Harry MacMann, a heavily built, angry man who had a habit of smashing his clenched fist down on any nearby horizontal surface, such as a table. 'Get it fucking done!', he'd shout, his face shifting colour, almost instantaneously, to a fuschia red. He was the CEO of a medium sized television broadcasting company, and breaking desks with his fists was how things got done; well, that's how Harry initiated change; he was good at what he did and he knew it.Having devoted several minor strokes to Eutopian Televisual Broadcasting Corporation, Harry decided that it was time to retire. He summoned his secretary into the office; he didn't use the buzzer system, instead, he chose to call her at the top of his voice, 'IRENE!!', he shouted as he looked out to the street below. Nothing, he waited, no sign of the old woman whose birthname (if she hadn't lied) was Irene. It was a large office, his desk on oneside of the room beside the tall glass window, and a span of thirty feet to the door where outside his secretary sat.
He pace up and down the room, clenching and unclenching his large puffy hands. 'IRENEEEEEEE!!', he shouted once again, this time prolonging the call until his face turned purplish red and his voice turned hoarse like a wailing donkey. He comtemplated pressing the buzzer which was right next to him, the old lady was fucking deaf, he knew that, but it wasn't good enough excuse for Harry MacMann. There was a politely quiet knock on the door, Harry took a deep breath to calm himself down, 'Come in...' he said while shaking his head, the door creaked open slowly and some trembling eyebrows peaked around it, '...it's about fucking time... bitch' he spat.
The old secretary shuffled across towards the brighter side of the room, her back arched humbly in the presence of Harry who appeared even more sinister with his shape silhouetted against the window. She sat down shakily and readied a pencil to her notepad. Harry snorted, he pulled a damp hankerchief from his pocket and rubbed it across his brows; the room was cool from the airconditioning yet he was hot from the stress of waiting for this decrepid, crumbling sack of bones to cross the room. He hated Irene because she was so old, he hated the way she was so subservient, he hated the way she dressed, he hated her with all his hatred yet he only kept her in employment because she was so obedient and also she functioned as a focus for his hate.
He stared at the old woman who looked at him, ready for dictation; she caught his eye to acknowledge her preparedness for his words, and then when he returned her gaze with an intense stare, she lowered her head as if bowing to him; he loved that, and he smiled to himself. 'Dear Diary,' he began, Irene hastily scribbled into her notepad; she wasn't the ideal secretary because dictation often made her nervous, she awaited his next word as the tip of her pencil hovered nervously over the paper. Harry turned towards the window and looked to the street which was forty-two stories below, and continued, 'I have decided to quit this fucking job, do something else. I have built this empire from scratch, working my way up from a mere coffee boy, and turning this once small company into a formidably sized profit machine.' he scratched his belly. 'I will now...', he stopped, 'delete that last part Irene!' He scratched his bottom, 'I will take my leave now, to greener pastures. Go to the countryside or something; live in a small town, or village, or something; and live off vegetables that I shall grow in my backyard or...' he coughed, '...something.'
There is a village, a strange one no doubt because its inhabitants look like each other, talk like each other, and smell like each other. Why they do, nobody knows. Although, it has been speculated by sociologists, who happened to be stranded in the village when their bus broke down on the way to a sociology convention, that the people of Nag Nog Creek (for that is the name of this quaint little village) are the product of generations of inbreeding. This village, where the people are the same, and do evil and nasty things to each other as soon as the sun has hidden itself from view, is where Harry decided to spend his retirement.
It wasn't the ideal place for Harry, he only chose Nag Nog Creek because he liked the name. He had never heard of nor seen the place until a friend of the family, a sociologist, recommended it to him as a 'great place to die'. Harry's first impression of the village was that it was too small, it reminded him of the Smurf's village, he despised the fact that he knew that, and he only knew that because his murdered pet dog used to watch that stupid show.
He had bought a cottage, not far from the village centre. The village centre was marked by a well, near the well was a blacksmiths, near the blacksmiths was a tree, on one of the branches of the tree hung a plank of wood from a pair of ropes; it was a swing; the swing was the only reason why anyone would want to go to the village centre. There was a marketplace to the east of this swing, this was where the daily life of the village was actually centred; nobody needed a well, all the buildings were fitted with running water. The only reason why anyone would go to the well would be for matters of excretion when they were caught short, or too lazy to return home to use their toilet.
It was Harry's first morning in the village. He had arrived during the night to his newly furnished dwellings, slept well, woke up with a smile, showered with a song, and then he ventured out to explore the new place. His first stop was the well, he stood next to it and looked down it's shaft into it's shadowy depths; the foul stench of faeces soared upwards and surprised his scent organs like a punch to the head, and he staggered backwards, snorting the flies that had shot up with the smell into his throat cavity. He choked, then fell down on his knees to give birth to a pile of vomit on a nearby flowerbed. After expelling the entirety of his breakfast (cereal, toast, bacon, sausages, cheese and boiled eggs), he raised himself from the ground and brushed the dirt from his trousers. He wobbled over back towards the well, this time holding his breath; pale and sweaty still, he drew a digital camera from his pocket and took a picture of himself standing next to the well.
The next stop was the market square. Harry was amused by the stalls of fruit, vegetables and other items for sale that he considered useless. Amid the stalls, was a street performance. A jester stood within the circle of a crowd; Harry shoved some small children and their grannies aside to get a better view. The jester's name was Cranberry Richards; a sixteen year old who was a highly respected entertainer within the close community. His act consisted of waving his arms crazily and screaming, 'FIRE! FIRE!' while standing perfectly still on the same spot, this would last about five minutes (unless it rained, then it would be about one minute), and then he would pull a ham sandwich from his shoulder bag and begin eating it; at this, everyone would break out in raucuos laughter. Most strangers would not understand why this was so funny, but really it was an in joke between the villagers. Since most newcomers would watch the show from the front, that is while facing Cranberry, the funny stuff happened behind him.
Harry stood, slightly crushed within the crowd, a slightly bemused look on his face as he watched this young man in his traditional jester costume proceed to eat a ham sandwich, while the crowd laughed their merry heads off. He witnessed an elderly man laugh so hard that he started coughing up blood, but nobody cared, they were too busy laughing. Young kids stood on the opposite side, behind the performer, they giggled until tears streamed down their eyes and their cheeks cramped till their little faces spasmed into unreadable, deformed expressions. If Harry had watched the spectacle from where the children were standing, they would have seen that the jester had a round hole cut into the back of his costume that revealed his buttocks. As he nonchalantly ate his ham sandwich, he would excrete into the tin bucket that he stood over making bimp, bimp, bimp sounds.
Harry thought to himself, these people are crazy! They obviously hadn't discovered television. It was true, nobody in Nag Nog Creek watched television; they never even considered it, watching young Cranberry shit into a bucket while eating a ham sandwich had always been enough in way of entertainment. Harry decided that he would introduce the people of Nag Nog Creek to the device that had made him rich, the box of dreams: television.
To be continued...
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