The Less Ordinary Life of Harold - Introduction

Intro

Are you as bummed as I am that you can’t fly? That aliens don’t exist but Trump does? That you don’t have millions of dollars in your bank account? That zombies only really show up on AMC and SyFy?

Well then you’ll be happy to meet Harold. Every once and again we will pop in to check on good ole’ Harry and see just what he’s got going on in his less oridinary- maybe even extraordinary- life.

Harold may be lucky to live in a world where superpowers exist, or where he’s suddenly asked to command a rescue mission into the jungle. Or its quite possible that Harold may merely have an impeccable imagination.

You won’t know unless you drop by and see what Harold is up to!

*

Hi all! I have been toying with the idea of doing a semi-weekly-if-and-when-I-feel-like-it series about a guy that can sort of out-think the parameters of *ugh* reality.

Harold’s adventures are going to be loosely based on the concept of the fantastic meeting the realistic and how those two things might coexist within a certain context.

So here’s hoping you tune in as I get this new idea rolling. I hope you stick with me as Harold and his stories are fleshed out into something more substaintial.

As always, thank you for reading, sharing and enjoying my work. I appreciate everyone stopping by to read the crazy ideas that nest in my brain, and end up on the page.

Thank you!

- David

Why?

                She is locked in a room. All white, all consuming. Walls cannot be defined from floors; floors cannot be defined from ceilings.

Just her, no one else. She hears voices, sees things, and feels emotions. All of these are familiar. She breathes them in, consumes them, they are her only sustenance.  Then they are gone. Just gone.

Then, before her is a box. It floats there in the room. She inspects with her eyes, her fingertips, it is a puzzle labeled Past. She examines it, the more she sees the more foreign the pieces become. Few fit. Many fit. Nothing fits.

She twists and turns, contorts into knots and through it all she wonders how her body doesn’t break, snap like taffy stretched too thin, and pulled apart harshly.

Then she swirls and bends, her mind is a puzzle, melting and changing, then she is the puzzle. Only now she is one of those multi-colored cubes. Her face on one square, her hand on another, covering each space. Other parts spread across its façade, enveloping it. Making her one dimensional, thin, like the taffy. She turns to turn herself, into herself, moving and arranging the pieces into something, anything. But it’s futile.

The word Why echoes through her mind. She then fades into pixels, they gradually become smaller and smaller, until she is no more.

 But she’s not over.

 Why continues to thump and boom like it’s part of a simplistic techno beat. The word plays over and over again, the reverberations of its noise vibrating her, finding her, crawling across her flesh even though she no longer exists on this plane.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

She wakes, struggles out from the covers and begins her day. The same day she lived yesterday, and the day before.

WHY?

Window Shopping Part 4

The man continued to stare back at me. If he was weighing the validity of my arrival, his face didn’t show it. In fact, it only showed one thing, irrevocable distrust.

Without a word the man got up and left the small one room cabin where he had asked me the only question that seemed to matter to him; “How did you get here?”

As he stepped from the door, he was careful to shut it tightly behind him.  I saw a glimpse of the sun setting outside. It had evidently taken much of the day to get here, it seemed the remainder would be spent trying to convince my new acquaintances of my honesty.

In silence, I scanned the room, I saw no indication of who these people were, what they stood for, what they valued. The cabin was sparsely decorated and held only the chair I sat upon, a small table and an additional two chairs. There was a small stone fireplace behind me, unused at the moment, but there were logs inside it at the ready.  

Some time passed, I can’t be sure of how much. My anxiousness tells me an hour, but it very well could’ve been ten minutes.

However, long it was the man came back, entering the cabin the same plain face. I was surprised to see a woman trailing behind him, for whom he held open the door. The man hung back by the entrance, as the woman walked towards me.  Unlike the man, she had a mature face, but the years had been more kind to her, giving her a look that was both matronly and majestic. She wore a long dress, and was wrapped in an equally long coat, both were an earthy brown. She slowly drug the empty chair the big, bent old man had been using, but rather than sit a comfortable distance away as he had, she sat upon it right in front of me.

Before she spoke, she brushed a wisp of long grey hair away from her face.

“What luck you had finding the dog,” she gave an easy smile that felt neither fake, nor forced.

I nodded.

The canine stood, leaving my side for the first time in hours, and went to the woman. He sniffed her outstretched hand, and then licked it a few times.

“Sweet animal. And hungry I can see.” The woman gave a sideways look to the door and hollered at the man, ”Thaddeus fetch the dog a plate...and some water.” I noted that as she spoke to the man, apparently Thaddeus, her eyes never left me.

“What’s your name?”

“Rob.”

“Mine’s Helena, I am pleased to meet you, in spite of the circumstances surrounding the meeting.” She paused as if I was expected to say something, so I did.

