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Have you read my books?

Dear friends, readers and newcomers,

It’s been a while since I mentioned the books I have self-published. Self-promotion is a weird business for me so I’ll make the intro really brief. Maybe you would like to download one or two or maybe more, they are all available for FREE on Smashwords.

Follow the link after each excerpt to get to the book title.

Thank you so very much and I hope you will enjoy the stories.

Gina@alifelesslived

WHEN SHE CAME TO TOWN BY Gina Gallyot

A mysterious woman comes to town with jars and oranges. She helps a chocolatier feel joy again and create some Valentine magic in a snowy town.

She paid the gypsy two jars for her fortune to be told, her crystal ball smelled of a pack of cigarettes, the beads partitioning the entrance caught the light and reflected the hope Teresa felt as the gypsy woman’s fingers stroked the smoky orb.

“You will meet him in the month of the Sow Moon,” she murmurs and rolls her eyes as she predicts Teresa’s love of a life time, it’s too smoky and Teresa coughs desperately.

“Excuse me, but I asked about jam not a man,” Teresa frowns with distaste of the whole charade, but the gypsy has her fingers sticky with sweet jam and lips sealed tight in delight.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1067509

THE REAL GIRL by Gina Gallyot

A girl with memory loss, a boy who has the answers. Fate brings them together on the cusp of the vernal equinox in a shattered world.

One night he works up his courage. He sits under the back porch light, along the dirty alley, thinking of something to get her talking about herself and start remembering. He worries she won’t listen to him; he ponders under the light and watches as the moths take flight. He hears her coming.

The back door creaks open and she appears, in a dark green dress that makes her look younger than her features, she sits beside him on the narrow bench. The air is filled with static. Though the factories are far away, the current it generates never dissipates across the miles. The hum in the air holds the arc of time between them. He knows he must break the ice but he doesn’t know how to start. Then she begins to speak.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1067507

THE OLD BOOK SHOP BY Gina Gallyot

A bookshop owner is visited by eccentric customers. He lives in the bookshop with his cat, Monty. One day a woman reveals something important from his past. A story about family bonds and the strength of love.

“Hey lady! Hold on a minute, show me what you just took from my shop!” I try to sound as rude as I can at this early hour, before I have even had my coffee, the cheek of this lady! But she ignores me and walks to the door and Monty follows her. What is going on? Monty stop at once, no more following customers out, Monty get back here now! But neither Monty nor browser lady with the cane and eyes like mud pools hear me. I scratch my unshaven face and sigh.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1067502

THE BOOK OF STARS by Gina Gallyot

The earth is covered in ice and snow, some hate it, others love the cold. On the winter solstice night, fates will align and change will take place, an icy cold world longs for sun and warmth, three time travelers have the power to restore light. The secret lies in their combined powers and a book.

The brothers are stunned. What creature is this?

Idar the eldest of the two suggest they take her home, their father would know what to do with her. Like he knew about the bundle they found left on their doorstep that morning, it contained a long coat and a book with no writing yet Father said it was worth something, they liked the ice globe it was pretty but Father snatched it away before they could look closely. Beka the younger agrees and so they untangle her wings, cracking the ice around her and lift her out of the bushes and place her in their hunting sack. She fights to be released. But the brothers are stronger and she is overpowered.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/998569

RAW EARTH by Gina Gallyot

The struggle to protect Earth from invasion and destruction. When humans became too greedy and stripped earth of her resources, the last water source must be protected.

He treads slowly through the grey grassland, ash settling in his wake, dusty clusters of bones lying in the heaps of forgotten tragedies. He picks his way through the dry cutting edges of a thousand blades. The nicks on his skin drips blood. His blood streaks bold yellow lines on his pale white skin.

As he continues towards the Far Mountains in the North he calculates the time it would take for him to reach the river, measuring the portions of the stars in the dying sky. Soon the light will disappear; the final light of the century. He does not have much time.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/998552

FULL PRICED LOVE by Gina Gallyot

A love story, also a story about tough choices and the fragility of human life. A deeply poignant love story. How much will you do for the one you love? What cost will you be prepared to bear for that love?

