JC: Harry and Silva
Chapter 1
By
Lazlo Zalezac
Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2004

Standing under the streetlight, Silva looked at her colleagues 
positioned at different spots along the road. Colleagues, she 
thought contemptuously when a more accurate statement was that 
they were competitors. Each claimed a spot on the street and was 
willing to defend it with physical violence if need be. Sometimes 
when they got off the street, they would talk about their 
experiences, but it would be hard to say they were friends or even 
friendly with each other. 

Traffic along the street was light that night and she'd be lucky to 
get enough money for the rent that was due the next day. She 
looked over at Crystal, who had claimed the other side of the 
streetlight. She knew that Crystal would make less money than she 
would over the course of the night. Most of the women on the 
street had no class and wore the same kind of skimpy clothes as the 
other girls along the street.  The only reason that Crystal had any 
business was her young age. The under-eighteen crowd always had 
customers no matter how trashy they looked since men loved 
screwing young pussy. The young whores had no self-respect, 
thinking and referring to themselves as Ho's.

It was hard for a woman in her early thirties to compete against a 
seventeen-year-old girl, but Silva managed. Silva knew 
presentation was everything as she straightened her skirt to show 
off her full ass and adjusted her tight top to better present her 
breasts. She took a moment to take stock of her assets. She was a 
tall woman with a nice body shown off in tight-fitting silver 
clothes that contrasted nicely with her dark black skin. To 
complete the look, she wore a silver wig, silver makeup, and silver 
boots that made her look even more exotic - like one of those 60's 
Go-Go dancers. It must be working, since she was still making 
good money.

After Crack had become too expensive to use because of the 
destruction of the cocaine supply by the Druids, she had managed 
to kick her addiction. Since then, she had gained some of her 
weight back and looked better than she had in a decade. She had to 
wear dentures because she had lost her teeth as a result of her 
addition. The dentures were good and bad. A lot of men enjoyed a 
blowjob that included a good gumming without the pain of teeth, 
but a woman in her thirties shouldn't be wearing dentures.

Her musings were interrupted when Crystal taunted, "So silver-
bitch, getting much business tonight?"

"More than you," replied Silva tired of the taunts directed at her by 
the younger woman. One of these days, she would put the little girl 
in her place.

"Bitch."

The discussion was cut short when a white sedan pulled up in front 
of Silva. The window on the passenger side of the car rolled down 
and she stuck her head through it to chat with the man inside. It 
was a white guy, pudgy and harmless looking with a balding head 
in his late twenties. He was exactly the kind that needed the most 
flattery to part with a little of his money. She figured he was a 
fifty-dollar blowjob. Smiling at the man, she made sure that he got 
a full glimpse of her breasts and asked, "Hey handsome, you want 
to party?"

For the next few minutes, they went through the dance of agreeing 
to the services to be provided and the price he would pay for them. 
She had been right in her assessment that he was a fifty-dollar 
blowjob. She climbed into the car and said, "Go on up the street 
and turn into the back of the grocery store. Lots of privacy there."

The john followed her instructions, looking a little nervous about 
what he was doing. Silva was already hard at work, knowing that 
the faster she got him off, the sooner she could return to her spot. 
Hoping to build up his excitement, she said, "Hmm, I bet you got a 
monster white cock in your pants. I just love white cock."

The john smiled and nodded as he turned into the alley that ran 
behind the grocery store. He parked the car, his cock already 
getting hard from her words and the fact that her hand was slowly 
working its way up his thigh. Once he had turned off the car, her 
hand stroked his cock through his pants. She cooed, "Oh, I like 
what I'm feeling. Can't wait to get started sucking on that monster 
cock."

"Go ahead."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Silva hinting about the 
money. In not such a subtle hint, she held out her hand and rubbed 
her fingers together.

The john understood the gesture and fished out his wallet. Pulling 
out two twenties and a ten, he handed her the money before 
returning his wallet to his back pocket. Silva put the money in her 
little silver purse and removed a strawberry-flavored rubber. She 
quickly undid his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled down his 
underwear to get access to his average size cock. She cooed, "Oh, 
what a monster."

The john pulled his pants down a little more and reached over to 
fondle her breasts. She reached up and undid her tight shirt freeing 
her breasts. He grabbed her breasts much too hard, but she didn't 
complain. Complaining would only make her time there last 
longer. She slipped the rubber over his cock and started to suck on 
it. 

