I suppose it has come time for me to tell of the days so many seem to be curious about. I will readily admit that this chore burdens me, and it saddens me that I am the most equipped for it. After all, this man was to me a mysterious entity that passes into one's life. As it became apparent to me some months ago, I cannot say much to his personality. Indeed, there is hardly anything I could tell you about him, and less I could say with certainty. Still, I do consider him a friend. If you will, please excuse my feeble attempt at stalling.
I met Harris on a Tuesday. The day began as a bland period. I'd been somehow possessed to awaken before the sun would greet me. I sat fully awake and not at all productive. The world came alive around my apartment with no change inside. I sat, pushing on my eyes until a small inner voice moved me from the spot. It was with reluctance that I prepared myself and ventured into the world.
I had no place to be, no errands to complete. More than anything, I was wandering. After some hours I parked in the lot of a mall and dragged my feet into the building. Several circles through the corridors and commercial plateaus led me to a line at a restaurant. I placed myself at the end and waited with the others. There was a menu hanging overhead, and people were securing colorful tables in a cramped room to my left. In my observation I inevitably looked behind me, and found a man reading the menu above our heads. Somehow my attention was trapped at him. His stare then met my own, and a thoughtful expression was brought to his face.
"Do I know you?" asked the man. I did not immediately recognize him, but shortly decided that we knew each other, somehow.
"I think so," I said. Presently, a young woman behind the register grasped for my attention with a strong "sir?" I ordered my food, exchanging no pleasantries. The woman spouted a price, but I found I couldn't meet it.
"I'll get it," barged the man. The way he said this and moved me aside by my shoulders suggested we had been the best of friends long ago. At the arrival of our food and the securing of a table, we began chatting. It took only a short time to discover that we never, in fact, met before this day. Of all reactions to this, it still surprises me that he became overjoyed. My mood had become joyous as well.
"I suppose you'd like to know my name," he offered. "I'm Harris." And here he held out a hand for me.
"I'm Benjamin," I returned, taking the hand. At this time, I already saw him as my friend. As for the rest of that day, we continued talking as if we'd been friends for years. Long after our food had been finished we sat there. The people in the surrounding tables left and were replaced several times by the point it was decided to leave. Harris had the presence of mind to be sure we could contact each other, and then we departed.
The parking lot was a cold black ocean. It was abandoned, save for three cars. Any noise was muffled and carried from far away. I was slow in realizing that it was almost eleven, two hours after the closing of the mall. This was startling because, if for any real reason, I could only remember with any clarity my awakening and meeting Harris. I made no move to my car, but sat on the curb,my arms propping me up, and watched the dry leaves moved by small whirlwinds. Upon returning home, it was with little difficulty that I fell into sleep, and in sleep I remained until well into the morning. I imagine then I must have had some errand of little impression upon me, because though I don't recall what it was or even leaving to attend to it, I do remember distinctly the ring of the phone as I returned. The number of the calling had an area code I only recognized from the sloppy scribbled sequence given to me by Harris on a folded napkin. I shifted the phone in my hand and pressed my thumb on the button.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Ben?" came the response. Nobody calls me Ben.
"Harris? I hadn't expected you to reach me so soon."
"Yes, well, I saw no reason not to. Besides, I'd hoped to see the town while I'm here, thought I'd ask you to join me."
"Sorry?" I spouted. "What do you mean by while you're here?"
"Hmm? Well, I'm only here for a short while, on business. Did that fail to come up?"
"It did," I said. It was at this time, having met him the day before, and known not even where he resided, that I was by no small degree disheartened by Harris' inevitable departure.
We made plans to meet at the park placed directly at the end of Magdala Road. Magdala was a wide street, adjacent on one side to an apartment complex not lacking in vacancy, and on the other to a small forested area, thickened by vines of ivy.
Upon meeting Harris there I informed him of our situation, being that we had all day to get to any place we might choose, but no means other than by foot. We set off in no hurry, our direction was chosen more for route than destination.
Being with Harris was easy, and we acted freely, not worried about impressions. He was not becoming my friend, and I was not becoming his, because we already were friends. A conversation between us might have sounded odd indeed. I, when comfortable, often speak in an intricate way, similar to this disclosure. Harris' speech was amusing to me. It always seemed almost formal, in manner and not in content.
During our walk that day, though, there were times I was uneasy. Once, as an example, I asked where he resided. He slyly responded without answering and spoke with long pauses at intervals. Eventually he, seemingly with reluctance, informed me of a part of his personal life. He said he had a wife and young daughter. I was deeply affected in how he said it.
"Lillian," He'd said, " and little Sammy." He'd stopped our walk in disclosing this. His face was oddly mixed, twisted into an expression of longing and disappointment. His eyes would have portrayed a wildly happy mood had they not been glazed over. We remained for some short while before Harris began trudging, and I slightly behind him, uncomfortable.
The mood turned slowly and soon returned to the unusually cheerful bond we'd had before. After some indiscernable amount of time, Harris stopped.
"Ben, where are we going?" He asked.
"Well," I paused. We had decided on a destination, and I had forgotten. We'd been walking for no less than an hour.
"Why," I said suddenly," we were going to... right over there." I said, pointing to a restaurant.
"Really?" he asked.
"No, actually, we're hopelessly lost."
"Well," started Harris unsurely," let's eat."
Our meal was uneventful. We sat and talked. At a slight interruption, I found, Harris would fall into awkward silence. Our conversation became limited. I didn't ask much, but did discover the hotel at which he was staying.
