Harry's Perpetuators, ALbert Russo [great reads .TXT] 📗

HARRY’S PERPETUATORS

a science-fiction story by Albert Russo (4000 words)

excerpted from his award-winning book
THE CROWDED WORLD OF SOLITUDE, volume 1,
the Collected Stories (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc)


Middleton's Transplant Center. On the tenth of December of that year, Anita Jason's parents were shown into her room. They both had reddened eyes and each held a parcel in his right hand. Mrs. Jason, seeing her daughter standing next to her bed - she was still very pale but the shade of a promising smile was drawn on her lips - uttered a few words laden with emotion.
"How pretty you look in that blue dress! We're real ... " Her joy was such that she couldn't speak any further and as she took a step forward her parcel slipped along her ankle, falling on the floor and breaking into pieces.
"Oh!" sighed Mrs. Jason, cupping her mouth wi th the palm of her left hand. She stared at the parcel with an expression of pain then turned her gaze toward Anita. There was a sense of foreboding in it. Mr. Jason tried to reassure his wife:
"This here is well and alive," he said pointing at the wicker basket he was holding. Mrs. Jason shook her head as though she hadn't heard him.
"What was in it, mummy?" Anita asked.
Mrs. Jason remained silent and stooped. She carefully unfolded the paper wrapping lest she should hurt herself. This time, it was Anita who let out an exclamation of sorrow:
"An orchid! My favorite flower!"
Debris of glass had torn the stem in two, irremediably damaging the purple-dotted flower.
"A beautiful, crucified orchid," the teenager murmured. But very soon all three faces brightened up as Mr. Jason presented his daughter with the wicker basket. Anita lifted the top and discovered a magnificent black spaniel pup. It lay asleep, its head comfortably positioned between the two front paws. It looked healthy and had a shiny fur that smelled of straw and freshly baked bread. The orchid incident was already forgotten.

Four days later, it was the turn of Kenneth Clarke to be released from Middleton's Center. He had just come out of the bathroom when Alice appeared, accompanied by a nurse.
"I'll leave you both alone," said the nurse, winking at the young man. "Don't overwork yourself, Mr. Clarke," she added, "you are still convalescent." And she went out.
"Darling," exclaimed a beaming Alice. While they were kissing she held her arms behind her back.
"My lovely freckled amazon," he whispered after their long, warm embrace. "But what are you hiding there?" he asked, peeping over her shoulders. "My God, you're sweating. Are you all right?"
"Well, it's okay now," Alice said, letting her arms fall along her hips. "oh, it looks worse than it realiy is." Her whole left arm was bandaged. "I was so excited this morning." she explained, "that while I was busy frying pancakes, boiling syrup spattered on my fingers. It still hurts a bit, but rest assured, everything is under control now."
Her husband's dark blue eyes bored into hers in an expression at once of admonishment and commiseration. She pouted like a little girl caught in a nasty deed and lowered her gaze. In spite of his state, Kenneth found the strength to remonstrate with her, it itched him so:
"Alice, you're ever so clumsy. Now see what you did." The young woman sadly lifted her chin:
"I told you it was nothing. Please don't raise an argument, we haven't seen each other for ...”
"The hell I will," he cut in. He suddenly became livid and had to sit down. Then, in a hoarse and rising tone he went on, "Why, Alice, do you always have to spoil things? You kill-joy, you ...”
The young woman, stepped to the door, said, "I'll wait for you at home, take a cabl" and banged it behind her.

A month and a half after Kenneth Clarke had left the Center, a graying widower by the name of Digby Russel was packing his leather case. He was a fifty-six year old African-American but his baggy eyes made him look older. He expected no one. Then too, he'd been used to keeping his feelings to himself. Since his wife died - they'd had no children - he'd developed a philosophy which he painstakingly learned to live by: "grief plus happiness square off." And indeed, he felt content, inside. God had granted him a new life span. And what’s more, he'd just been offered an interesting research position at Indiana’s, new Spaceiab. He shuffled his feet to the sink - his limbs were still very numb - and filled a glass with lukewarm water. While he drank he accidentally gargled his throat dtid got into a coughing fit. He almost choked. Stretching his arm, he managed to ring the bell, but crashed the glass against the wall and injured his fist.
"My dear Mr. Russel," the nurse scolded him as soon as she arrived. "You've already had, a relapse. Come lie down straight away!" She propped up the head-rest so as to help abate the cough. He gasped, then gradually his breath returned to a normal pace. The nurse had noticed his bloody hand but hadn't said anything until he calmed down. She washed the injury, disinfected it and applied a gauze band around it. “Tell me" she remarked, "is this a way to leave the hospital, after all we've gone through?"
Heaving his chest, he grinned at her.
"No, no," she insisted, you won't go before you promise me you will behave."
He crossed his heart. She responded with a smile of approval.