He is shocked when her roommate tells him, about her diagnosis and how she has escaped to her parent’s place. Her father still owns the colour print shop, run down just like her parents; he thinks as they show him in.

She is lying down in the backroom, beautiful against the soft dim light, faded by life’s intensity and the burden she carries. Almost like a photograph time forgot to colour.

“Stacey, you can run but I will follow and bring you home to me, each and every time.” And he kisses her tears as she reaches out for his hand.

“This relationship has no discount tag. Full priced love.” he says as he holds her safely in his arms.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/998479

Fata Morgana

I sit here twenty floors up in my glass walled transparent box. I see the twilight song begin; beyond my glass walls I see a mirage form. The sun is floating in the sky, it’s a ball of fire that’s rising instead of falling, I blink my eyes, and it’s still there. It’s soaring above the horizon, higher above the green streetcars, above the yelling river and the silver bridge that arches over nowhere.

The crimson ball of fire hovers above the towers in this city that shimmers with the hopes of dreamers. I feel the vibrations of a thousand ambitions and the fine threads of unchained memories curling into the blurred lines of the solar song sheet.

I sit here twenty floors up in a room with see through walls; I feel I am floating like the sun, in an enchanted castle built by a heartless witch. The glass walls of my transparent box reflect my image back to me, nameless in the crowd, forgettable, replaceable.

Any time now the temperature of this castle will change, and the vaporous foundation will fade, and I will crash land back into reality. My glass box is not a place, it’s an imaginary space and I’ll return to who I really am, an unknown entity, a ghost in the throat, falling to my broken dreams and shattered hopes.

But while I am in this bewitched castle in the sky, for just a little while I feel closer to heaven’s door yet further from grace than ever before. I have travelled across oceans and landscapes looking for redemption in this life less lived and found it in the music of the rising sun.

A life punctured by grief,

A life worn out from wandering,

A quill fluttering in the wind,

But then, your palm touches mine, guiding me back

Tearing me away from the sun’s deceit and my own disbelief

Giving me ground for my feet

A place where my words won’t fall apart,

And a safe home for my heart

Maybe it’s time to change the tune of this tired sun-song and sing a fresh one.

A Fata Morgana (Italian: [ˈfaːta morˈɡaːna]) is a complex form of superior mirage visible in a narrow band right above the horizon. The term Fata Morgana is the Italian translation of “Morgan the Fairy” (Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend). These mirages are often seen in the Italian Strait of Messina and were described as fairy castles in the air or false land conjured by her magic.

©alifelesslived

Love and hope,

Gina@alifelesslived

Falling Between Stories

I am falling between stories
I heard that “Big Girls Don’t Cry”
A girl dressed in a red hooded coat looked lost
Wandering in “The Jungle of Memories”
“She Will Be Loved”, is the song he hums
He’s still wondering why she left in a hurry
Was it something he said?
Only fools don’t know why
I watch him look at her walk on by

I saw a Shiseido model dressed in Long Black,
lips so red, eyes blank
My iced cream coffee sweated beside the Gula Melaka tart
such a palm sized tease, she posed in the evening breeze
no care in the world, emptied of life and purpose
she begs the camera to love her

I looked away when a vagrant crossed my view
Holding in one hand a convenience store bought
Instant Noodle Maggi Cup, slurping while standing up
The city benches too clean for him, beside him
an addict gasped as he inhaled his caramel flavoured pod

90’s music played on the stereo; the coffee shop stood
like a capsule in the wall, one long hall
Everyone pushed to the side
As memories danced to the old tunes along the aisle

Duran Duran was Hungry like a Wolf
Le Bon said Save a prayer for me now
Fergie cried with her Black-Eyed Peas
“I hope you know; I hope you know”
But how do we tell hurting tears from joy
and pain is never a gain
when a person is smiling in vain

My memories spilled open
of working in this city in a city, in my twenties
with a crosshatch of hopes and disappointments
with round eyed Will and ambition walking the rain-hit streets
Finding my way home after working 9-5
“It’s getting late, dark outside,
I need to be with myself and center
Clarity, peace, serenity”

Someone once asked me
Do you feel robbed after hearing a person’s story?
I said for that I need to have a lack of empathy

