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hw-chronicles · 1 month ago

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entry 2

Dear reader, I must say, there comes a time in every mans life where he must look to tomorrow, wince a little, and continue forth anyways. This time may come at any moment and may continue to come each day for a while. I have been having many a day like this. Days when I looked at what came before and what was to come next and shivered with dread. But there is no true rest for me until the day that I will not have to look to tomorrow at all.

Some days you come home to an apartment filled with the glory of opera singing. Flowers in the window so brightly colored they seem to glow, the smell of spices filling the air and the warmth of summer floating in through the windows. Others you arrive to the deafening silence of a cold bed. Dust settling in odd places and an empty street just outside. Sometimes you walk through the door with arms full of roses, cheeks hurting from smiling. Others, with arms of costumes and eyes stinging with tears. The point of this being that none of these scenarios are guaranteed. You could have one today and another tomorrow, good or bad, whether you want them or not.

I used to think that life was rather stagnant or at the very least cyclical. That everything would be the same, or at the very least would return to the same in due time. I have now proven this philosophy incorrect without a shadow of a doubt. Once in a blue moon, something new comes along. It comes barreling into your life at alarming speeds and uproots the entire cycle. It destroys the wheel of time and installs a new path forward. One that winds ever onwards with twists and turns that never double back to where you once were. The path will always be behind you, the option to return, but the further one travels the further back it would be to return. For me, that something new, that destructive force, was Harlan Wayne.

When Harlan came bursting into my life, I shall admit, I was at a rather low point. I was out of work, my darling love had left me, and I was rather strapped for cash. I figured with my circumstances that I could utilize the empty room in our apartment, our home. I could at the very least fill the silence that she left me with.

My past love, Jillian Crow, was the light of my life. She calmed my days and warmed my nights. We may have had our spats, but we always made up. That was, until she left me behind. She packed her things while I was out at an interview and left me with only a note and a hole in my heart. She told me in this note that my failure to keep this seasons employment with the theater was simply too much to bear. That she could care for me no longer and refused to be pulled down on the sinking ship that was my career.

I will tell you this, reader, with the intention of pure honesty and the building of trust between us. I did believe for a while she was correct in her decision. For a long while I felt myself not worthy of care nor burdening others. That my failures not only made me unreasonable to stay with, but that my mere presence around others was a damning thing. I felt myself a failure and a liar in regards to my skill as well. In truth, it was not my skill that caused me to lose my employment. Something I did not tell Jillian was that I was let go for my own safety. But that is a story for another day.

But there was no explaining that to her. She had her own things to deal with and she left before I had the chance to explain. After everything, I truly wish her well, though the void she left still pains me so. It is as simple as this; one day she was there next to me, and the next she was gone. I was alone for a while. Picking up the odd job here and there, just barely making due. It wasn’t the worst time in my life, but it felt empty in a strange way. I missed running into someone in the hall while going about my day. I missed having someone there for me to recite a funny line to or to tell of an odd story I had read. I realized I craved company.

That company came to me in the form of a knock at my door in the dead of night. The knock began somewhere in the dream I was having. A gentle tap on the walls of my skull that grew until I rose from my rest with a jolt. Dread creeping up my spine. I had thought of no reason that my late-night caller had good intentions. But alas, against my judgment and anxiety, I crept toward the front door of my empty flat. Peering through the peephole seemed to give me little comfort as the sight I met might well have been a spirit.

A tall and thin man looked at the door. His pointed thin nose was crooked, as if it had been broken badly once or twice, but not recently. His hair was the kind of fair saved for the mad, the elderly, and the swedes. His skin was a sickly pale, and dark circles traced his wide shining teal eyes. His clothing was rumpled and casual. The only thing that seemed to be in order about the man on my doorstep was a green bowtie, expertly tied. He wrung his hands nervously and glanced down the hall a couple times as if afraid of being spotted.

My hand shook as I reached towards the doorknob. The urge to simply run away and hide beneath my covers until the strange man went away was strong and almost unbearable. That was, until I swung the door open with a polite smile. One of the perks of being a career actor is the ability to grit your teeth and walk out on to nay stage at near any time. Whether hat be the wretched social stage of small talk, or the great stage of The Globe.

“Hullo, how can I help you?” I asked. The eyes of the phantom in front of me went wide with surprise. Perhaps my mask of energy was a touch too much for somewhere around 2 in the morning. I purposefully let a little bit more of my weariness show after that.

“Hi, my name is Harlan Wayne. I saw this posting about a room for rent?” He spoke awkwardly as he held up a flyer, his voice small and low. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks that this man was supposed to be here and wasn’t some sort of undead assailant.