She thought to herself that it was time to get the loser off as fast as 
possible so that she could get out of there. Making moans as 
though she enjoyed it and artificially slurping her lips, she worked 
his cock with her mouth and hand. The louder the blowjob, the 
shorter it lasted. She made a mental bet with herself that she could 
get him off in less than a minute. She won the bet.

When she lifted her head off his cock, the world turned upside 
down in an explosion of pain as a fist connected with her mouth. 
Shocked at the totally unexpected violence, she sat up wondering 
what was going on. A second blow across the side of her face 
snapped her head around and the world spun. It seemed like the 
world had exploded in a flash of bright light before fading to gray. 
For a moment she thought she was dying.

As she flayed her arms around trying to protect herself, the john 
was pushing her around in the car and hitting her. All she could 
hear was his shouting. "Fucking bitch. A fucking one minute 
blowjob! I'm tired of getting ripped off by you fucking whores."

Silva found herself choking on her dentures as the john ripped off 
her panties. She wanted to scream when his cock battered at her 
ass, but her mouth wasn't working right. Her vision was funny, a 
double vision of the world slowly turning in front of her eyes. The 
pain of his entry in her ass was excruciating, but that paled to his 
continued hammering on her body. She felt one of her ribs give 
and a flare of pain from a blow to her kidney. In an explosion of 
incredible pain, the world disappeared.

Silva was only partially aware of the world as she lay on the 
ground. The world spun around her, but the only thing that she 
could make out clearly was a tapping noise in the background. The 
tapping noise increased in volume as it came closer. She tried to 
move her head to see the source, but her stomach threatened to 
heave. A calm deep voice from about five feet away said, "Stay 
still until medical care arrives. You've been seriously hurt, young 
lady."

She wanted to ask what happened, but her jaw hurt and wouldn't 
work. The man came closer and said, "You're jaw is broken. Don't 
try to talk."

She felt inside her mouth with her tongue feeling that something 
was weird. She couldn't place what was the matter with it. The 
voice came back, "I had to remove your dentures. You were 
choking on them."

Silva lay on the ground unable to move, feeling the light touch of 
some sort of blanket covering her. There wasn't much good about 
her situation, but at least she wasn't exposed naked for everyone to 
look at. If she hadn't felt so horrible, she'd have been angry but the 
pain sapped the strength from her. The man sat down beside her 
and started to sing, "Hush, little baby don't you cry…"

His singing struck her as the ultimate irony to her horrible 
experience. At first, she listened to him thinking he was crazy. 
However, as time went by she found the gentle deep voice singing 
the nonsense song somehow comforting. Here she was, a thirty 
something whore lying beaten in an alleyway after being raped 
finding herself comforted by a children's song. She couldn't even 
see the face of the man helping her.

The sound of the song was soon drowned out by the sound of a 
siren approaching the alley. Bright white flashes alternating with 
blue flashes lit up the darkened alley, hurting the eyes with their 
intensity. She closed her eyes, finding that she couldn't take one 
more discomfort.

With the arrival of the police, the man stopped singing. She 
listened to the discussion of the people around her. Someone, she 
assumed was a cop, said, "Hey, Harry. What have we got here?"

"A woman that has been viciously beaten. She has a broken jaw, 
signs of rape, and bruises on most of her body," answered Harry in 
a matter of fact voice. Listening, she now had a name to go with 
the voice that had been singing. His name was Harry, but she didn't 
know anyone named Harry. 

She could hear the cop kneel down next to her. She recognized his 
voice when he replied, "That's Silva, she's a hooker."

"She's a victim, not a hooker," replied Harry with iron in his voice. 

Lying on the ground, Silva was surprised to hear her rescuer make 
the distinction and mentally cursed Officer Calhoon for his attitude 
towards the women in her profession. He felt that they were all 
losers that brought down society by their mere existence. He didn't 
understand that they had hard lives and worked to make money 
just like everyone else. 

The cop, having had this discussion more than once with Harry, 
sighed as he said, "You're right, I guess. Of course, she could have 
tried to rip off the john." 

Harry shook his head as he said, "You really should get to 
understand the people you are trying to protect. You might be 
surprised to learn that most of them are nice people that live and 
work in a hard environment."

