The Apocalypse Of Hagren Roose



  The Apocalypse of Hagren Roose

  Copyright © 2012 by J.W. Nicklaus

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without written permission from the author. You may not manipulate or alter in any way the images and information.

  Cover design by author. All images used are royalty free.

  First publication—digital/e-book format

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

  There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life – reciprocity.

  ~ Confucius

  Witnessing the almost comical fall from grace of a fellow drunkard provided a good reason to chew a little more on these words from his dying father. The words had rolled through his thoughts so often they surely could have become a grand roadside attraction, the World’s Largest Ball of Repeated Thought—if only he could manifest it. Life on the streets gave one plenty of time for thought, an abundance of opportunity to reflect upon choices made or wisdom dismissed.

  Anyone who spent time within the seedy confines of lower Nita knew Grizzled Bill; locals fed him, those with weak consciences always handed over a few bucks, and complete strangers who wandered too close would often find themselves ensnared in a conversation with him. Bill was a mere fifty-five years of age but looked a decade older, worn rough and leathery from close to twelve years on the street, kept company by a constant supply of cheap alcohol and his own demons. The rest always seemed to take care of itself. Street life always supplied sights normal people wouldn’t see, much less understand. But even for a well-seasoned street veteran like himself, watching this poor slob, a train wreck in the flesh, hit a little close to home. It was a little too much like looking in a mirror.

  As he did most nights Bill ambled past the old motel on his way back to the shelter when the slurred, rambling voice sounded from within the dimly lit exterior stairwell. Most nights he would have kept walking—angry, even incoherent voices were nothing unusual on his side of town, especially at this particular motel, noted for its hourly rates. But this voice seemed familiar so he stuck around to see if he recognized the face behind it.

  The man was waving his arms about, an ice bucket in one hand while the other pointed, chopped, and punched at the air. Bill watched as he slowly weaved and stumbled toward the ice machine, fell against it, then pounded on it and let fly a string of words which could have constituted cursing, but his slow tongue garbled much of the pronunciation. In the light above the machine Bill could see the man had a moustache the size of a portly caterpillar and was wearing a sport coat and blue jeans.

  Bill focused on the man. He knew this guy from somewhere, or at least had run into him more than once. The mumbling was soon drowned out by the crisp thud of ice cubes filling the bucket. Within moments he watched the man flip over the second floor railing and slam into the windshield of a car below.

  Maybe dad was right, Bill thought. That fall had to hurt, and if the guy wasn’t dead then he certainly was in for an agonizing ride.

  HAGREN ROOSE WASN'T the least bit certain about his surroundings, but without a doubt they were at least a thousand-fold better than where he'd been. Light, airy, and calm; he considered that it might just be what the inside of a marshmallow would be like, if one could be inside a marshmallow. He hadn't noticed the woman until she started waving at him.

  She hadn't called to him. On the contrary, she had said nothing, just looked up from the ledger cradled in the nook of her arm and smiled, her dishwater-blond hair splayed gently upon her shoulders, and a countenance which gave the impression of acquaintance without having met. Her beckoning wave was warm and irresistible. Hagren stepped toward her.

  “Mr. Roose,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Good to meet you. Please give me just another minute and we'll get started.”

  Hagren Roose wasn't a small man, but neither was he, by any definition, large. Unremarkable in most every sense, but once encountered, truly unforgettable: ghostly pale with unnatural brown eyes, a hairline reminiscent of a receding tide, and a moustache more befitting a buffalo than a man. Nodding at the woman he shook her hand without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement.

  Hagren looked the woman over, noting how crisply dressed she was. Her neat, white suit barely stood out against the quiet sterility of the space around them; it contained no chairs or tables, not so much as a desk or clock. Yet walls were discernible; those on either side of him were set at opposite angles to each other converging at a point directly behind his mysterious contact. A small window, no more than three feet square, he guessed, seemed to float just above her right shoulder. The light on the other side had the same diffuse, warm, white glow as that which currently enveloped them. She stood before him, engrossed in several pages of the book. He raised his hand and parted his lips to speak.

  “I'm Lauren,” she stated flatly, looking over the tops of her black-rimmed glasses. “Just another moment, please.” Ordinarily such implied, if unintentional, subordination would light Hagren's notoriously short fuse, a topic which had been much discussed amongst relatives and peers. The general consensus was that his fuse was half a millimeter in length, and most found the estimate to be egregiously generous.

  Hagren studied Lauren as she pored over her book. Her body language was officious without any trace of coolness. On the contrary, her simple presence made him feel like he should apologize for some misdeed he wasn't aware of; Hagren didn't suffer apologies well.

  Without removing her eyes from the page, Lauren took a deep breath then gently laid a gold string in place to mark where she'd left off. She smiled as she looked up.