So back to the story….
I saw the girl who loves cake walk out
Refusing to look back at the boy who was behind her
While her dessert chilled in the display refrigerator
She took her coat and grabbed her bag
Refusing to be another’s second best
In a world that did not care for her wonder
She organised her heart and found real treasure

And so, another day winds to an end
In the city of my birthplace
A row of cakes goes on discount
“It’s getting late, dark outside,
I need to be with myself and center
Clarity, peace, serenity”
I took one slice and smiled my way home
Thinking about the girl who never ate her cake
Feeling sorry for her and the story she never got
To finish

As I sit in a café and people watch
I become the narrator, the protagonist, the actor
And I hope one day you’ll get to know Her
and all the Other Times
From all these stories I write here
All She was once and now starting to Be

A fun little poem to write while café lounging in my city,
inspired by the following:

Music and Artists
Duran Duran, Fergie & The Black-eyed Peas, Maroon 5

Books
Hamra and the Jungle of Memories – Hanna Alkaff
The City & the City – China Miéville
Post Office – Charles Bukowski

Location
Bean Brothers Starhill, Bukit Bintang (a literal translation!), Kuala Lumpur

Food
Gula Melaka – local brown sugar
Maggi Cup – convenience store noodles

©alifelesslived

Love and hope,

Gina@alifelesslived

Float

On this hill the sands of time brushed up against the future under the hawk that flew like a kite with the wind beneath his wings. Here the prints of our feet trampled the earth, as the strong voice of the tide curled and swirled over the sandy bay. You are the quiet and you are the roar, here in my sacred space, you shape this melody I feel in the twilight air.

On this shore the waves touched the sheltered hopes of the lost that found land,
a home that was a place to tether the madness from tired living. The falling sunset was so pungent it ached the bones of the ardent watchers. You saw my saline tears join the souls swimming endlessly and held that moment for me wordlessly.

On this moment, the burning rays of liquid gold kept its promise, its rhythm dripping into the dreams of faraway thoughts, and the sun gazers believed time wasn’t just wasting away. I felt life oscillate on the racing waves, you offered me your calm breaths as I grasped at the cold salty air.

In the quiet space of my melancholy I hear your heartbeat, its rhythm pulls me into your thoughts, you know I’ve begun slipping off the landscape and your heart whispers bring me back from the edge.

Here, on this fading light of day I shredded the last of every worry that had held me together. I saw my cerebral plan to stay bound to earth melt into the last hours of an autumn day while the sky spun a spell escalating the desire to soar beyond the boundaries of gravity. I taste the atmosphere you split with such grace, letting me in, encompassing my fragile walls so I would not be left behind. You wrap your steady strength around my crumbling universe and offer me the joy I need to feel safe again.

My grief found its wings here and met the hawk sailing under the copper twilight air. Here, on this land of the sailing sun my heart met the sea. And he said, welcome home to me.

©alifelesslived

Love and hope,

Gina ©alifelesslived

My grandmother’s kitchen

I hear the sounds of grandmother’s kitchen
Before I even smell the aromas she creates
I walk on in between thin wooden door frames
The floor of sand from the South China Sea
Cushions the soles of my broad flip flop feet

Chickens, ducks, maybe a cat or two
Run free pecking, clucking, mewing too
The chaos of animal chatter harmonise
With human laughter, we high on the rafters
Above grandmother’s sandy kitchen floor

When I first came to grandmother’s house
I never understood the things I saw
For a well, man-made, sat, room in the middle
Of her kitchen’s grand sandy floor, with
A netted cover to stop us falling in, like a door

I watched grandmother work, every move she
Made, made up for the lack of words she said
Drawing water with a bucket and some rope
Boiling a cast iron kettle on a charcoal stove
Steam filling my nostrils, eyes eating all I saw

Grandmother’s kitchen wasn’t cosy or welcoming
It was bare bones, utilitarian, uninspiring
It did the job, much like she did, with no fuss
Feeding mouths always hungry, always unsmiling
The sandy floor, the deep well, things of ancient
History, where generations gathered in unity.

