Harry's Harrowing Adventure

Harold David George (Harry to his friend) did not lead a particularly interesting life. In fact, he was never a particularly interesting person. He was quite dull, his life was routine, and perhaps worst of all, he was in the advertising business. You might then ask, why continue reading?

The truth is if I were to limit this tale to the life of Harry and stop at his death (as many stories do), even I, the author, would recommend you put down this account and do something meaningful with your life.

But that is not where this narrative ends, quite the contrary it is almost where it begins. Save this preamble and a little mucking about with exact-o knives and moodily lit tubes of toothpaste, this is almost entirely a story about death. (Believe me I would have left out the whole exact-o knife thing if I didn't need some practice with exposition).

Well, that's about it for now, I might pop back in every now and again, but presently, death goes on.

"I can't see how you can possibly tell the difference between those two pictures. They look the same. They are two very moodily, very aesthetically, and very identically lit tubes of SparkleMint flourinated gel with baking soda," argued Stewart Baker, reclining backwards and precariously balanced in a wooden chair.

His hands rubbed his eyes and he stretched, yawned, and still managed to balance on two legs of his chair. He was getting kind of tired of sitting around doing nothing, but it beat the alternative of actually doing any work. That was the beauty of his semi-symbiotic relationship with Harry. Harry did the work and Stu went through the ritual "Harry, you wanna come with us?" "Nah, I think I'll just finish this..." invitation at quitting time.

Yeah, he felt the occasional twinge of remorse at times, but that just gave him additional incentive to go out and get really drunk as opposed to the sort-of-drunk he usually practiced. If it meant he was going to be late for work, what did it matter, Harry always punched his card in with his own, at 6:30am.

"Can't you see how this one," replied Harry, indicating the picture in his left hand, "has a much deeper, more angular shadow around the K than this one." indicating the picture in his right.

"Oh, yeah, sure, sure, I see it now," he said not removing his hands from his face.

"Well which one would you use?" questioned Harry, imploringly.

"The lefty."

"You sure? I like the smooth K shadow over the sharp one."

"Look, Harry, have I ever been wrong about this stuff?" said Stu rhetorically.

"What was I thinking?" wondered Harry out loud in a nearly sickening display of submission. He laughed at himself slightly, wondering how he could possibly be so stupid. "I'm sorry, Delbert, I really am. I don't know what came over me, and..."

"For crying out loud! I told you not to call me Delbert. Call me Stewart, call me Mr. Baker, call me Stewie, Stu, or late for dinner, just DON'T CALL ME DELBERT!" exploded Stu as he lost his balance and the chair came crashing down on to all for legs. He leaped out of the seat and started to pace, deliberately.

Harry cringed, and pathetically tried to make himself small. He stuttered a few times, and was shaking when finally he managed to force out the word, "Sorry."

"Why, Harry, why do you have to be so damn pathetic?" but even some like Stu had to feel a slight twinge at that statement and his earlier outburst. So, it was with a little remorse and the practiced air of an often repeated action that Stewart said, "Me and the gang are going out to, uh, hit the bars, er, you wanna come along?"

Harry collected himself, sniffling and wiping his eyes, and then looked up, but not meeting Stewart's eyes.

"Geeze, thanks for inviting me and all, but you know. Gotta get some, uh... work done."

"Sure, I understand. It's to bad, they all wanted you to come."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah, of course, maybe next time, ok?"

"Yeah, next time," repeated Harry thoughtlessly. The ritual was completed and he went back to cutting and pasting the tooth paste to the storyboard he was making.

About two hours later, Stewart Baker was making preparations to leave, and Harry was still hunched over the nearly completed story board. Stu walked to the door, opened it and began to step out when he turned back to the bent figure in the office.

"Well, I'm my way." he said, then with a pause, "Sure I can't talk you into coming?"

There was a moment of silence, and as Harry seemed to ponder the invitation, Stewart became suddenly scared that he might accept. He had to think fast before he might actually accept. He began to speak out of desperation, not sure what he was going to say.

"Oh! You know what? I just remembered... that... I... heard that... the bars were, uh, closed today," he stammered, " because of a, uh, bartenders strike. Yeah, that's it. I can't imagine how I could have forgot that!"

He let out his breath slowly, waiting to see the reaction.

For awhile there wasn't one, and Stewart wondered if Harry had even heard what he said. He was about to say something when Harry did.

"Really? A Bartender's strike. I hope it isn't going to affect the theater, I'm gonna try and catch the late showing of the Godfather trilogy. I hope you can find something to do, without the bars and all."

This wasn't helping Stu's conscience very much, malformed though it was.

"Don't worry about 'ol Stu, I'll find a way to get drunk and have a good time."

"You always do," replied Harry admiringly.

Stewart was almost upset, then he realized that Harry's comment was a complement. He was now quite determined to get very drunk and have a very good time, or else he might actually remember this conversation and feel remorse the next day. He proceeded to leave.

"I'll let you know the minute the strike is over, then we can go and hit the bars."

An imperceptible nod came from the busy figure.

"We'll have a real good time, right?"

Another nod.

"Oh, I almost forgot, I'm in a hurry, so could you, uh, punch my time card when you leave? Thanks, gotta go."

The door closed and Stewart Baker's footsteps receded.

Harry softly asked where Stewart was in such a hurry to go. But then he realized that he was alone.

It was not long after that the chief boiler room attendant, experiencing no shortage of alcohol from the bartender strike, passed out. And not longer still that the entire advertising office of The Brothers Bob exploded.

Disorientated was not nearly strong enough a word. To describe Harry's feeling of queasiness and dizzyness would be unfair to the reader so I will allow imagination to take the place of experience.

Harry tried to rise to his feet and found it surprisingly easy. It was as if he was willing himself up and as though his feet were hardly touching the floor. When he tried to move his head to look around he felt sluggish. When he looked down he felt nauseous.

He could see his feet and the floor quite clearly, and they weren't spinning as much as before, but they weren't touching each other either. Although it didn't feel like he was moving he saw the distance between the floor and himself increase. He looked around, his head turning as if through water, and saw that his perspective on the world rising and the ceiling descending.

He raised his hands in a parody of a slow motion instant replay to protect himself and tried to slow his assent. The ceiling came closer and Harry was preparing himself to be squished into a pancake. Harry continued to wait. Soon, however, he grew tired of waiting to be crushed so he opened his eyes to see what was taking himself so long.

He regretted doing it. What he saw was half of himself emerging from the floor and the rest continuing upwards. He prepared himself for the impact that he was quite sure he couldn't avoid twice. Yet after a few seconds he grew impatient.

He opened his eyes and wished, yet again, that he hadn't.

This pattern continued for another seven stories before he finally emerged from the roof.

He looked down at the building below and was quite astonished to see that he had ascended through the only standing portion of the building. No sooner had he had this thought then that last remaining portion of the building shook and collapsed. A cloud of dust erupted from the base. It reminded Harry of a squid's ink cloud spreading out in the water.

After a few minutes the remains of the Brothers Bob advertising firm was just a speck below. Harry's vision was becomming obscured by clouds he was passing through. He had always thought that flying through a cloud would be wetter. Yet he didn't feel a thing.

Thinking a little more he realized he hadn't felt ANYTHING for awhile. The problem with this was quite disconcerting. Flying, floating, and intangability he could deal with, but any form of sensory deprevation was a little too little. He felt so unconnected, so non-existant. He thought about trying to scream, but he didn't want to risk finding he had lost his voice, too.

He was working hard at getting his eyes to water when everything went black.

Back into the corridor...

© 1997 Daniel Parke -- All Rights Reserved