Another vehicle pulled up adding flashing red lights to the 
cacophony of colors. The ambulance had arrived. Silva tried to pay 
attention to what was going on around her, but she had used the 
last of her physical resources on listening to the discussion. The 
world faded to a dull black.

A beeping noise was the first thing that Silva noticed when she 
woke in the hospital bed. The light overhead was harsh and she 
had to blink before her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. 
There was an IV stand with a saline bag hanging off it, a heart 
monitor, and other hospital devices around her. She didn't 
recognize half the stuff in the room.

She felt as if she were floating in space, her body disconnected 
from her mind. She knew that whatever painkiller they had given 
her must have been very strong. Years of drug abuse made 
achieving that level of numbness almost impossible. She wanted to 
say something, but her mouth wouldn't move.

A woman in white clothes came over to the bed and looked at her, 
checking the tubes running to her arms. She's a nurse, thought 
Silva as her mind slowly regained a nominal level of function. The 
nurse said, "You're awake. That's good. I'll send Harry in here in a 
minute."

Silva wanted to ask about this Harry guy, but she couldn't move 
her mouth. She wondered if they had inserted some kind of ball-
gag in it. It made her wonder if she had woken in some sort of 
bondage fetish dungeon. It was so frustrating to lay there unable to 
communicate. She croaked, "Who's Harry?"

The noise she made was barely intelligible as speech. The nurse, 
with years of experience in dealing with patients, knew what the 
likely questions were and replied, "You're in the hospital. You 
suffered some pretty serious injuries, but you were lucky to be 
found by Harry. He's waiting outside to see if you are alright."

Silva repeated, "Who's Harry?"

The nurse paused and thought about the sounds trying to figure out 
what the woman was asking. It took her a moment to realize that 
she wanted to know who Harry was. Smiling as she considered the 
effect that her words would have on the woman, she answered, 
"Happy Harry found you. He's a Druid."

Silva couldn't believe her ears. Everyone that lived or worked on 
the streets knew about Happy Harry. The guy was a living legend 
even though she had never met anyone that had seen him. She 
murmured, "Happy Harry."

"Yes, Happy Harry found you," replied the nurse understanding 
the statement. The nurse finished her business and left the room 
walking in a very brisk efficient manner.

Silva lay in the bed wondering how it was that Happy Harry had 
found her and why he bothered. She was just an aging hooker 
trying to get by on the last of her looks. Of course, as a result of 
her beating, her days as a whore were over. A whore that couldn't 
use her mouth couldn't give blowjobs.

The reality of the situation crashed down on her when she realized 
that she was really screwed now. No job and no skills for finding 
one meant that she wouldn't be able to earn money. Without 
money, she wouldn't have a place to live or food to eat. It was even 
worse than that. Until her mouth healed, she wouldn't even be able 
to eat solid food. What does a homeless person do when they can't 
even eat? The tears started to well up in her eyes.

"Tsk, tsk," said the voice she recognized as the one from the alley. 
It had to be Harry. He approached the bed as he said, "Don't cry. 
Things aren't that bad."

'Things aren't that bad?' she wanted to scream. How could he be so 
cheerful while she was so miserable? She decided that it would be 
easy; he wasn't the one in the bed facing a bleak future.

Humming to himself, Harry sat down in the visitor's chair and 
looked at the patient. She was in pretty bad shape. The doctors had 
said that her jaw had been broken, her cheek had been fractured, a 
rib busted, suffered a concussion, and her kidney had been 
damaged. He estimated that she would be in the hospital for a 
week, maybe more. If she, like many prostitutes, had a child at 
home, then he'd have to make sure that the kid was helped. Settling 
into the chair, he asked, "Do you have anyone waiting for you at 
home?"

The question cut Silva like a knife. She had a daughter, but the girl 
lived with her father in another town and hadn't seen her in more 
than ten years. The girl was the same age as Crystal and it was her 
hope that the kid hadn't followed her into the business. Other than 
that, she was alone in this world. Shaking her head no was the only 
way to answer.

Nodding to indicate that he understood, he said, "That's one 
problem taken care of for the moment. I imagine that you live 
somewhere near where I found you."