You see, I had posted flyers throughout downtown London and around various parks advertising the need for a flat mate. It had been only a full day, and yet here there was a gentleman asking about it! I would be happy for the luck if it wasn’t for the hour of his arrival. This is not to say I was unhappy for his company. There was something about him that intrigued me so. I seemed to intrigue him much the same way given the way he scanned me with those odd wide eyes. I welcomed him into the flat, noticing an odd air about him.

Not only did the man seem fascinated by me in particular, but everything about my home. He nudged the rug on my floor with his foot and inspected the underside of it slightly. He looked carefully at each chair and surface before coming to rest in one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room. It was the strangest thing, as if he had just emerged from a well somewhere in the country for the first time since Shakespeare died and was just now taking in the modern day. With him he seemed to bring a cool breeze and the peculiar feeling of there being more guests than intended. I shunned this idea from my mind seeing as such things could not be possible.

At this time in my life I was firm in my belief that the legitimacy of superstition only extended as far as a theaters doors. Whistling in the theater brought wretched luck and one must never speak the name of old Williams second most famous play within its walls. Else the show would be doomed and only avid ritual participation as dictated by the most elder member of the theater could recover it.

So I ignored the feeling in my gut of being watched. I ignored the presence of at least four people that surrounded my guest as he sat staring out the front bay window at the long since empty street from my favorite chair. I moved to the kitchen and offered him tea. He seemed to ignore my offer and instead asked me the most peculiar of questions.

“Do you know if there is any iron in the walls here?”

I paused in starting of the stove and kettle. “I do not. I doubt it to be so.” My face tightened in retroactive contemplation. “Why do you ask?”

He seemed to whisper something in the other room that I couldn’t make out before responding. “Oh, just something I’ll need to remedy. Say, I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Ah,” I chuckled a little at my own forgetfulness. “Jakob Vance. Pleasure to make your acquaintance mister Wayne.”

“Please, do call me Harlan.” He responded, now having moved silently from the living room to the kitchen doorway. “So, what is it you do, Jakob?” he seemed to stare past me as he asked.

“I am an actor down at the Old Vic if you would believe it! Well, usually I am. They’re having me sit out this season.” I touted. He glanced at me properly for a moment and I suddenly felt quite a bit more inspected than probably intended. It felt like more than my guest inspected me.

“An actor, interesting. How often?” he asked.

“Why, this is the only season I have taken off in possibly years. I’d say I am always an actor though, even when I have no role to play.” He smiled slightly, it was a kind smile, and one I would enjoy seeing again. Sincere, even if slightly misplaced. He seemed to be smiling not at what I had said, but rather some other distant joke I couldn’t know the punchline of. I fear it would be off putting coming from anyone else. But it was oddly charming coming from the stranger in my doorway. “And you?” I asked. He seemed surprised at the question.

“Investigator. Well, a consultant for inspectors. Sometimes.” He shifted uncomfortably as if not having the proper words for whatever it is he did.

“A detective! What a fascinating career! You must forgive me, I always found the idea of a career in forensics intriguing. What sort of things do you specialize in?” I asked.

“Homicides mostly, it is gruesome work. I doubt it would please you to hear of it.” He said gravely. I believed his claim and probed him no further. The kettle began to boil and I offered the man tea once more. He once again ignored the offer. “So, when can I move in?” he asked. It may have been the hour, dear reader, or just how pleasant I was finding the encounter, but I genuinely had forgotten the purpose of his visit.

“Eh? Oh! Yes, truly whenever is best for you my good sir.”

“Tomorrow evening, this time?” He asked. I nodded without thinking as I poured my tea. “Jolly good then. I will be seeing you. Goodnight Jakob, sleep well.” And with that, he left. I realized as I stood there in the kitchen that we had not discussed rent, nor truly the arrangement of our living situation. I realized I had possibly more questions than answers. But, it was just as I considered these questions that the exhaustion of my early waking truly struck me.

I went back to bed and partially chalked the whole situation up to being a figment of my overly tired mind. This was only exasperated through the peculiar dream I had the rest of the night. I stood on a stage overlooking a vast audience. Yet, I felt more comfortable and myself than maybe I ever had before or since. The words from my mouth as I monologued were incomprehensible and the story I was telling was one that had simultaneously never been told before and had been told a million times.

The audience chittered to itself in inhuman noises that my unconscious mind processed as little critiques and notes. The shapes in the seats were beastly. That of demons, dragons, giants, and imps. In the center of them all, sat quietly with his hands folded and a gentle smile on his face, was Harlan Wayne. The dream ended with a bow and a standing ovation from the writing masses of nightmares and angels. The thing I remember most though, was the satisfied look on Harlans face as I took my last bow. It was different, but in the same vein as the smile he had given me that very night. That look stuck with me well in to when I woke and still to this day. It was as if I had passed some test. I must wonder if that was what it was, and if it was a test, for what was I being tested?

#hw chron #creative writing #sherlock holmes #warlock holmes #fiction

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