gather the weeds

A Dystopian Novel in the Footsteps Of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale, Stephen King’s The Long Walk, And George Orwell’s 1984.

Michael Poole, a seventeen-year-old deaf ward of the Gate, wants a few things. A girlfriend. A chance to play hockey. Good times. But the blockheads and the Watchers have other plans for him. Like not leaving the Gate. Not causing trouble. And to remain still and calmly wait for the day of his own taking.

The story explores a malevolent world in different ways. In dialogues spoken in English with smatters of Spanish and Spanglish. In signed pidgins like Signed Exact English. In signs like American Sign Language. In a few riddles and symbolic drawings. In streams of consciousness of Michael Poole’s mind. Only to discover the final policy for the wards of the Gate, never welcomed by the general population of a perfect world.