  “So, Mr. Roose,” she began, “First, thank you for your patience. Second, you need to know that I am both your counsel and, though you don't realize it yet, your friend. I am not your judge.” Lauren paused to look him over more thoroughly and to move the book in front of her, both hands cupping it at her waist. “Although I may opt to voice my opinion from time to time.”

  Hagren simply nodded.

  Lauren grinned. “You may wish to consider a re-think of your wardrobe, however.” She gestured with a nod in the direction of his tweed sport coat and faded blue jeans. “Merely a suggestion from a woman's perspective, I assure you.”

  Hagren had always dressed as he saw fit. Despite the best efforts of his wife, mother, and younger sister he clung to his steadfast belief that a man could wear “whatever he damn well pleased.” Nobody could ever convince him otherwise. He once wore an outrageous Hawaiian print shirt, jeans, and flip-flops to a funeral for some distant relation on his wife’s side of the family. He'd argued it was a warm day, and since the person was dead they didn't care. His wife, mortified beyond description, gave him all kinds of hell for a week straight, and when that didn't seem to faze him she made him sleep on the sofa for another week. The shirt vanished soon thereafter, but two weeks of spousal reprimand were enough to keep his lips sealed on the matter.

  Hagren tightened his jaw. All sense of calm evaporated like a drop of water on an August sidewalk. “There is nothing wrong with my attire, Miss Prim and Proper.” He raised and lowered his palm as if exhibiting Lauren for a game show contestant. “You dress like a gauze bandage.” Hagren should have stopped there, but he was on a roll; anyone else would call it a tirade.

  “You have the gall to criticize my clothes, yet all you need is a pair of dark s
unglasses and I could call you Tampon, because you'd certainly be white, tight, and outta' sight!”

  The corners of her mouth slowly curled upward. “Yes, we certainly have much work to do, Mr. Roose. The Book,” she stated, patting it for emphasis, “alluded to your, um, how should I put this—your quick disposition?”

  Hagren seemed to reduce from a boil to a simmer. “Is that so?” With abrupt quickness his demeanor shifted from excitable to one of unpleasant discovery. “Wait . . . You mean—that was some kind of test?” Lauren pointed to the tip of her nose. “Quite right, my friend.” She began to turn toward the window, then looked over her shoulder. Hagren stared at her, apparently still absorbing the self-inflicted humiliation of the moment. “Follow me, please,” she said.

  He stood, fixed in place, gazing at her. “Mr. Roose,” she prompted. No response, not the slightest hint of movement. “Mr. Roose,” she said a little louder, accompanied by the snapping of fingers. The crisp click startled him, breaking his reverie.

  “I'm—I was, uh,” he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just, I mean, for a second you reminded of someone I know.”

  “It might surprise you how often I hear that,” she replied. “Now, if you'll follow me.”

  Reaching toward the window, Lauren pulled open a door with no handle, no casing or jamb. Hagren stood, unblinking, staring into a long hallway beyond the invisible door.

  Hagren’s tongue couldn’t get out of its own way. “But . . . window . . . where . . . no handle . . .”

  “We have no need for those, Mr. Roose,” she conceded. “We have a grip on everything here.” She giggled at her own pun, a gentle, soothing sound, like the sloshing of warm bath water on a cool evening. Hagren stared at the portal, his face a study in puzzlement.

  “I get that look a lot, too,” she added. “I promise, Mr. Roose, you will understand soon enough.” With the practiced ease of a master illusionist Lauren motioned through the door as if to prove there was nothing hidden within her palm.

  Hagren stepped forward into the milky corridor, his eyes still searching the opening for hinges.

  LIFE IS FILLED with an infinite number of things which defy our ability to understand. We are, by nature, inquisitive creatures. Sometimes a matter demands asking—sometimes wisdom dictates it is better not to. “Why?” often acts as a catalyst for elusive answers. Reason, when full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom—at least according to Cicero.

  * * *

  Alina Roose stared somberly at her breakfast plate, absent-mindedly pushing around scrambled eggs and hash browns as if she were trying to determine which arrangement was most fashionable. Her coffee was cold, perfectly matched to the barely touched contents on her plate and the gray, persistent drizzle outside the window. The big city had beckoned over five years ago with the prospect of a foot in the door of a start-up interior design firm, and all the perks convenient metropolitan living had to offer. Her enthusiasm for diving into her first heady sojourn away from her rural home had brought with it the attendant exhilaration and unforeseen problems which promise conceals and life, inevitably, divulges; the most endearing of which had been Catherine, who sat across from her now, eyeglasses halfway down the bridge of her nose as she stared intently at the morning crossword puzzle. She held the newspaper folded in quarters and, as was her habit, tapped her pen upon her cheek while contemplating the clues.

  “What's a six letter word for 'catatonic boredom'?” Catherine asked.

  Alina’s typically swift reply didn't happen.

  Catherine met Alina in her bookstore, a used bookstore at that. Not that she owned it. She adored, even loved working there. The types of people who walked through the door were as varied as the books they traded, bought, or simply perused. It was that same kind of association between books and people which made Alina so striking to her.