I don’t have a photo of my grandmother’s actual house or kitchen. It’s one of the houses on this historic site in Melaka. Previously called Heeren Street it’s now named Jonker Walk. So this photo, taken in 2019 is as close to how it would have looked when my grandmother was alive.

©alifelesslived

Push the window latch

Push the latch
Crack the bedroom window
Split it open just a little bit

Can you see
A rattan chair my mother gave me
Where I sit and rock dreams
Write adventures I haven’t been on
Spin stories no one reads

I’d always wanted white painted
Wooden windows
The kind with chocolate bar panes
Through which I see the world in frames

Grey curtains hang obediently
Defies wind and gravity
Holds the dust from my skin
Worn, dull and thin

Windows are enigmas,

From within one looks out
And yearns for more
Yet those outdoors peer in
Wishing they had another’s things
To cherish and adore

Truth is
There’s less you can see
But more you imagine there to be

A candle burning in the rain

I saw a candle in the rain
I thought the water drops would snuff out
But the flame flickered strong
The rain came down
Harder, fuller drops

I saw the light bloom
In the hazy morning mist
Equatorial raindrops
Pearls in the sun
Tears heaven shed

I saw a candle burning in the rain
Oxidising water in air
I wondered
What pattern this rhythm made
Deep within water’s secret space?

Today is the eve of the year of the Rabbit. *”2023 is the Year of the Water Rabbit, which previously occurred in 1963. The Water Rabbit is said to have the ability to turn unfortunate events around”. Many will find comfort in those words. And comfort promotes courage. The encouragement we all need to carry on.

This morning my neighbour began preparing for the annual Lunar New Year prayer offering. Her husband lit 2 candles and some prayer joss sticks.

It started as a light drizzle but by the time they’d set up the offering table on their porch the raindrops were building in size and momentum. I saw the 2 candles bravely weather the rain.

If you have lived in South East Asia you’ll know what I mean about those huge raindrops, that sting and explode!

As I watched the candles burn in the rain I thought of the words of Masaru Emoto in “The Secret Life of Water”. *”His experiments showed human thoughts and intentions can physically alter the molecular structure of water. Specifically, the water crystals were altered simply through conscious intention. Every water molecule creates a pattern when energy is applied to it.” I wondered what pattern would emerge from the combined forces of heat, light and sound? What pattern emerges around your heart and mind when you allow life’s energy to take its natural course?

Take comfort in those words that make your heart resilient. By your own acceptance of what will be, the future is already bright and shiny.

Much like the view I had today, of a candle bravely burning in the rain.

taken from Wikipedia

Within the light

“Rising from the past, my shadow is running in silence to meet me” – Anna Akhmatova

I lost myself
Travelling inwards
On that journey
Age prescribes

Now I’m older
I pack a lot lighter
Then my younger self
Knew how

The tunnel hums
A hollow tune
Calling
and keeping time

Within its yellow vortex
A portal revealed itself
Nothing was lost
Just quiet for a little while

touch the hope

And in days to come I may forget how your smile formed with the gentleness I have always loved. How your soft voice asked me how was the setting sun and night time stars. As the day moves towards its brilliant end your spirit pulls a little further away from me. For into the unknown quiet peace you seep, gradually loosening the grip on all that has broken you here.

Forever this warmth that I carry with me will be that of you and the miracle of life which created a beating trusting heart. I breathe the silent memories of milk stains and grass wet fingerprints. A tired sigh escapes and travels heaven wards encountering something of wonder the universe hasn’t found a name for yet.

It is truly in these sacred prisms of thought, in the silent feeling and unspoilt words that I can touch the hope another lifetime promises to bring us all home to each other. And in the quiet moments of peace our skin will remember the other’s, our forms will recognise each other, briefly so briefly just before our last memory creates a new story.

snow groomers

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

beneath the ache you feel for a distant memory

the hormone of darkness brings you sleep

of night shifts and snow groomers

dancing across the universe

of a velvet sky trimmed

with a chaotic terrain

where the sun sculpts the ice

on the equatorial line

passing through the furthest

reach of your consciousness

you count the seasons that float before you

as you turn towards the sun and touch the ice caps

the chaos melts into one final clap of thunder

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