It’s amazing what a week (and a bit) can do. Last time, on the Mad Quill Mailer, Mike was in a creative slump. He was searching for inspiration and whining about it on these very pages. Super annoying, right?
Now? A March break bowling session with the family and some mental reframing of what “creativity” looks like, has turned things around (not to mention some vicarious inspiration from Kevin, who managed to hit Toronto Comicon and whose drive to get the next iteration of Feral going is super infectious. In a good way).
No rocketship underpants necessary (underpants, yes. Rocketships, no) this week! Instead, we have a clean slate and a magical world ready to be discovered/created/explored.
On that note, it’s time for part seven—the final instalment—of my prose short for Attic Door Media’s Tales from the Chimeranverse, which you can get online.
Hungry Harry: Part 7 (final instalment!)
By Mike Connell
New Hope, 2000
“Harry,” his mother called out.
“Ya, Mum. I’m here.”
She was declining fast. Lung cancer. They’d caught it late, which was devastatingly ironic considering his Mum was supposed to see things like that coming.
“I can feel it coming. Not much time left. I’m sorry I can’t be here for you anymore. I know you’re going through a… tough time.”
Harry didn’t know what to say. He had been. And she was leaving. Wasn’t her fault, but it would be leaving a gaping hole in his heart.
“Don’t worry, Mum. I know what to do.”
Harry’s experimentation had gone much further over the years. He hadn’t discussed it with her, but he felt she would understand.
“It took me a while to understand what I could do, but it makes sense now. You fill a place in my heart. Just because you’re leaving, doesn’t mean you can’t keep doing that.”
“I know a way a piece of you can always be with me…”
She started hacking, and didn’t stop until she had expired, a fearful, shocked realization on her face. She hadn’t seen that coming either. Or had she?
New Hope, 2015
“Let’s get these guys into your van,” Sully said.
John and Jane Doe lay in black body bags in the back of Sully’s cruiser. Harry helped hoist them into the Econoline. Next stop: Crematorium.
The accidents had picked up again. Harry looked and acted healthier than he had ever had.
Sully… Sully was weary. Worn and drawn out.
Things were a little tense between the two of them now. An unspoken uncomfortableness. Harry had always been there for Sully. And, as a cop, he knew people were ultimately responsible for their own decisions and actions. But Sully was also very aware of how his own decisions may have fed into who Harry had become. What he had become.
Actions, and inactions, that, in turn, had been gnawing at Sully, sucking dry who he was. Who he wanted to be. Like the cancer his wife had survived, this… secret was eating away at him from the inside out.
That knowledge hung there. Neither willing to break the tension, worried what might be on the other side. Sully was Harry’s only friend. Their history, their bond, had suckled this part of Harry’s nature at the outset. And Sully’s silence sustained it in the here and now.
So they kept it up. Harry went about his day-to-day. Knowing that Sully knew. Sully looked the other way, holding on to a secret that consumed him. But this wasn’t a way to live, Harry understood, perhaps surprisingly.
As introverted and isolated as he normally was, he still knew his friendship with Sully would be hard-pressed to survive this as it was.
There had to be something he could do. Something to keep their connection alive. And then it hit him. Sully wasn’t Chimeran, but there was still something Harry knew he could do to make sure their friendship endured.
“I’m hungry,” Harry said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Wanna grab a bite?”
And that’s it. The end. “Hungry Harry” was a lot of fun to create. Not just the character, Harry himself, but building something in a world someone else (Attic Door Media) brought to life, working within their constructs, rules, and realities.
Hopefully you enjoyed it! Would love any and all thoughts and criticisms, so please let me know in the comments below.
In the meantime, I’m back at it as far as Feral goes. Stay tuned for more updates on that front.