Soon our meal had ended. I took the oppuritunity to pay for Harris' food along with my own, and we departed. I then took it upon myself to call a taxi, which I meant to pay for as well. We'd taken to sitting on a curb. This made me feel childish; as if I were waiting for a parent to pick me up. The growing silence began digging into my temples.
"I don't get out much," I said, "else I'd know where we are, I suppose."
"Hmmm," was his only response. He was extending his fingers and rubbing the pad of his thumb into the oppostie hand's palm, as if pressing relief into an ache. Apparently we shared this nervous response, as I've always done so when at a loss for words.
The silence returned and remained until the rumbling of an engine approached, stopping at us with the soft, slowing crush under the tires. I walked to the opposite side of the car, entered, and situated myself. I had meant to instruct the driver to Harris' hotel, but Harris spoke up.
"If you could take us to Magdala Road." He piped, formally but awkwardly. For a moment I was confused, but my confusion slowly grew into excitement. After all, this meant the day was not yet over.
The park was quiet as it always was. Harris had started walking before I'd paid our driver. In rushing behind him, I noticed the strange tension in his muscles. He held an unusual air about him, like a man preparing for something he held no importance to. He then, with sincerity, said,
"Sorry; Maybe I shouldn't exhaust you, but I felt that in taking such a long walk we've beheld next to nothing." I remembered then that our purpose that day was to take in the sights. We had walked by the sights withholding any acknowledgment of them. Harris continued, and somehow seemed to know where he was going. He walked purposefully into the forest. After some difficult maneuvering we had placed ourselves on a trail.
"Why are we going this way?" I asked.
"Well," he started hesitantly, "I thought I saw something through the trees earlier, and I thought I might see it up close." This I cannot say satisfied me as an answer. But soon, after a small number of forks we'd seen more than once, and several times we'd turned back upon the trail, we reached a bridge.
The bridge was of wood, thick and dark. There were spots stained green of moss or otherwise. Parts were obviously replacements put in over the years and the guard rails were quite awkwardly remade in aluminum. This bridge, which seemed familiar to no small degree, was some forty feet across and some seventy feet from the bottom of the chasm it crossed. Below, there ran a river obviously deep and strong, surrounded symmetrically by banks covered in masses of smooth stones this in entirety was, equally symmetrically, surrounded by incredibly steep walls of dirt.
At this point I had a mental breakthrough.
"I know this bridge," I told him happily, and proudly added "and I know where we are."
"How's that?" inquired Harris. I noted that he didn't look at me. He was firmly gripping the aluminum, staring at his own hands. I'd grow tired of observing him, though, as I'd been carefully watching him as if I was concerned.
"Well," I began with a breath. "In short, my mother and I would walk through this trail when I was little. When she thought I needed fresh air we'd always walk, and always end up here, somehow. Although, this bridge is fairly useless now."
"Why would it be useless?" He asked. He still hadn't looked up from his hands.
"It doesn't lead anywhere. That trail on the other side goes about a quarter mile, and it leads to a fence surrounding some huge business area. When I was eleven they started clearing for construction, and then the fence went up. After that me and Mother would always go down some other trail. I never saw this bridge after that." The words came stringed together. I was rushing words. I wanted to tell him about my mother, about how she had died when I was thirteen. Something inside me didn't want him to know this, and I was trying to put words in front of it so that I could avoid telling him.
"I like this bridge," said Harris, "Useless or not, it hasn't become meaningless." I could not, at that time, have supposed what he meant by this. We sat there in silence until the sun began to set. I don't imagine he would have left sooner if I'd asked. we walked back to the park. Harris seemed heavier with the bridge behind us. Before parting ways we stopped. I said my goodbye, and he mumbled something I cannot say for certain was a farewell.
The next few days passed slowly. I could find nothing to occupy myself, and Harris would not answer my calls. It was on Sunday that I got a call from the now-familiar area code.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Who's this?" Inquired a woman.
"Who's this?" I repeated, confused.
"Lillian Fald. Do you know where my husband is? Your number was in his hotel room. Please. I've been looking for so long." The woman, Harris' wife, was only asking where her husband was, but she seemed ready to beg. At the time, I couldn't sense the state of exhaustion her mind was in.
"I don't know where Harris is." I responded calmly, confused by her tone, but worried now.
"Maybe he's doing some business." I offered.
"Harris doesn't have a business. He hasn't had a job for months, since our daughter died." Her words came out tired. they came out as a depressing statement repeated until it'd lost its meaning.
A realization came over me. Without explaining to Lillian, I urged her to meet me at Magdala Road, and she agreed.
Upon meeting each other, without words, we set off, me leading. I moved quickly, looking straight ahead, never to Lillian. I did not speak or check to see that she was along with me, I only ran. When we came to the bridge, I quickly leaned over the railing to see the bottom of the chasm, only for the railing to quickly disconnect from the bridge, the wood it was connected to having rotted, and I fell forward. In falling, I flailed and tried to reach my hand into the crumbling dirt wall, tried to dig my feet in. This threw me away from the wall, rather than slowing me. I had little time before I reached the stones at the bottom, my leg snapped and sickeningly bent.
I then found my friend. He too had fallen: he had made on move to slow himself or turn himself. I might have screamed for help, but instead I just screamed, screamed at the sight of my friend's head unnaturally angled from his body, bloodied and dented from the stones. After this, I do not recall.
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