“Forgive me ma’am as I say this, but I’ve been here- wherever here is- for quite awhile and I would like to say thank you for your hospitality,” I pointed to the dog, ”And for feeding the dog. But- and you probably saw that coming, but again I have been here for awhile now and I get the sense that I may be am being held against my will here.”

Helena held up a hand, stopping me short, she flashed that concerned smile again, “Yes and?”

I swallowed hard, my nervousness giving way to full blown fear. “And I have no way to prove to you how I got here, other than my word, nothing more that will make you believe me.”

Helena nodded, but said nothing.

“If I meant you harm, I wouldn’t have come to assault you wearing Wal-Mart pajamas, a tee shirt, and shoeless. I mean I don’t know karate…” I chuckled even though the joke fell flat, noting an odd flash of confusion in Helena’s eyes.

After my weak laughter faded Helena said, “That’s all fine and dandy mister, but that still doesn’t explain the dog.”

“Pardon?”

She nodded to the dog who was still at her side, “Do you know this dog’s name Rob?”

“No it didn’t have tags.”

Again, I saw Helena scrunch her brow, for the briefest of moments.

“The dog went by Old Rufus.”

Shrugging, “I don’t follow.”

“The dog went by Old Rufus when he was around twelve years old.”
“I’m sorry, if this is supposed to mean something to me…”

Helena’s eyes narrowed, her tone lost much of its matronly air, “That was over forty years ago when I was a small girl.”

I didn’t have the words, connections were still being made inside my mind.

“Rob,” her inflection questioned the truth of my name, “Old Rufus died before I finished school, decades ago.”

TO BE CONTINUED!

Window Shopping Part 3

The beast was heading towards me at a gallop, teeth on display, tongue drawn, ears alert. Its eyes were both wide and wild, holding a hint of that orange shine that was fading with the rising sun.

As the wolf began cutting the distance between it and I, somehow found the courage to do something. I waved my arms, and then began to shout and bellow in an effort to scare it off.

Yes, I’m sure it looked ridiculous, but don’t laugh, please.

At any rate, this didn’t slow the creature at all. It still keep coming, legs splaying out behind it with a lunatic gait. It cut the distance between us and the closer it got, the more my display of superiority faltered and then finally stopped. Here I was, in a strange realm that I never should’ve ventured into in the first place, and I was never going to see home again. I would die here.

The wolf was close enough that I could now hear its ragged breathing as it came for me. I averted my eyes, not wanting to see the fatal bite coming. I imagined the wolf extending its back legs, and leaping from the ground, its jaw extending to welcome my flesh to its mouth. I cringed with dread, nearly curling up into the fetal position right there in the leftover wheat.

Then the wolf pounced, knocking me to the ground.

I expected to feel the tearing of teeth against my bare flesh, the pressure of the beast’s jaws clamping down, and the pain.

Instead, I felt a tongue lapping over my cheek. After my mind was able to process that I wasn’t being ripped apart, I had the courage to open my eyes. What I saw was no merciless killer, The wolf-if that’s in fact what it was, was on top of me, licking my face and wagging his tail.

I was so relieved not to be dead or dying it took me a moment to realize the wolf, wasn’t really a wolf at all; it was a dog.

“Down boy,” I said with hope in my voice, and to my astonishment the dog listened. I surveyed the beast that was; it wasn’t as haggard, or desperate as I had first thought. In fact, it was calm, fur well maintained and really friendly, lucky for me. “Can I be sure you’re not going to eat me?” The dog coated my face again with its enormous tongue. “Ok, that’s an argument against.” I gently stroked the dog’s fur. “Geesh, I wish I had some water or even some food to give you...but maybe we can find that together?”

I saw my reflection in the dog’s eyes. It had become one of hope.

“Alright boy, let’s find us some civilization, or something. Maybe at least some bacon. Mmm that sounds kind of good,” I had told the pooch. I guess that wasn’t too much to hope for at least?

Ahem, well my new friend and I began trudging over the terrain yet again, at first I wasn’t sure he’d follow, but surprising me once more, the dog began leading me! I did what came natural, I followed. Every few moments the dog looking back to ensure I was still tagging along.

More footsteps behind more paw prints led to more travel. Although the sun was at full attention, having warmed me enough to be comfortable, if not content, I still wondered when I’d get to taste some type of water, as my throat was now beyond parched.

As you might’ve guessed, that’s about when I stumbled on your little cabin here.

That my friend is how we got here...Now what’s next?

*

I had told my story, what little there was to tell, and as I finished I looked down at my canine companion expecting him to bark in some declarative way that emphasized its truth as if on cue. Of course that didn’t happen. In fact nothing really happened, the man that I had been talking to only stared blankly back across the table from me. His face only hinted at one thought; that there was no fucking way I could be telling the truth.


