Kiara

The main character's name was originally "Kieran". I found this quite by accident while purusing a book of Gaelic names in a bookstore in Cardiff, Wales where I was working at the time (for CSC). Kieran is an anglicized form of the Gaelic, Ciaran. This is derived from ciar meaning black, plus the dimminutive suffix -an. This was the name of two Irish saints: Saint Ciaran the Elder, the patron of the Kingdom of Munster, and Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, the founder of a monastery in the 6th century. I changed the name to Kiara when I realized that Kieran is primarilly a male name (even though I found it in a book of female names). Kiara has the same etymology as Kieran, being the feminine form of Ciaran. Saint Ciara was an Irish nun who established a monastery at Kilkeary in the 7th century. The proper pronounciation places the emphasis on the first sylable - KEER-a-ra, or KEER-a. Kiara uses the latter, 2-syllable pronounciation. Kiara translates roughly as "dark, little one."

Maguire

This surname is derrived from the 10th century Gaelic "MagUidhir" meaning the son of (Mag or Mac) Uidhir. It originated in the Ulster county of Fermanagh. Top

Ordinary girl

My first girlfriend after my divorce used this phrase often to describe herself. The line from her first email read, “I sometimes have a hard time believing that you had waited all year to have the chance to be with me. I'm just an ordinary girl.” As with Kiara, she is far from ordinary. Top

Diane K.

Her character first appeared in a story I wrote in 1990 while working for CSC at a customer site in San Ramon, CA. In Fable I search for life's meaning by consulting the guru of Mount Diablo. The guru character, Diane K., was based on my customer, a beautiful Hispanic woman whose first name was Diane. The Peter in the story is a co-woker. I was sent out to the site, presumably to rescue Peter (not his real name) who, because of some personal issues, couldn't deal with Diane K. Peter went home; I stayed behind. I did what I could, but we still didn't get the gig. We did develop a sort of friendship so on my last day there Diane K. took me out for drinks after work. She got unsociably drunk and lugubrious because of a rare skin condition she had. I never saw or spoke to her again. Top

West Wind Bed & Beakfast

It's a real place, located about quarter mile south of Taughannock Park. My girlfriend at the time and I spent a weekend there soon after we started dating. The Gwen Weidner character is based on my recollection of the owner. It is also the location of the story Breakfast I wrote as a metaphorical re-telling of our first romantic encounter. It's the first of a trilogy of stories I wrote early in our relationship, the others being Lunch and Dinner. Breakfast also introduced the Gwyn Weidner character (Gwynn Anachronism in the story). Top

Not all here

The phrase used by Diane K. and Sarah to simplify the fact that they exist in more than three physical dimensions, twelve to be precise. As Sarah put it, "Most of me is somewhere else." I chose not to slow up the action in the story with a technical explanation for that, and also how it is they become human. They're included here for the interested reader.
A good analogy, and one that Diane K. uses in a terse explanation to Skippy, is a 3-dimensional creature (such as ourselves) as perceived by a creature in a 2-dimensional world. Imagine the 2-D world as a infinite plane or just a really big table-top, and a 2-D creature going about its business. This creature, call her Trudy, has width and length but no thickness, rather like a very thin ameoba. A 3-D creature from outside Trudy's world could see directly inside her body (much as someone looking through a microscope sees the inside of that ameoba). Now If I want to interact with Trudy, I have to project some part of me into her world. Let's say I lay my hand on her world - like laying a hand on the table. How would I appear to Trudy? Depends on how I lay my hand down but most likely I'd be a bunch of irregularly-shaped blobs. If I just layed my fingertips down, I would appear as five independent creatures to Trudy even though all 5 are part of the same 3-D über-being.

That's what happened to Sarah. After her 3-D projection died, she came back as three independent beings: Diane K, Jill Fraser, and Katie Campbell. The table-top metaphor also illustrates another key point—most of me really is somewhere else, namely in the third dimension.

So how and why do these multi-dimensional beings become human? Just like me interacting with table-top Trudy, they need to somehow get into our 3-D world in order to interact. To do this, that 3-D projection is truly human. It's not like some alien taking over Captain Kirk's body, they are the human. Their 3-D conterpart is born human, has human characteristics and really is that person, subject to the same human weaknesses and frailties as we. There is no hijacking the body or any such nonsense. Sarah is Sarah and also the alien entity that exists in higher dimensions. The same could be said of Jesus who exists both as god and man. The so-called powers exhibited by Sarah, Diane K. and Jill are just a result of the 3-D part drawing from the larger being. The same idea could also explain miracles, life after death, telekenisis, ESP and a host of other paranormal phemomena that seem "paranomal" to us only because we can't perceive higher dimensions. Top

Taughannock Park

.The park features a 215-foot vertical waterfall the end of a 3/4 mile gorge. For more information, visit the Taughannock Falls web page. The falls makes an appearance in an early story, Anniversary which I've included, warts and all. I wrote this story while working in Wales as a kind of personal catharsis after a breaking off the relationship I was in at the time. Top

Jill Fraser

.My first attempt at a novel was in 1995. I had written sixty-some short stories over the years called Stories to Go. The stories referenced in this page were part of that collection. Acting on the advice from the leader of a writing group I was participating in (called Surrealistic Fudge), I decided to novelize the collection. About this time I split up with my girfriend, changed jobs and moved to New Port Richey, Florida with my eldest son Brian in tow. Week two in Florida and I meet Jill through an add in a local paper (this is pre-Match.com). Eventually I share the book idea with her and she gives me a hard time (tongue-in-cheek) because she's not a character in the book although all my ex-girfriends are. So I added the Jill character as kind of an afterthought, but that eveolved to the central premise of Chasing the Meridian: an alien split into three personalities. Another fine example of serendipity at work. Jill and I are still best of friends; the Fraser surname is fictional.
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Wendy

. The Wendy character was inspired by a co-worker from my days at CSC in Rochester, New York. Her character first appeared in several early stories: Friends, Lovers, Breakfast, and Wine.
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