Wondering what he was getting at, she nodded that he was correct. 
Her one room apartment, if it could even be called that, was two 
blocks away from the streetlight where she worked. She took a 
moment to study the man sitting beside her. He was wearing a 
green robe with a gold medallion around his neck. His clean-shave 
face, perfect teeth, and build gave him a trustworthy appearance 
that was only marred by a scar across his forehead. In a funny way, 
she thought of a father figure. The idea that she, a black whore, 
was looking at a white guy as a father figure rather than a sugar 
daddy made her want to laugh. 

"So I imagine that you are wondering what is going to happen to 
you now," said Harry as he watched her reaction. It was clear from 
how she looked at him that she was thinking about something 
different than that. However, he knew that she would very worried 
about her future. He continued, "First, you are getting excellent 
medical treatment and will stay here until the doctors think you 
have recovered enough to leave. I'll make sure that everything at 
your house gets packed up for storage while you are here. I'd hate 
to think that you could lose everything."

Silva stared at Harry finding it hard to believe that he was doing 
this for her. It touched her far more than she would ever be able to 
express. Harry said, "Once you get out of here, I've got a job that 
won't require you to talk for a while and it will provide a place for 
you to stay. It's a job within the Emergency Response Team of the 
Fusion Foundation, but you won't be required to sign up for a long-
term service. Just enough for you recover, get some training, and 
locate a job."

The disbelief that he was going to do that was obvious on her face. 
Noticing, Harry laughed as he explained, "Hey, I'm on the Board 
of Directors and have a little leeway in what I do."

She sagged onto the bed starting to feel tired. Harry said, "Until 
you are recovered, I would like you to work with a police artist to 
get a picture of the guy that did this to you."

Puzzled, she looked at him wondering why he would bother to 
track down some guy that beat up a whore. He answered her 
unasked question. "Others need to know what he looks like so that 
they can protect themselves from him. He's a criminal and you're 
not. I'll pass out pictures of the guy on the street and we'll catch 
him."

That assessment surprised Silva. She wondered who forgot to tell 
Harry that prostitution was against the law. She thought about 
responding, but she drifted off to sleep even as she fought to stay 
awake. The last thing she remembered was Harry singing an old 
lullaby, but she couldn't place the song.

For the next few days, Silva woke and slept on some internal clock 
that had nothing to do with the time of day. When she was awake, 
she worked with the police artist to get a reasonable likeness of the 
guy that had assaulted her. It was difficult and she had to write all 
of her comments out longhand. The interaction took much longer 
than she had expected. The only good part was that the police artist 
had treated her nicely.

She was worried about the fact that Harry hadn't shown up at the 
hospital since that first day. The nurses assured her that nothing 
was wrong and that he hadn't forgotten about her. They explained 
that Harry was busy doing the kinds of things that Harry did. She 
wanted to trust them, but trust was not easy for her to give. She 
lived in a dog eat dog world where everyone looked out for 
themselves. 

It was with near panic that she greeted the day when she was to be 
released from the hospital. Harry had never returned and she had 
no idea what she was going to do. She wondered if they were 
going to throw her out of the hospital leaving her to fend for 
herself. After dressing in a horrible sack dress that the nurse had 
brought, she looked at herself in the mirror. Where was the 
exotically dressed whore? She looked like Aunt Jemima and 
wondered if the person that picked out the dress had done it 
intentionally.

A male nurse brought in a wheelchair and, as he helped Silva into 
it, said, "Hospital regulations. You have to ride out of here in a 
wheelchair."

Silva having come to grips with her wired jaw had achieved some 
semblance of an ability to talk. A mental image of getting pushed 
to the curb in a wheelchair and then getting dumped out flashed 
through her thoughts. Worried, she asked, "Where's Harry?"

"He's waiting outside to take you home," answered the man 
surprised by the question. If Harry said that he was going to do 
something, then it was going to get done. He could see that Silva 
had relaxed at the news.

At the door, Silva looked around for Harry. The only thing that she 
could see from the door of the hospital was a lunch truck parked in 
the pick up zone. She turned to the nurse and asked, "Where's 
Harry?"

"He's in the truck," answered the nurse pointing to the lunch truck.

Puzzled, Silva looked at the truck and strained to see inside the 
cab. She couldn't exactly see him, but she knew it was him when 
he called out, "Come on and get it!"

