Continued from Chapter 1It was the second day of Harry's stay in Nag Nog Creek; he already hated the place, but since he was there for good, he decided to make the best of it. He woke up early, before many of the other villagers had woken up, and he made his way to the market square. The village was veiled in blue as the sun peeked over the horizon. By the time he reached the market place, street vendors were already beginning to set up their stalls, as the birds began to chirp.
There was a bucket in the middle of the street; Harry had seen it before, but he couldn't remember where. Just as he began to walk over to investigate, he felt a hand clamp his shoulder. 'Sorry sir, employees only.' said a voice; Harry spun around to see that it belonged to a elderly man in a police uniform. His gaze met the intent stare of the man who now held him in place with the weight of his arm.
Harry stuttered, 'I-I-I was just interested in the bucket.'
'Nobody, but nobody, gets to look at the bucket, sir.' boomed the policeman who after years, half a century perhaps, of maintaining the law, seemed to have a certain calmness along with his authority.
Harry smiled at the officer, and walked slowly back to his cottage where he absent-mindedly removed his jacket and threw it in the dustbin on the way in. He dropped himself into a sofa, his eyes lost to the ceiling, and drew a finger up to his chin in contemplative thought.
Harry was one of those guys who could see potential in people, not because he knew potential, but because he could read other people who saw potential. Most unfortunately, in this case, Harry was terribly mistaken, for the people he read, were not the usual run-of-the-mill human, but like a piece of dough that has been kneaded and turned on itself many times, and wine spilled on it; these villagers had been messed up by generations of inbreeding. Harry believed that he could take Cranberry, and sell this creature back to the very people that created it, in the form of popular entertainment; Yes, television.
Cranberry Richards made for a very interesting case study. Each person is unique, that is what makes them an individual, like the ingredients and cooking times that go into baking a cake, a person like Cranberry could only be made by pure accident. He was brought up by the family dogs; his parents often neglected him because they were usually too busy having sex in the garden. It's lucky that he didn't die because the dogs themselves had been also neglected and left to fend for themselves, and they did that by hunting the local stray cats, although sometimes they happened to be domestic; Cranberry Richards never lost his penchant for cat meat, an acquired taste he would often say at the dinner table to himself.
The problem with Cranberry Richards, and everyone kind of knew it at the back of their minds, was that he was totally useless. If it were not for his daily performance, every morning, at the village market: he would not have money to go to the pet store and buy cat meat for his dinner. Aside from knowing how to prepare cat meat like no other chef in the world, mister Cranberry Richards A.K.A Jon Pickstick, had absolutely no talent.
Let me carry on this rant about Cranberry Richards, who I am starting to hate more and more as I write this. He is also someone who hates mainstream things, he likes underground stuff like outsider art and music, refusing to listen to anything else. He even finds underground a little too mainstream for his tastes, so he looks towards the outsider scene for his music collection. For this reason, and it is a very somewhat retarded reason, he carries a tape recorder in his pocket, incase he can catch someone singing in the shower or humming while doing the dishes. His last recording, and his most recent favourite, was the sound of a four year old girl singing 'London Bridge', albeit badly and messing up the lyrics. Thus, this horrid, disgusting, and little man will hate all forms of popular music, dismissing it as no good, or sometimes saying 'It sounds like the artist has no talent and is just doing it for the money.' And thus, that is why Cranberry has no skills unto himself.
The next morning, Harry sprang out of bed, not groggy eyed as usual, but with a smile so full of delight that it would have split the corners of his mouth. He hobbled down the stairs to his study and plopped himself into the leather chair which hissed as he sank into it. He grabbed the telephone handset and made several calls that morning, one of them to the mayor; he sang and whistled the rest of the day, and finally fell asleep on the sofa. That night, while the villagers slept, technicians from out of town were busy setting up cables in the street. At dawn, a box was delivered to each house in the village with a note, which read 'Please find inside this box, completely free of charge, a plasma widescreen television unit. A technician will call later to install it for you.'
When Cranberry woke up, as usual lying naked on the kitchen floor surrounded by cat bones, he lay there for a while and thought about quitting his day job. Later, he found a note in his letterbox; it was addressed to him, but the name was spelt wrongly, 'Crumbly Rickards'. He opened the note, and read it out loud and slowly to himself, stumbling on letters and sometimes rereading when he mispronounced, smiling whenever he had uncoded the word. The note read:
'Dear Mr. Rickards,
your extraordinary performance at the daily market has been brought to my attention. Perhaps, we could meet sometime to discuss whether you would be interested in appearing in your own television show.
Yours sincerely,
Harry MacMann.'
The sender had scribbled his contact details beneath the message. Cranberry tucked the note inbetween his buttcheeks for safe keeping. He then opened the front door and walked straight into a large box which he tripped over, falling onto his face, and shouting 'FUCKING BITCH!' at the top of his voice.
To Be Continued...
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