“…You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet.” – Nick Fury
Some of the stories in my book 12 Stories High are part of The Fable Avenue Saga™. There has already been a reference to the story Ah Moor: The Woman That Wore a Veil But Had Nothing to Hide. The character Sarinda Fallows, in The Ghost of Gabriel’s Horn, makes a references to Nazirah and her medicinal discoveries. Sarinda reveals that she has a copy of Nazirah’s medical notebook. Nazirah is the main female protagonist of the story Ah, Moor. A closer look at the first past life of Pete Peters and Virginia Tara-Peters will reveal that the story Ah, Moor also serves as their past lives in Moorish Spain. Pete Peters was Aswad, and Virginia Tara-Peters was Nazirah. In this next book for Fable Avenue, two more stories from 12 Stories High will be shown as having a place in Fable Avenue's mythology.
This wasn’t entirely intentional when I first composed the stories, although Ah Moor was partially intentional. It was late 2004, early 2005 when I was writing Ah Moor. It was a story inspired by a friend that was feeling down. At the same time I was composing the opening for The Son Dial Tone. I really enjoyed the epic poem’s opening scene, writing it, having the voice of Mojuba Kimoyo (at the time was only written as Kimoyo) speaking about being entertained by ‘hieroglyphs’ etched inside his mother’s womb to feed him information. Through the hieroglyphs of DNA he saw his parents meet one another in an earlier lifetime. All this as he gestated in the womb in his contemporary time. He’d know the love of his parents beyond this lifetime, and understood it crossed the boundaries of time and covered multiple existences. But the meeting in a thirteenth century, Moorish town square in Spain was a sight. Ah Moor’s opening came next. The notes to open The Son Dial Tone were finalized and scripted. “If Adam existed literally – in the flesh physically – instead of meta-euphoric, allegoric, scientifically…” I wanted a reference to the Moors in Spain with Father Voice and Mother Harmony existing in that time period. I made Father Voice a poet serenading a crowd but only having eyes for one among the gathered people. Again, a lot of ideas for Fable Avenue were written simultaneously but unconnected between 2002 and 2005, and that’s not including ideas I’m going way, way, way, way, way back for.
Somewhere around the time I was writing A Company of Moors I started wondering if the stories in 12 Stories High could exist together. I started splitting them up and saying, “These stories seem like they would take place in the same universe.” So I started categorizing stories. When I got closer to working on The Ghost of Gabriel’s Horn, and it was time to dive into The Son Dial Tone, I was forced to look at Ah, Moor again because in 2006 I’d lost the notebook containing the first two completed scenes from The Son Dial Tone. Luckily I had notes in another notebook for a lot of the lines, and some very complicated poetry was preserved. But the details of the meeting in the Moorish square were lost. I blatantly copied the short story's text. Reading the opening to Ah, Moor and reading that section of The Son Dial Tone will expose the fact that a lot of text was lifted from the short story but scripted more poetic. It wasn’t really official until Sarinda made reference to the Moorish woman’s medical notebook in the late chapter, and reciting the ‘legend’ of the notebook and its medical and alchemical equations.
By the time the ‘legend’ of Ah, Moor was written into The Ghost of Gabriel’s Horn, I already planned for other stories in 12 Stories High to come into the Fable Avenue fold. I won’t say which stories until they are properly referenced and the work is complete and on the shelves. I did think long and hard over which stories to make a part of Fable Avenue, the ones that made the most sense. And not every story that has a mystical element is included. And some that have none actually have been. In total, it’s only 5 of the 12 stories. Of course, that’s close to half. And one of them I keep going back and forth on whether or not to include. In this ever-expanding universe it’s fun to know that there are other stories in existence, and here they are referenced.
I do have this to say, concerning the story of The Curse of Cain’an. Although it features the ‘skeptic stone,’ the very stone Sarinda Fallows and her ‘culture’ worship and use for its diabolical properties, The Curse of Cain’an has no connection to this series. It’s just the story where I first used the item.
b write black
