Whatever: Short Stories About a Little Bit of This and That

By Dick Harte

Whatever is a collection of short stories and poems created over a period of time. They are located in different places at different times and in a variety of moods, thus the title, Whatever.

Some readers will say, I liked it, while others might shrug and say, Whatever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503512948

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Dick Harte.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014919704

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-1292-4

                Softcover        978-1-5035-1293-1

                eBook             978-1-5035-1294-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/05/2014

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

I FLY

BIG RIVER

A MEDICAL MIRACLE

THE DISCOVERY OF BREAD

THE SIXTH GREEN

THE THREE FOUNTAINS OF KIYOMIZU

FROM THE FIRE

WILLINSKY’S MANIFESTO

THE FIGHT

GOD JOKES AT NIGHT

ICE

BABBLING BROOK

LOST IN SLOVAKIA

MAGIC SEEDS

THE LOG OF CAPTAIN HARLAN JONAH

THE OLD PHOTO

ANIMATION

THE BOOK

THE ANGEL OF DEATH

TALES FROM THE WOODS AND THE SEA

ODIE AT THE MALL

ON CROSSING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

THE RELIC

FOOD FOR THOUGHT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

HAROLD’S SENSE OF SECURITY

ORVIETO

INDIFFERENCE TO PUCCINI

FERVOR

ORADOUR SUR GLANE SOUVIENS (REMEMBER)

A WISHFUL THINKING ODE ABOUT THE OLD SILK ROAD

THE TUMBLE AT ZIHUA

REDEMPTION

AT MY FUNERAL SERVICE

FOR PHYSICISTS ONLY— THE STRANGE TALE OF PHILIP THE PHOTON QED

LABYRINTH

A MEETING OF SOULS

CROSSING THE HORSE PATH

POEM OF FOOD AND DRINK

KILL THE PIGEONS

SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN D MINOR THE REDEMPTIVE

THE ANTIQUITY

GERMAN FAIRY TALES

HE FLEW

HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN VERSE WHAT COULD BE WORSE?

DEDICATION

This book is lovingly dedicated to my wife, Sandi, who inspires, energizes, and encourages this writer to do his best at whatever task. Writing is just one of those tasks.

I FLY

MAY 8

Today was the third time I flew. Well, not really flew—more like floated. But I did rise off the floor and bump my head on the ceiling.

Isn’t it ridiculous? I am not a young man and not at all adventurous. Miracles like this should be reserved for the youthful brave ones. In fact, this all started on my birthday—a special birthday. I achieved senior citizen’s status at the movies and received my Medicare card in the mail. But never did I believe it to be so special a birthday that I would do what I believe no man had ever done before. Unless, of course, there are other secret flyers in the world.

Don’t ask me how it happened or how I do it. All I know is that if I hold my elbows tight against my ribs, inhale deeply, and think Up, I rise. I rise but awfully slowly. The first and second flights took almost fifteen seconds before the top of my head grazed the ten-foot high ceiling. Tonight I did it in just seven seconds.

But where do I go from here? I am terrified of doing this out of doors. Suppose I just float up and up and can’t come down again.

MAY 16

You may not believe this, but I have been so busy that I have not had a chance to try my wings in a week. That’s a great expression, to try one’s wings. It makes you sound bird-like. Actually, I probably look more like a drunken pterodactyl in the air as I twist and try to remain head up. Can you believe that I have not been obsessed and engrossed with my new skill?

So today, with no meetings or activities scheduled and nothing good to watch on television, I flew and almost killed myself. I thought it was time to go from a vertical position, head pressed on the ceiling, to a horizontal position like a swimmer. I pulled my arms away from my side and pushed them ahead like a swimmer doing a breaststroke. Instead of a swimmer, I became a diver and, thank God, dove headfirst down on to the bed. Had it been the hardwood floor, I would surely have broken my neck. I guess I moved my arms too quickly. That won’t happen again. I’m so scared; I may never try to fly again.

JUNE 4

I have become obsessed. Not so much with flying but with the fear of flying, or rather, the fear of daring. Let’s face it. All my life I have been reserved and conservative and fearful of new things.

