The Shadow of Geordie Harrisby Eric J. Kregel |
Part 3 appears in this issue. |
| conclusion |
My wife took a long time to go to sleep. Worried over our taxes and some of the payments we couldn’t make this month, she spent a couple of hours pacing. I didn’t talk to her, knowing it would either end in a fight or she’d start crying. A fight wouldn’t have been bad, I just can’t stand her crying.
Finally she went to sleep. Alone, I sat myself in a chair pointed at the door mirror in my study. Upon Davros’ instruction, I gulped down some nighttime cold medicine and waited for me to get all sleepy and goofy. I waited for that transition moment, the one I stumbled upon with old Irontree, when man and wolf’s nature converge.
I blinked slowly, feeling my eyelids get heavy and my eyes burn with every blink. None of that, I told myself. Need to be awake. Can’t go to sleep now.
The room spun, turning blurry with every chance my eyes scanned to a new object. They grew cross-eyed if I didn’t focus on something intently, with the lids getting tighter and tighter around my pupils.
Stay awake, Geordie! Keep at it!
I turned to look at the mirror. And saw the wolf smiled back at me.
“We finally meet,” he said through the mirror’s glass. “It is a genuine pleasure.”
“Quit that! You’ve got a plan to take over the world or destroy it with my computer, so I’m here to stop you,” I said back to him.
He clasped his furry hands slowly, probably not to prick himself with his thick nails, and chuckled. “I’m not trying to take over the world,” he said smoothly. “I’m just trying to target a few companies who make millions off of medical debt. It’s justice and compassion, Geordie. Don’t you want to do something to help your fellow man, hmmm?”
“It’s illegal and wrong. I’m here to stop you.” I reached down on the floor and pulled out my pistol, aiming it at his reflection. “I’m here to kill you.”
“Yes, I now have the day’s memory with me. You plan to shoot at the reflection and end my existence.”
“Exactly. You’re not natural, your being here is breaking all of the rules. And that’s what I’m about, following the rules.”
His grin dropped. Slowly, the wolf unclasped his hands and leaned towards me. “There’s an oversight, if memory serves us, that I’d like to bring up, before you fire your weapon. Davros said the strongest being will survive.”
“Yup. And the weakest will pop out of this world.” I sniffed as if to relish in my triumph. The wolf was entirely at my mercy.
“Have you ever considered the possibility that you, in fact, are the inferior?” I didn’t move a muscle, his words sinking into me and going deep.
“I say this not as a boast or a form of hubris, but simply as a possibility. I have been born out of everything you are not, Geordie. This is, by no means, to any credit to me: I’m newly created, I haven’t had a chance yet to make bad decisions or ruin my lot in life. But you might have, hmmm? And all of your weaknesses, all of the things you could never be, spilled out over to me.
“Did you ever stop to consider why I’m not a rampaging monster, hmmm? Why I spend my time in relationships, in pursuing justice even if it goes against the grain? I am a criminal mind, certainly; but I haven’t done anything evil... yet. I am without anything to tarnish my nature, other than I’m not you. How would you stack up against a clean slate, hmmm? Would it condemn me or you?”
I raised the gun, feeling hot. I was to kill him, my plan from the beginning. I wasn’t going to stand by, not like other times in my life, but take action and rid the world of one more monster.
The wolf stood up, lifting his right hand to me in a gesture of caution. “Geordie, may I present another decision for you. I am everything you’re not. Possibly we can learn from each other, be a team. Share ideas. Tutor each other. Use each other’s strengths as a roadmap for the other, growing and changing for the better.”
I bit my lip and pulled back the hammer.
“Geordie,” the wolf screamed. “Please! Let me live! Let me exist! Or allow yourself to exist! Either outcome, my survival or your survival is important to me, and the consequences of your pulling that trigger is too much to lose! Don’t end either of our lives! We can live together!”
I closed my eyes with beads of sweat growing on my brow. My stomach tightened as it kept my dinner down. The gun shook in my hands.
“Please, do not do this! Your daughter needs me! She needs you! So does your wife! Think of what they need, not just what you want! Please!”
A second later, a shot rang out through the house, waking everyone and sounding through the night.
* * *
I hit “return” on my keyboard and let the computer record my face and body through the tiny oval mounted above my screen.
I cleared my throat and looked into the camera’s eye.
“Hello. My name is Geordie Harris. It’s been two weeks since the confrontation with the mirror. I think there needs to be something said, something noted about me, about the situation here.
“I love my wife. And my daughter. I may not show it the best and may not always be around, but I still love them nonetheless. As a man, I will do anything and everything to keep them safe. Our house will always be safe. That’s got to be understood and, in the future, I will do anything and everything to make sure nothing bad will happen to them.
“I’m about following rules too. Rules are not to be compromised, it’s what makes us civilized. That little computer plan was going to ruin civilization and, well, I’m a Centurion, the guardian of civilization. So it’s my job, my nature to keep the peace.
“I felt I had to say that. I don’t like to talk like this, but it’s got to be said. Thank you.”
* * *
The next morning, I woke up as Jane left to drop off our daughter at school and head for work. I rolled over in my bed and looked past my toes at the TV set.
A DVD with my name on it was waiting for me. I got up and inserted it into the player. After a few moments of a wait, the image of the wolf appeared as the recording rolled.
“Hello, Geordie. It has actually been thirteen days since we had our confrontation that ended, comically, with you firing your gun into the ceiling. If memory serves both of us, you’ve spent a few days dry walling over the hole and I doubt anyone will notice the damage.
“I appreciate the recording. I knew you needed time and, well, it’s proved fortunate: we’re now talking.
“Your wishes for safety shall be honored. Upon that request, I shall meet you with one. Simply, I wish to be in relationship. Talk to me. Leave messages. And let us learn from one another. That is all. And during that time, I won’t try to do anything against civilization... if I can help it.”
The wolf smiled, baring his pointed teeth and black lips. I pressed “stop” and turned around, to go back to sleep. Somewhere, as I nodded off, I heard the sound of my shadow’s wolf laugh.
Just before I went out, I wondered what kind of life was to take shape as a werewolf in Canada.
I shoved the idea out of my head, not wanting to think any more about it.
Copyright © 2007 by Eric J. Kregel
