Newsletter #35: Happy family day!
Happy Family Day weekend! Many of you are likely taking part in fun, engaging family activities, your children laughing, playing, and loving every minute they get to spend with you.
Me? I’m trying to convince my progeny to tolerate my presence long enough for, say, a movie? Maybe a dinner. It’s not looking good, which is why I’m on my computer sending a newsletter to people who would rather be basking in the love and affection of their families. Making lemonade out of lemons, right?
Anyway, if you’d care to take a break from the enduring adoration of your clan, here’s some more of “Hungry Harry” for you to enjoy: Part four of my prose short for Attic Door Media’s Tales from the Chimeranverse, which you can get online.
Editorial aside: It’s been asked why I’m not using the Canadian spelling for things like color/colour in the story. Normally, yes, I’d steadfastly stick to using the (more proper) Canadian spelling, but “Hungry Harry” is part of a US short story collection, so I’m staying true to the source material.
Hungry Harry: Part 4
By Mike Connell
New Hope, 1988
“What’s wrong, Mum?”
Harry’s mother was huddled in the corner of the small one-bedroom apartment they had been renting. She was shaking, sweating, pulling her knees tight into her chest.
“Mum? Did you see somethin’? Are you okay?”
She seemed to realize he was there, suddenly.
“Um. Ya. Ya, sweety, I’m fine. Just fine. I, um, saw something. Just one of my episodes. A doozy.” She was looking at him. Like she was seeing him for the first time.
She got up, grabbed a tea towel and wiped her face. She closed her eyes tight, opened them again, and sighed as she looked at him again.
“Tell me about those… what do you call them, again? Auras?”
When he started seeing them, he started looking through one of the few books he remembered them having. The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eighth Edition. He had started reading pretty early. Not much else to do when you didn’t have many friends.
The dictionary was his Mum’s, and it had her Dad’s (a grandfather he had never met) name printed on the inside cover, and Harry had read it through a number of times already.
He knew the word he was looking for. It didn’t take long until he came across it.
Aura.
Au· ra: A distinctive atmosphere surrounding a given source.
All matter emits a slight electrical charge. Some more than others.
And that charge can be detected.
Sharks can sense the electrical fields of potential prey.
Bees can sense which flowers have nectar by the electrical charge they emit. Or don’t.
He learned that from Encyclopedia Britannica. Those were the other books Harry remembered having. His mother liked to have useful things like that around. They had all 30 volumes of the 15th edition. Or they did. Harry had eaten volumes 17 and 22 when he was three.
Which was unfortunate. Volume 17 apparently discussed “digestion and digestion systems,” with a subsection on pyrolytic absorption and associated mechanosensory and electroreception capabilities.
Imagine what he could have learned if he’d skipped that snack?
In addition to his absorption powers, Harry could sense which matter was the best to consume.
At first, he just saw slight colors. He could also sense some vibration if he was in close proximity.
The colors were all different, too.
Some matter was rich in energy, yet gave off very little glow or vibration. Certain rocks and minerals, for instance, could give him a little boost, but it was fleeting, and more euphoric than fuel-like in nature.
More specifically, depending on the color and frequency of the matter in question, when Harry ate certain things, he would experience different… feelings. Hyperactivity. Endorphin rushes like none he’d ever felt before.
Some things, like organic plant matter, tasted much better than the non-organic substances and glowed with a significant amount of energy and color, but gave off very little vibration.
So he started to experiment. And his Mum worried.
New Hope, 1990
Inorganic matter carried the least potential, Harry had decided. Things like coal provided a lot of bang for his buck, because of how long his body could simply keep going after absorbing it, but that didn’t really get him excited.
Organic matter yielded the most noticeable results when it came to, well, mood alteration.
Raw meat proteins delivered a near-euphoric rush.
Insect proteins didn’t provide the same type of exhilaration, instead imparting a more mellow buzz.
Harry found that people themselves gave off auras.
This disturbed him a bit at first. At least he thinks he was disturbed. It was—after checking the Merriam-Webster—the word he would associate with that feeling you get when you’re about to get blood taken, or when you’re waiting for that girl to call (knowing in your heart she won’t).
Dis· turb· ing: Causing feelings of worry, concern, or anxiety.
He didn’t pay much attention to the mauras (“matter aura,” as he liked to call it. He was pretty proud of that term) of people for the most part. But Chimerans were different.
They glowed brightly. Vibrated strongly.
New Hope, 2015
A rapping on the back of his van shocked him out of his reverie.
“...the hell??” he said aloud, as a Pennsylvania state trooper uniform filled his side-view mirror.
“Harry!” the officer said, loudly.
Officer Sullivan. William Sullivan. Sully.
“Heeeeyy Sully. Took you long enough,” Harry said.
“Sorry. There were some problems with the pick-up,” Sully explained, taking off his wide-brimmed hat, not meeting Harry’s eyes. As usual. Things were weird between them. Still.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Harry noted. “It seems like forever since we’ve done one of these.
What was the issue?” He was asking about today’s delay, but it could just as easily applied to why it had been so long since they’d gotten together.
“It was right at the border,” Sully started explaining, waving it off. “And those New Jersey state troopers like to kick up a fuss. But you know me. I don’t mind me a fuss. If I hadn’t been in a hurry, it would have been the highlight of my day.” The explanation came out in a rush. Like he just wanted to get all this over with.
Which wasn’t the Sully Harry knew. And he did know him. Well. Outside of being a state trooper, Sully was the first real friend Harry ever had in New Hope. His best and only friend.
New Hope, 1992
While Harry and his mother had been living in New Hope for six years, neither of them had really met anyone you could call a friend.
His mother didn’t mind. She found friends—people, really—difficult. Being an augur wasn’t something she could turn on and off, and she found it hard to hide what she could (or couldn’t) read off of them.
Harry was just not good at making friends. He was quiet. And he was Chimeran. Sometimes that makes you a friend magnet. Just as often, it could make you a pariah.
Harry should have fallen under the former… A middle schooler who could literally eat anything?
Life of the party. But Harry’s introversion kept most potential pals at bay.
“Hey, Hungry Harry,” someone whispered behind him. What was his name again? He’d been in most of Harry’s classes since New Hope-Solebury (upper and lower) and New Hope Middle.
“What did you call me?”
The little boy (he was small for a 12-year-old, with brown hair, buzzed, and shocking blue eyes in a face that looked like it hadn’t seen a ray of sunlight since the day he was born) sniggered, but in a good-natured way. In a way that Harry didn’t get mad at.
“Hungry Harry. Get it?”
Not much of an aura, Harry thought to himself. Not Chimeran.
“Because you’re always nibbling on something. And because, well, of what you can do. My dad says you can eat just about anything. That true? Can you really eat anything? What’s the weirdest thing you ate? What happens? Do you feel sick? Does it come out weird? Do you fart funny?”
Harry started laughing.
“Um, ya. I can. Eat anything. Not fart funny. Although sometimes they can smell a little funky,”
Harry said shyly. “What’s… what’s your name again?”
“Will. But everyone calls me Sully. Even my sister and my parents. You should too. Can you eat my homework?”
Harry laughed so hard snot came out of his nose, and Miss Banks, their teacher, smacked him with a ruler.
That’s it for now! Part five will come out next week. Most likely. Unless I forget or my kids want to do something with me.
In the meantime, don’t forget to follow Mad Quill Comics on Instagram!