made it more
depressing. There weren't many jobs left and the fields were
poor and dying. I had never seen my town in its prime, except in
pictures. My family and friends lived there once, when the place
was special, before they all went away. In their postcards they
wished I could have been happy growing up. Obviously, I wasn’t.
I told myself that one day things would change; I would live my
dreams, make a lot of money, go down in history, live in a
mansion and never have any problems again. I liked to visit the
past sometimes when I felt there was no future. It seemed that
sweet nostalgia was all I had left.
My old school, for one thing. I gazed out over its fields where
I played as a child. I also went to parks where I used to have
fun as a little kid. And I liked to go out into the wilderness,
as I hated urban life with its torn-down and vandalised
buildings. There were windows that had been smashed and boarded
up, and trash littered the streets. Not many people were on
those streets so I could not say I had much of a social life. I
could not blame the old locals for leaving. Typically, a person
on this street would be an urchin in a sleeping bag surrounded
by empty bottles, or a delinquent loitering at corner shops with
no business there other than harassing the customers and
throwing rocks at passing cars. I envied those who had been able
to move out while the buildings were still tall and majestic and
the lawns were bright and colourful, and the roads and pavements
were not cracked and chipped.
Writing my novels helped me a lot, for I escaped the pressures
of reality and created a different experience—one less drab,
with new adventures all the time. I got inspiration from the
dream I had for myself, the perfect fantasy. But in the end, it
was just a way of getting my hopes up before I snapped back to
real life and I was at my lowest point again. As creative as my
stories were, people did not seem at all interested in my work
and I achieved little success. I found myself envious of my own
creation with its lovely visuals, the likable characters, and
how they lived such charming, good lives in a world of perfect
harmony; one day I vowed I was going see it. My house had
paintings of this beautiful world beyond my home. The two best
pictures in the house were ones I had made. One was of an ocean:
a coast and the Riviera where I hoped to live one day. The other
was a magical place with a forest and a small city filled with
lovely cottages, mansions and castles that I had made when I was
little. I was already drawing Furries before I wrote about them.
They all lived in this beautiful land called Furry Island.
Sometimes I wished I could live amongst them, in a land of
enchantment, adventure and new friends and kin. One character I
really liked was a cute little crab made of ruby inspired by my
horoscope, my birthstone, and the daughter I wished I could
have. She would help heal this ordinary life and I could hold
her close, protect her and feel the true joy, the joy of being a
father.
It was autumn when my life began to change for the better. I had
just finished my shift and was lucky enough to get another small
bonus, but that was nothing compared to the surprise I was going
to get that evening. I was walking home with some groceries, and
when I arrived, I found a bundle in a basket on my porch. I
looked down and saw something red and shiny sleeping in the
blanket. Inside was something not human, a cute little girl made
of ruby. She looked like the crab girl I used to draw, except
this one was clearly an infant. I moved slightly closer to the
basket and when I did, I accidentally nudged it with my foot,
and she awoke. After yawning she began to look around and then
she noticed me. Those large bright rose-coloured eyes stared
curiously up at me and made me melt inside. I noticed she was
starting to shiver; it got pretty cold this time of year. So, I
knelt and picked her up, holding her firmly to my chest. She
continued to shiver in my arms but then my body warmed her, and
she calmed down. The cuteness of it all made me smile more than
I had done in years and she smiled back. I tickled her and she
started giggling adorably, making me feel more sweet pleasure.
Then she playfully held me round the neck with a strong grip,
causing me to choke; her surprisingly large claws were almost as
big as her head. I didn't mind, though. I thought it was
amusing, and she was just a doll.
Bringing her in, forgetting the milk and setting her down on my
bed, I found a message buried in the bundle telling me her
birthday, her name and how to care for her. I decided that until
something happened, she would just have to stay with me. That
evening I put her down to sleep, but she was feeling so lonely I
decided to snuggle with her. After a while I was about to get up
again when I felt a strong hold around me. I decided to stay
with her a little longer; no matter how much I tried I didn’t
seem able to leave. I could not even use the bathroom. But that
was okay; I didn't mind being taken hostage by such a little
cutie. I'd say I had Stockholm Syndrome, a condition where
captives form a psychological bond with their captors. Having
her cuddled up next to me made me grin from ear to ear, her head
resting on my shoulder as she fell asleep, one of her claws
creasing my torso, my emptiness and despair all numbing away.
For the first time in many years my life seemed worth living.
The following few months were amazing. She brought such love and
joy to my life. I take pride in how much I molded her. She
learned quickly to walk and talk, and I taught her to read and
write. The pictures on the wall now included her first steps,
the first bath I gave her, Ruby and me playing games together,
our embraces, her first solid meal, and one with her on my
shoulder doing a selfie.
Previously, time had passed slowly. I looked forward to making a
resolution every New Year and getting a fresh start. Now,
though, it seemed that it had gone by quickly. We celebrated her
first birthday by spoiling her with many sweets and toys, and I
ended up buying her a marzipan cake by accident. I hate
marzipan, but Ruby loved it and ate up the whole thing,
literally diving into it. She was such a mess when she was done,
getting marzipan all over me, that we took a bath together. We
had fun splashing each other and she giggled a lot as I tickled
her toes while cleaning her. Afterward I put on a nightgown and
wrapped Ruby in towels, and we huddled up on the couch and
watched Sesame Street together. Ruby loved Kermit the frog,
Julia and Big Bird.
At night I read her to sleep with an old Disney book I’d kept in
storage. My attic was filled with my old toys from my early
childhood, and she enjoyed playing with my old cars and teddy
bears. |
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