I remember a trip to the mountains one winter weekend. My wife and I took our two young kids to Lake Tahoe about a week after a major winter snowstorm. The world was white and we trudged up a steep snow-covered hill and rode down a small toboggan course. We traveled down sitting on plastic disks that spun in circles down the chute. My wife screamed with delight, and the kids screamed out loud with excitement. And I rode down stoically with a smile.

I was accused by my wife of being totally inhibited, and she was right. I have been thinking much about that episode and many others in my unromantic life. How restrained I truly am. Where is my courage? How unattractive it seems to me. How much of life have I been missing?

So after much soul-searching, I finally decided that at my age there was nothing to lose and perhaps there was a whole new life for me. Today, on June 4 at about 9:00 p.m. when it was dark and all the neighbor’s children were in for the night, I flew.

I rose twenty, thirty, forty feet into the air, high over the top branches of the eucalyptus trees. I flew uninhibited. I learned to let the breezes lift me like a helium balloon. I moved my arms slowly and carefully and swam through the warm air night like a breaststroker. I looped and spun slowly and felt that I had never experienced such exhilaration. My pulse must have reached two hundred in the excitement of the moment. I gave no thought about how I would get down. Who cared? I felt a giddy bubbly sensation.

I was in love with life, and space, and warm summer evenings, and joy, oh, the joy. And I was in love with love. I flew.

BIG RIVER

Some places in America retain the names given by the Native Americans. But this place did not. The name was a word probably too long, to tough for the white man’s tongue, and so they called it Big River. The Native American was also meant to be the same. The land was called Big River, and later on, the Town. Even the mountain just west of the town, where the foaming stream was born, was called Big River. And this is where I was born and grew up.

Some said it was a holy place to the Native Americans, a place where spirits dwelled. And there were days in autumn, about dusk, when the winds came up, when you could hear murmurings and moans in the tree tops. Wind or spirits, it always gave me chills.

There were reports of Indian burial sites at the base of Big River Mountain. And once one summer, as I dug in the reddish clay alongside the stream, I found a white flint arrowhead. Milky quartz with flecks of gold and brown.

I do not believe in superstitions or amulets or talismans, and yet today in my top dresser draw, in a box filled with cuff links and collar studs and old mementos like fraternity pins, I keep my sacred arrowhead.

And on days when I am perplexed or confused, on days when decisions are asked of me, I might find myself alone at the dresser, arrowhead in my hand being pressed and rubbed as I give thought to what I must do.

I don’t think much about my childhood anymore. I am much too busy. Here I stand at a dresser in a large modern bedroom of an expensive New York apartment, in a high-rise building fourteen stories above the street. I am a most successful lawyer now. My wife is an account executive at a major brokerage house on Wall Street. We share this apartment and a bed but little else. No children to complicate our lives and a seventh wedding anniversary coming soon. But we hardly share our lives. We celebrate our little successes with champagne or special dinners at the best places.

Our friends are not really ours; they are either hers or mine, and they are few. We make love frequently, but there is the lacking of passion we once shared. We never fight. At least we never yell or make demands or demonstrate anger. We just pass quiet cutting words, cool, not cold or nasty. Just enough to suggest reprimand. The pain is never sharp, but it is real.

And now I have decisions to make. I am alone. She will be late again tonight. The sun is setting over the Hudson River. There are bands of gold and blue low over the horizon of New Jersey. I stand here, fingering my milky arrowhead, knowing already what I will do. And I think of the rushing waters of Big River.

A MEDICAL MIRACLE

The report appeared on Thursday night NBC news at 11:00 p.m. Startling news. It made headlines in the morning papers. A medical miracle had occurred, never before attempted and frankly not to be repeated for some long time to come for reasons I will later discuss.

Another stupid youth driving a motorcycle without wearing a crash helmet became an organ donor on Wednesday night. He provided society with a healthy heart, kidney, and liver as soon as he was declared brain-dead. But never before had a soul been captured for transplantation.

The special team at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles had been waiting for their opportunity to do this incredible thing, the transplant of a human soul from one human to another. Excitement could be felt on every floor of the building and at every station.

