Nell Iris: So Far Away

Hi everyone, I hope you’re having a good day! I’m Nell Iris, and I’m here to talk about my latest release, So Far Away. But first I’d like to extend my warmest and most sincere gratitude to Ally, who’s invited me here today. Thank you so much, you’re the best! 😊

The idea for So Far Away came to me some months ago back when I read about an old married couple in the news, a couple who were separated because of the pandemic. One of them lived in a nursing home, but the other didn’t, and because of restrictions to stop the spread, they could only see each other through a window. That story tugged on my heartstrings, but also, it made my head spin with “what if?” questions and the seed of this story was sowed.

I was hesitant at first; writing about a pandemic amidst a pandemic is a delicate business. I didn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone who’s lost a loved one, and then there’s the fact that the restrictions taken to prevent the spread look different in every country which would also be a minefield to navigate.

But the idea was persistent and wouldn’t let me go, so I put pen to paper and started to write, deciding I’d at least see where it took me. And it soon became clear that the story I wanted to tell was exploring that helpless feeling I’m sure many of us have felt over this past year. That feeling that we’re not in control of our own lives, that what we can and cannot do is decided by outside factors and governments. And even if we understand why it has to be this way and do our best to abide by the restrictions, it doesn’t make the situation less frustrating. It doesn’t the feeling of powerlessness.

When I realized that’s where the story was headed, I decided to invent a virus. I didn’t name it and I’ve kept the symptoms deliberately vague, symptoms I borrowed from several different viruses, because it’s not the virus itself that’s the focus of this story, it’s the circumstances the virus creates. That’s the story I wanted to tell.

Excerpt:

When we’d just bought it, we spent many long evenings making plans and discussing options. We’d share a bottle of wine and make long lists of things we wanted, things we deemed necessary in what was going to be our forever home. The lists started outrageously—a wine cellar bigger than the actual house with an employee who turns the bottles? Really, Zakarias?—but distilled into a few reasonable items. So Julian’s dream of the biggest bathroom in the northern hemisphere—a Bath Palace, Zakarias, not a bathroom—complete with a pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna, and every other imaginable luxury, turned into a more feasible sized room with a fancy walk-in shower and a separate bathtub with jets—both of them big enough to accommodate the two of us. It also has a heated floor and double sinks. And my favorite feature; the tiny lights over the bathtub, sprinkled in the ceiling like a starry sky.

We both love the house; it’s our sanctuary. Every design element is chosen for comfort and to make it feel like a real home. Like someplace we can be ourselves. Someplace we can grow old together.

There are things left to do on the house before we’re happy with it, and we still spend evenings on the couch, sipping wine and making lists. Evenings that more often than not turn into heavy make-out sessions on the couch, with clothes being torn off and strewn about. Evenings that end with us panting in a sticky mess and blissed-out grins on our faces, but without deciding what to do with whatever room we’re considering remodeling at the time. “The discussion is half the fun,” he’ll say with sparkling eyes, and my mouth agrees, while I’m thinking the discussion is all the fun, because I could live in a tiny shack in the forest and be happy as long as he lived there with me.

But this house…it’s not just a house, it’s a home. Our home and I miss it.

I miss coming home from work and finding Julian sprawled on the couch in only his underwear, watching some horrid reality show or other on the big screen TV. I miss waking up early on weekends and preparing luxury breakfasts for him, miss how the scent of freshly baked bread never fails to wake him and lure him out of bed. I miss the adorable sight of him stumbling into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair in disarray with pillow creases on his cheek and dried drool on his chin. I miss how he beelines for me like a heat-seeking missile and winds himself around me, burying his face in my neck, snaking his arms around me, and tapping three times over my heart.

His family came up with that code when he was little; his younger sister was born with a genetic developmental disorder and never learned to speak, so three taps to the heart meant “I love you.” She died when she was only five, but the family keeps her memory alive with that gesture. It was how Julian told me he loved me for the first time. I didn’t understand it at the time, but when he told me the story, I realized he’d been telling me he loved me long before the words were spoken out loud.

I straighten my spine. Shake my head at my moment of weakness before marching back to the guesthouse and pulling a sweater over my head. I pour out the cold forgotten contents of my mug and pour fresh, steaming coffee into it.

Then I sit, take a sip, and breathe.