  Catherine figured Alina must have lived close to the bookstore. She would stride through the door most every Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon, smiling as the small bell above the door jingled each time it opened. The attraction was immediate; Catherine sensed something different about her, something innocent yet warm and welcoming. She was always casually yet tastefully dressed, her relaxed nature and wire-rimmed glasses that bridged a lightly freckled nose gave her an air of intelligence, but not commonality. It had been her eighth visit before Catherine screwed up the courage to ask about something other than her favorite authors, or if she ever worked on crosswords. Over the sale of a volume of Poe's work she risked asking if Alina drank coffee—an almost impossibly silly question to ask a book lover.

  Catherine, always attentive to detail, recalled Alina drank two coffees that first evening they met away from the store, two packets of sugar and fresh cream in each, and nibbled upon a flaky croissant with honey butter. It rained that night as they sat talking, and both had remarked on the artistic and poetic merits of neon reflected in the puddles on the sidewalk.

  The memory would not have bubbled to the surface had it not been pouring outside and rain streaming down the window pane.

  Catherine sat in her overstuffed easy chair by the living room window, making use of the muted morning light. Alina, normally chatty, was unusually quiet.

  “Ally?” Catherine looked up, the tip of her pen fixed to the first box of twenty-six across.

  Alina's dark tresses dangled just past her chin, her gaze affixed to everything on her plate and nothing at all. Her reply was as distant as it was weak. “Hmm?” she mumbled without looking up. The chair next to her groaned as Catherine pulled it across the hardwood floor.

  A delicate finger pushed her chin up. “What's wrong, hun?” Catherine asked.

  Alina's gaze moved up with Catherine's gentle bidding. The rest of her maintained an almost post-mortem stillness. “It's been four years since Daddy—” Her gray eyes welled with moisture, twins to nature's lonesome clouds outside. Catherine leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Alina's shoulders. She could feel a dampness where her head rested upon her shoulder.

  “I know, hun, I know.” Catherine whispered reassuringly. Although only a year older than Alina, she still found deep satisfaction in these moments of supportive maternalism. They were two different people, she and Alina, but Catherine's city upbringing gave her an edge her counterpart hadn't acquired yet—an ability to wade, ankle-deep, through life's garbage without a moment's thought to its stench.

  Alina allowed herself to sob for a few minutes. If any anniversary could be forgotten then why couldn't she just erase this one and move on? It was an apparition that wouldn't leave her alone—most likely it would never leave, and she wouldn’t have to remember because she'd never forget.

  “He just stopped talking to me,” she choked. “Cath, I can remember bouncing on his knee as a little girl. He'd say “Daddy's little princess!” then toss me in the air.” Her hands suddenly flew upward in parallel. For an instant she caught her breath, eyes raised toward an invisible child in mid-air, giggling, with her arms and legs splayed.

  And then the child came down, without a sound. Alina stared at her lap and sniffled. “He stopped loving me, Cath.” Her eyes welled again, cheeks quivering. “My Daddy doesn’t love me anymore.”

  Thunder pealed in the distance, reverberating between apartment buildings and stealing Catherine’s opportunity for a measured but supportive reply. To the degree she was fond of Alina’s mother she was equal in her disdain toward her father. “Hagar the Horrible,” she’d named him. To Catherine, Hagren seemed cartoonish, a Sunday comic realized as a buffoon in flesh but with a surgical edge of insensitivity that bordered on evil. No, it was best to let the thunder speak for her.

  The patter of rain upon the window ticked off the surrender of minutes passing between them. Catherine embraced her again, gently rocking them both as she stroked Alina’s soft hair. Catherine knew this day was coming, of course, but chose to hope it might pass one year, then slowly gather dust in some dark recess of Alina’s memory. S
he knew it wouldn’t, but hoped it might, for Alina’s sake.

  The phone chirped, startling Catherine. It rang a second time. “I’m going to get the phone, okay?” she whispered in her ear. Alina nodded, then gently backed away, sniffled, and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Catherine lifted the handset on the fourth ring.

  “Hello?” she said flatly, still infused with the prior moment.

  “Hi Mrs. Roose!” Catherine’s voice took on an only slightly more pleasant tone. “I’m fine. And you?” She nodded in quiet affirmation to the voice on the other end. “Yes, she’s here. Hang on.” Catherine handed the phone to Alina, mouthing, “It’s your mom.” Alina brushed her hair back, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  “Hi Mom — No, I’m fine — really — I know, Mom, it’s just, you know.” Alina spoke with her eyes closed, vastly different from her usual animated self.

  Suddenly she looked up at Catherine. ““Uh, sure, I think I can make it. Not sure about Cath, though — Okay — I’ll see you this weekend, then — Love you too — Bye.” Alina looked at the phone as she ended the call, a split-second beep emitting from the handset. She looked up to see Catherine peering at her.