The TV pictures in the news report were typical. A helicopter settled down on the roof of the hospital, awakening some of the Westwood neighbors. The door of the chopper swung open and a young black medic ducked under the slowing rotary blades, running toward an entrance, carrying a small red case that looked like a picnic cooler. Other orderlies followed on the run. After all, no one knew how long a soul would last even when packed on dry ice.

The proposed recipient of this new soul was a pretty sixteen-year-old girl who suffered from a chronic and very deep depression that was resistant to any drug regimen. Her prognosis was either a life in institutions or a possible suicide. Everyone in the hospital was in love with young Melanie because she suffered so in silence and always presented such a sad picture, which engendered such sympathy.

The operation began at 9:30 p.m. and was not completed until 3:00 a.m. on Friday. By noon the hospital lounge was filled with reporters and television cameras as Dr. Spaulding, head of the surgical team, blinking under the strong lights, explained the procedure.

"Let me say at the outset that Melanie Peterson appears to be doing fine. She is still in the recovery room but we expect to transfer her to intensive care in the next hour or two. She is a very brave young lady.

I want to take this opportunity to salute the entire team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, OR nurses, and aides. This was a real team effort requiring the most intense concentration by every participant. After all, we are forging new medicine here and we could not afford a single mistake or lapse of focus.

After five more minutes of mostly self-congratulations, Dr. Spaulding opened up the session to questions.

"Dr. Spaulding, Whycliff of the Boston Globe. Can you explain how you extracted the soul from the donor? Can you tell us in simple terms how this is done?"

"Yes. Basically it is a simple operation. The problem is in the pace of transfer. How carefully it must be done. At the very moment the donor expired, his last breath was captured in a special face mask and into a plastic tube whose inner wall are coated with a unique fluorine compound and then into a Dewar of liquid nitrogen at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius. That’s centigrade.

"I use the term expired and that is Latin for ‘outward breath.’ So even our historic ancestors saw the living soul depart with that last breath. And of course you can see how one would become inspired. You can conceive of inspiration as the breathing in of some quality called soul. But here we get a little theological and I would prefer to stay in the comfortable confines of clinical medicine. Yes. You in the corner."

"Flint, Associated Press, sir. How do you keep the soul fresh in transit if the transfer takes hours to complete?"

Good question. It appears that the soul, like carbon dioxide and other gasses, is highly soluble in very cold liquids. We employ a proprietary liquid in which the soul quickly dissolves without disruption at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. In the recipient’s operating room we gradually raise the temperature and soul, being lighter than air separates out from the solvent liquid. We then pull it along under a slight vacuum into the anesthesia apparatus.

"Dr. Spaulding, Sir. Michael Mancini of the LA Times. Is there a problem of possible rejection of the soul as there is with other transplanted organs?"

Dr. Spaulding paused and pulled at his chin, hoping to look thoughtful. We really don’t know. We have no animal models with which to establish some history. We don’t even know if animals have an animal equivalent of what we call the human soul. We will administer steroids, methotrexate, and other immune suppressants just to be sure, of course. But I repeat, there is so little we know. And now if you will excuse me, I have a patient to visit in the recovery room.

I mentioned the doctor’s remark earlier about not wanting to discuss the theological aspects of the event. But I assure you that this was the aspect that caught the world’s attention. The religious Right was outraged. And so surprisingly were the environmentalists although I have yet to understand their position.

It was not known at the time, but two key people on the UCLA anesthesia team resigned rather than take part in this procedure. One was Dr. Avi Greenberg, an Orthodox Jew. The other was Dr. Sean Flannery, a devout Irish Catholic.

The pope in Rome made an impassioned plea to desist in tampering with God’s work. But the most interesting reaction and statement came from the Dalai Lama from his home in exile in Dharamsala in northern India. Paraphrasing his comments, I quote, There is no forbidding of such activities by man, for man will do what he will do. The pity is its futility. For the soul will do what it will do in the great karmic spin of life’s wheel. Man cannot control where the spirit chooses to reside as it moves from one of life’s creatures to another over the endless span of time.

In any case, the convening of