A SOLITARY MAN

a solitary man2

Harris was a solitary man.  He spoke to almost no one and trusted very few.  He was born without a silver spoon and, like Moses, was left by a riverbank …not as a baby but as a child.  A father that was a drifter and a mother who was too sick herself to care for a three year old.  He was passed throughout the village, each one taking their turn with him, but a family was never formed.  Well into his tenth year, he would still cry himself to sleep over thoughts of his parents, where they were and whether they would ever return for him one day. 

He especially thought of his mother and remembered how her soft hair felt when he would tug at it.  He used to lay his head on her warm chest, and she would pull his blanket up around him.  But all he remembered of his father was his booming voice and the sound of the front door shutting when he would come home at night.  Harris was just too young when they left to have any more memories but every once in a while he would hear a story about them from one of the villagers.  Some would be kind to the boy and paint them as heroes almost.  A dashing prince and a beautiful princess who fell in love and then went off one day to conquer the world.  But others told him what he already suspected and never wanted to hear.  His father was a “good for nothing gambler” and his mother was a “boozer and a pill popper” and neither one should have ever had children.  They were too young, too selfish, too immature, not educated enough, etc. etc. etc. was what Harris heard the most. 

Even though many years had passed since they had left him with no word from either one, Harris would still look for them on almost a daily basis.  He would glance into cars as they drove by and walk into shops and cafes if he thought he recognized his mother’s blonde hair from behind.  He had one picture of them that he had cut out of an old newspaper years later that he found in the library.  It was of his parents’ wedding day in 1953, and they were the most handsome couple he had ever seen.  Harris was proud of them then but seeing their smiles and their happiness only made him ache inside even more.  He knew he belonged with them. 

It was almost as if he blamed the ones who stayed and tried to help.  He never saw any of them as special or worth getting to know.  He just wanted out of this dead end place, and all the anger that had built up in him over the years would sometimes spill out.  He was quiet and sullen most of the time until he was pushed.  Then either something would snap inside or a switch would go off.  His eyes would change dramatically and anyone who knew him for very long knew to get away fast.  It was like someone else took over his body, someone too strong and too violent to hold down easily.  He would take it out on anyone who got in his way.  Animals and children were most often his victims, or anyone that came from a happy home, were loved or considered special. 

He especially took it out on pretty women.  He would watch them from a distance and study everything about them.  Their habits, their routine, who their friends and family were, what they liked and disliked.  Sometimes he got to know them, and sometimes he didn’t.  It didn’t matter really.  They were all the same. 

As he grew older, Harris began to take photos of them.  He would develop the pictures immediately and then pin them around the one room in his house he always kept locked.  He examined them closely, taking in every detail.  Then in his spare time, he would draw one of their features like their eyes over and over again making slight alterations each time to give them a different look.  After a while, he began drawing snakes around their necks or lizards crawling out of their head.  Their hair was always blonde, though, and their eyes always blue. 

When Emily Hunt went missing last winter, the entire community got involved.  Even Harris.  They hung posters everywhere and contacted the media.  They went door- to- door asking if anyone knew her whereabouts and questioned all her friends and associates.  They investigated her work place, her church and the studio where she danced every Friday night.  They even looked in abandoned buildings and explored the river basin and the woods nearby.  They searched everywhere but Harris’ backyard.

Copyright © 2015 (Michelle Parsons, Getting Back on Your Path). All Rights Reserved.

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