TO BE CONTINUED!

Window Shopping Part I

I hadn’t even noticed it when I walked through the house for the first time. I was too distracted by the old world charm, rustic build and the dark, cherry hardwood floors. Maybe that’s materialistic of me, but if it’s any consolation I regret not looking deeper. I regret that a lot.

It wasn’t until I was getting moved in that I first saw it. And to make matters worse it was after a couple (five) glasses of wine, which ebbed my doubt. I mean don’t get me wrong- I would have been skeptical otherwise, I mean who could simply accept the fact that they discovered a gateway into another world?

That’s what it is right? Like I’m in another dimension? Something like that?

Anyway, I first saw it when I began taking empty boxes to the basement. Well it’s more of a cellar really, mud and stone walls. They told me it had been built in 1856- the house I mean- who knows about the cellar, probably nearly as old if not the same age.

But I had a box of my old toys- a box my mother had insisted I take...Nevermind, you don’t want to hear about that, I’m sure. I was taking this box downstairs to store, when I noticed it for the first time. There was-is, in my world, I guess a sort of dividing wall. Thinking about it now, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it before. I mean it’s right smack dab in the middle of the room. It runs floor to ceiling, and cuts the middle portion if the room in two. It’s the damndest thing when you see it. You wonder; Just what the f-hell--heck were they thinking putting this thing here, ya know?

But umm, I sat the box down on the floor, impressed with myself that I had also carried my wine glass down the stairs at the same time by balancing it on top of the box.

I noticed the dividing wall, it was just sort of there...Dim yellow-grey stone, aged from years of damp, and it looked like the darkness of the basement had seeped into it along with the elements. I retrieved my wine glass and walked around the wall, studying it along the way. It was fine on the side facing the steps leading into the downstairs; normal stone, coarse to the touch and earthy to the nose. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The back of the wall though- that was a different story entirely. You see- and you might know this already- I’m not sure, but there was a window.

Yes that’s right- a damned window sitting on a wall in the middle of a room, down in my basement!

Through the glass I could see a landscape. It looked like one of those sepia scenes of the shoreline in some east coast state, like South Carolina. There was sloped sand and surf and tufts of long lazy grass. An open sky beckoned to me.

At first I thought it was a picture or a painting, but then the grass swayed from the wind off the coast. I thought I was losing it, but when I got closer to the supposed picture I could actually hear the wind coming off the waves and cutting across the sand, the waves rolling into the shore.

My right hand opened without my knowing and the glass of wine went crashing to the unfinished floor. I gave it no thought in that moment(even stepping over it later). Unconsciously, that same hand went to the window, instinctively going for a small wooden knob on the side. Of course I did, I couldn’t resist you see? My inhibitions being lowered, my sense of danger dulled. That coupled with my curiosity was the catalyst for all of this.

I stood there, swaying from my drunkenness, my brain bobbing and swimming in irrational thoughts and wine. I sized up the window. It was only about 120 square inches, far from the size I would need to crawl through, let alone walk through. But I wanted very much to go through that opening, to see the beach, to touch the water. In fact the sensation to do so was near overpowering. I stared at the window, and longed to be on the other side, I was mesmerized at the possibility.

My mind cycled through ways by which I could deliver my fixation. Eyes darted from corner to grimey corner of the basement, looking for a particular tool. I yearned to transport myself unto my current mania.

In the final corner of the cellar I saw it. A rusted sledgehammer sat propped up on its head. Barefeet plodded across the dusty floor, greedily I groped for the hammer.  I lifted it and smiled, I couldn’t see my face, but imagine my grin was a cross between lunacy and satisfaction.

I turned to face that wall with the inexplicable window, and I swung, my body powered by a force that was both unsettling and unknown. The first swing cracked the thin glass pane, the second shattered the wooden frame. The third swing was the slightly rusted hammer meeting stone, and I was frightened for a moment that the hammer’s head would be dislodged from its worn handle and fly across the cellar.

Instead the hammer held together, and it was the stone that gave way. A small chunk crumpled at first; the lip-like sill below the window disintegrating. I reeled back again, sweating now from compulsion, letting loose with blow after blow as the stones did the same.

How many times I had to bring that hammer down, I do not know. But when I let the hammer fall for the final time I was breathless. In front of me was now a near-man sized hole. I could now not only see the beach, but feel it’s wind actually enter the basement. It was cool, much more frigid than the stuffy cellar and quick to cool the sweat on my brow, and chill my bare feet.

After surveying my work for the better part of a minute, I felt a driving thought cut through my mind, as if another person was yelling at me from inside my own mind.

That voice within the within screamed a question in warning; What are you doing?

