“You go ahead to the hotel. I’ll get him to bed,” Matt said. He lugged the man from the black car, bumped the door shut and patted on the roof. Only when the Uber rounded the corner, Matt searched the man’s pockets for keys. The air inside the ground floor apartment was saturated with lingering smells that hit his nose like a bowl of overcooked Brussels sprouts. Matt lodged the man into the couch and quickly searched the place. Furniture was sparse and what was around was worn. Paint peeled off the woodwork, whitewashed walls were smudged. It was no more than two small rooms and an open plan kitchen and it breathed the atmosphere of poverty and neglect. The bedroom held a wardrobe, a mattress on the…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts by Mina Witteman
It was past midnight when the bartender shouted something and started cleaning the bar. People emptied their glasses, paid their tabs and left. “Closing time,” Matt said. He pushed his chair back and got up, watching the man, who lolled against the window. He’d been asleep for the last hour or so, but no one had seemed to bother. “Thank God,” Victoria said. “This is worse than a fucking red-eye. I so need a drink. A real one.” She pushed her half-empty glass away from her, gathered her things and stuffed them in her handbag. “Go order a cab and wait outside. I’ll pay and see what happens to him.” Matt watched the snoring man from the corner of his eye. A drop of saliva trickled…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
The bar was small, busy and dark, as if someone had switched off the sun. Guests hung around the wooden counter, obstructing the way for those who wanted to go the higher seating area in the back. The man wormed his way to the counter. Holding the copper railing with one hand, he raised the other to signal the bartender. The bartender acknowledge him with the slightest nod and drew him a beer. “Jonathan,” he said and then something more, in Dutch, with lots of harsh g’s, before he ripped off a sheet from a small notebook and jotted something down. He placed the tab in between a dozen others on the counter. Matt pushed Victoria past the heat and stench of people and beer, and past the man,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
Matt followed her nod with his gaze, to the man who trudged his way through the shoppers. Every now and again he looked up and when he did Matt caught a glance of his eyes. The cold shiver turned into an electrical surge that opened his throat and windpipe. As if he looked in a mirror before he’d put on the gray lenses. He stepped back into a shop’s portico, but pushed Victoria towards the man. “Do your magic,” he said softly. “Make it happen.” Victoria stopped the man. She put her hand on his arm with a possessiveness that made him stop. She asked him for the way to the Anne Frank House. For a moment it looked as if the man wanted to ignore her,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
Matt let his gaze travel up the seventeenth-century gables to the Californian-blue sky hovering over the narrow shopping street that connected two canals. He tried to close his ears to Victoria’s incessant yapping about how she loved Amsterdam and how she loved the hot weather even if it was only May. Her every sentence started with an Oh My God, lined with ear-piercing cries of amazement. Matt hid his balled fists in his pockets. Why had he let her talk him into going after a bloody Dutchman and not an American? They could’ve found someone in Silicon Valley. The Bay area was overpopulated with losers. He shouldn’t have let her persuade him to walk heads in this crowded and cramped city. It imprisoned him,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
Don’t worry! I’m not going all technical on you, but I am an author closely connected to the nether regions of the Internet and sometimes I get my inspiration from something as mundane as a dark fiber.
What is dark fiber? I hear you ask.
Actually, it’s two things and I’ll give you the – more or less – technical one first: Dark fiber is unused optical fiber that has been laid but is not currently being used in fiber-optic communications, like the Internet. Because fiber-optic cable transmits information in the form of light pulses, a dark cable refers to one through which light pulses are not – yet – being transmitted. There are millions of miles of dark fiber across the world, waiting to be lighted and used to bring us cable TV, telephone or the Internet.
Now my definition of dark fiber:
DARK FIBER is a techno thriller, set in the heart of the Internet where techies control our lives, where we are tapped and peeped at, and where our every move is watched by secret services and by Internet companies, but also by individuals who know their way round in the catacombs of the Internet. One of those techies is Matt Turing, who has his own reasons to zap off the map. Matt has laid the dark fiber for his plan to disappear and all he needs is a numbskull to light it. Jonathan Groen, a former journalist-trainee-turned-bum, seems the perfect dufus and Matt worms his way into Jonathan’s life like a virus, deleting him bit by bit.
But Matt’s machinations wake Jonathan from his lethargy, rekindling his journalistic instincts. Jonathan dives into Matt’s past and presence, determined to find out the truth, and only time will tell if he is fast enough to save his own life.
So, what’s the deal?
I will give you this gruesome story in a feuilleton. From now on you can distract yourself daily with DARK FIBER. Stay tuned for the first episode, which will air tomorrow…
Tagged: Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, Mina Witteman, the Internet, thriller, Turing
Where to start with this distraction? A national newspaper called Delusion of the Fury virtuoso, fun, wildly imaginative and enchanting, a triumph of music theatre. I’d like to add: the ultimate shot in the arm.
Delusion of the Fury is a series of soundscapes brought to the audience by an outlandish collection of musical instruments, designed and built by a man who let his imagination run free. It blends a Japanese story of a murderer who confronts the ghost of his victim with an African comedy involving a goatherd and a deaf tramp.
During the performance of this extraordinary piece, the story of my next YA novel unfolded. Harry Partch, the composer, developed his own tonal system based on intonation, in which every octave consisted not of 12 equal intervals – as on a modern piano – but 43 small intervals of differing sizes. Partch’s unconventional use of microtones not only opened a doorway to my brain and ignited my imagination, it blew life and death into my story. I will start writing tomorrow.
Tagged: Delusion of the Fury, Harry Partch, Holland Festival, thriller, YA
Mina Witteman 