Trotting back from school one evening, Anita Jason was humming the tune of a song she particularly disliked. She'd been humming it for the past few days. It was one of those pop songs on the hit-parade which had a way of sneaking into your ears like a swarm of tiny insects such as you encounter near the marshlands. She just couldn't get it out of her system. At one point, in a fit of hysterics, she hollered and quickened her pace. The damn song wouldn't leave her. She started running faster and faster, as if to exorcize herself from it. Instead of heading home, she took the road that led to the fields. While climbing the wooden fence she dropped her schoolbag and a nail ripped the hem of her dress, cutting into her flesh. In her urge to flee - for that was what she was doing - she hardly fell the sting. A trickle of blood reached her sock, and though she swiftly glanced at it, the sight had no effect on her. Now she was panting. The young girl slowed down,
From streaks of turquoise and glazed orange, the sky gradually dipped into a deep, luminous blue. Under different circumstances Anita would have been dead scared. She had no clue as to the direction she was taking. Alone, in the huge expanse of corn fields and in the semi-darkness, she felt - yes - exhilarated. She now followed a path alongside a brook. The water and the trees andall their hidden guests the trees seemed to murmur something to her, like a peaceful tune . A tune? She suddenly realized that the ridiculous song which had triggered her escape no longer pursued her. But what was it then that drew her away from home? Why? She wasn't the adventurous type. And she did love her parents. They would be so terribly worried. There was no logic to this ... Yet the impulse within her became far stronger than all the queries she would put forth. Anita Jason walked throughout the night, crossing woods and fields. She should have been exhausted, but she wasn't. When the first lights of dawn swept the gentle slopes before her, she could clearly see the little town cradled in the bottom of the valley. She passed by a gas station, a diner and a motel. She witnessed the awakening of a new day as she approached the downtown section. The place, very unlike her own, had a quaint, old-fashioned atmosphere. The surrounding nature was much greener here, and reminded her of pictures she had seen of the North East, near the Canadian border. She finally reached the outskirts. The homes were built with dark wooden slates; some of them even looked like Swiss chalets, with their balconies lined up with flower boxes.

Anita Jason aroused curiosity among those town dwellers who had risen at the sound of the cock's crow, There was something eerie about that black-haired teenager wearing a torn dress, scratches all over her legs. Might she be a gypsy roaming around the region? And how her face beamed! Anita seemed blind to the quiet astonishment of the locals. She went her way unperturbed and it appeared as though she would continue her journey past the town, towards the southern hills. But suddenly she stopped in front of a porch. A ferocious-looking German shepherd growled as she pushed open the gate. Yet she showed no sign of fear. In fact, as she came near the chained animal, she heard it whimper, like the black pup her father had given her when she left Middleton. Anita knocked at the entrance door. A minute or two later, a gray-eyed woman came out. She could be fifty and had a crimson dressing-gown on her. There was a harsh sadness in her face.
"Are you looking for Harry?" she asked in a monotone, then added, "I'm his sister. He passed away last spring."

The week had been quite hectic at the office, and Kenneth Clarke was looking forward to Sunday's picnic with his wife. They would drive to their favorite spot in Vermont. He woke up very early that morning. His head ached and he felt slightly nauseous as if recovering from a hangover. It had rained all night long. Lightning and thunderbolts always did disturb him, ever since he'd been a little boy. He went to his wardrobe, removed a fresh set of clothes and tiptoed out of the bedroom. Half an hour later he was sitting in front of the wheel of his Datsun. He had prepared the food and arranged it in the picnic box along with soft drinks and two thermoflasks, one containing coffee, the other, jasmine tea for Alice. Only, Alice wasn't by his side, and for some mysterious reason he didn't question her absence. In no time he'd left Manhattan's skyline behind him. Upon reaching Albany, instead of veering right as he usually did, Kenneth Clarke drove westward to Syracuse and Buffalo. He switched on the radio. They were playing an aria from Carmen. He soon accompanied the soprano in his deep, baritone voice. He suddenly felt he'd grown a pair of wings and his heart became as light as air. A sense of euphoria took hold of him, blotting out the nightmares of a