I crouched and stepped through the newly created threshold…

TO BE CONTINUED!

Sweet Revenge (Chapter 1 - excerpt)

CHAPTER 1 – IMAGINATION RUNS WILD

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but knowing what I know now (Have no worries, I’ll get to that too), I have rebuilt and recreated what my wife and son went through that day. I have refined the scene a thousand times. I do it out of guilt I suppose. Guilt at my failure to protect them. Guilt in wishing I could’ve switched places. Guilt that I failed to somehow prepare them for the worst. Guilt for not installing an alarm. You must understand that “living” it again won’t hurt me. It will only help me feel better by raking myself along the coals.

7:40 a.m. I believe. I know…Dana and I had traveled probably no more than three minutes from the house. Dasha was probably telling Deshawn that it was nearly time for them to leave as well.

They walk from the kitchen after Deshawn retrieves his lunch. The footsteps go from tap tap tap to shmch shmch shmch, their feet traveling over tile then plush carpet. Dasha gives one last look around to make sure they have everything.

Then the back door caves inward. The cracking of the door jamb startles my son and my wife. It is an unknown sound. Although, it doesn’t produce panic, only curiosity.

“What the heck was that?” Deshawn asked.

Rather than answering, Dasha heads to the back of the house to investigate- perhaps mistaking the noise for a bird flying into the kitchen’s bay window. That is when the panic comes.

She sees two figures through the closed blinds. She gasps, “Deshawn, go upstairs and call the police.”

Confused, Deshawn freezes, having never heard his mother say anything close to this alarming.

Dasha, “Now.” She speaks in the sternest of whispers as the men rush in through the door.

The men hadn’t expected anyone in the home. They had pulled up in a utility van that was made to look like the vehicle of the local satellite company. They had uniforms, but no masks. A blonde with longish hair, and a bald man with a handlebar mustache. Dasha can clearly see they are certainly as astonished as she.

There is a difference though: The men were not scared.

They advance, drawing pistols with silencers as they came. She tries to usher Deshawn upstairs, but as she turns to follow a gloved hand grabs her hair and yanks her from the third step. That queer feeling of sudden certainty when you know you are going to fall overtakes her. Then she crashes to the ground, smacking the back of her head on the floor.

7: 42 a.m. Dasha is dazed, but coherent enough to see the blonde rush upstairs and pluck Deshawn from the landing. Doubtless, he was heading for the ball bat in his room.

Her view is suddenly changed when the bald one hefts her from the ground. Tears escape her eyes. No scream escapes her mouth.

Deshawn is forced back downstairs, putting up a fight the whole way. Blondie has hold of him, shoving my son forward, Deshawn collides into his mother. Neither fall. However, when Deshawn regains his equilibrium he rushes Baldie- the man holding a gun on his mother, my wife.

Enraged, Deshawn now looks more like an animal than a 14 year old boy. Lips pared back, teeth showing, and eyes full of angry, stinging tears. Baldie waits for him to move in and without much thought or effort thumps him on the head with the butt of his gun. Deshawn crumbles.

That makes his mother finally cry out.

7:43 a.m. Baldie signals her to be quiet by taunting her with his gun. When it doesn’t work, he points it at Deshawn instead. That works.

Blondie looks at his partner. They exchange a brief, casual, but more important knowing look.

7:44 a.m. Deshawn rolls up and over and swings an arm up and into Baldie’s crotch. It’s a final desperate hope of escape. He tries to get away, probably hoping he can make it outside to get help.

7:45 a.m. It doesn’t work. Blondie fires, hitting Deshawn in the back. The bullet traveled the perfect path to hit his heart then left lung, causing him to asphyxiate on his own blood.

7:45:30 a.m. Dasha wrenches free of Blondie and in a last move, reaches out for her baby boy. My wife’s last moments were confused, angry, and without hope. Furious and embarrassed, Baldie fires into her face twice. The life leaves her and she slumps over our son’s body. My wife is left to bleed on our grey Berber carpeting.

As it stands now, the stain has been cleaned but I still see it. I see lots of things these days, few of them good.

I learned something from my mental reenactments though. In just over five minutes two thirds of my life was taken away. In the time it takes you to floss, read an article in a magazine, or some other inconsequential act, they were gone.

What I learned: Tragedy is swift.

My name is Delon Moss. There was a time when I had the perfect life. You’ve seen now what I believe to be the method by which I had that life taken from me.

However, to better help place it into context I will share with you exactly what I had; exactly what I lost that was so perfect, so dear to me. I’ll share it so that you may understand my pain just a little bit more. I don’t want your sympathy, and I certainly don’t want your pity. I’ll share it so that you may come to understand-if not necessarily agree- exactly what caused me to devolve...