The nurse opened the door for her and then helped her stand. 
Moving slowly, she got into the truck. Once seated, the nurse 
slammed the door shut and waved goodbye with a smile. Harry 
leaned over with a friendly grin and said, "Sorry about that, but I'm 
running a little late. We're going to have to make a little detour 
before I take you to your new home. I hope you don't mind."

Relieved that he had actually been there to pick her up, she didn't 
care what happened now. She said, "No problem."

"Good. Hold on, this beast sways like a camel in a horse race," said 
Harry as he pulled away from the curb. The truck rocked back and 
forth as he navigated the truck through the twists and turns of the 
hospital road. Once he reached the main road, he said, "I'm glad to 
see you are up and about. I was worried about you there for a 
while."

"You didn't come see me," charged Silva knowing that it was 
unfair to have expected him to visit her. He was an important 
Druid and she was just a lowly whore. 

"Oh, I stopped by on a couple of occasions to check up on you. I've 
got a half dozen people in the hospital getting treatments of one 
kind or another," answered Harry in a cheerful voice. The first few 
weeks in a new town were usually spent rounding up some of the 
more extreme cases of physically and mentally ill people that were 
living on the street. Some of the more common medical problems 
included hepatitis, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. They weren't as 
bad as the physiological problems. Living on the streets was even 
tougher with problems like paranoia, schizophrenia, and bi-polar 
disorders.

"Oh, I didn't know," replied Silva. She looked over at Harry to see 
him waving to some homeless person walking down the street. The 
dirty man on the sidewalk waved back and continued on his way. 

"Yeah, lots of people with physical problems living on the street. 
Takes a lot of time to put them back together again. Still, I did talk 
to your doctor and nurses every day."

She had no idea that Harry was so busy and had taken so much 
interest in her. Once she thought about it, she realized that he had 
done a lot more for her than anyone would have expected. Harry 
was a Druid and Druids were important people that did important 
things. Knowing that, she was surprised when Harry pulled into an 
empty lot in which a large number of homeless people were 
gathered. 

She watched as Harry opened the side of the truck and then 
climbed into the back. As people shuffled up to the window, he 
handed out paper bags of various colors. She listened as he 
shouted, "Red is roast beef. Yellow is turkey. Brown is tuna fish. 
Each bag has a sandwich, an apple, a cookie, and some vegetable 
sticks. Come on up and help yourself."

The idea that he was supporting himself by selling food 
immediately evaporated in Silva's mind when she realized that he 
was giving the food away. Shocked, she listened as he announced, 
"A homeless hotel is going to be built here, folks. You'll have a 
bed, a shower, and toilets. Even better, you'll have an address. All 
of that for the remarkable amount of no dollars."

Harry spent a half an hour handing out sandwiches and talking to 
people. Even after working the streets for years, Silva had never 
really bothered to see the homeless that occupied the same streets. 
She had walked past them without thought or consideration. They 
didn't have money and, hence, they weren't of use to her. Some of 
the more desperate whores would give them ten-dollar blowjobs, 
but those were the really old whores that couldn't make much more 
than that anyway.

She turned to watch Harry interact with the people. One of the men 
came to the window of the food truck and slowly reached for one 
of the sandwich bags. His movements suggested that it hurt for him 
to move. Harry looked at him for a moment and said, "You might 
want to stop by one of those Fusion Foundation Clinics and get 
that black spot on your face checked out."

The man, not making eye contact, mumbled, "It's too late. I'm 
gonna die."

Even Silva knew that the man was talking about Melanoma and 
that it was too late for him to get treated. The guy knew he had a 
problem and was going to die of it. She waited to hear Harry tell 
the man that he was sorry to hear that he was dying. Instead, Harry 
asked, "Anything you want to do before you check out?"

The guy looked up a Harry with a puzzled look. That was the last 
thing that he had expected to hear. Everyone else acted ashamed or 
embarrassed when he said that he was going to die. The topic hurt 
and he didn't like to talk about it. Using the raw truth had 
prevented lots of questions, all of which had horrible answers. 
Silva thought it was a rather heartless way for the Druid to 
respond. The man mumbled, "Doesn't matter."

"Sure it does, my friend. It all matters. Knowing the grim reaper is 
near is excuse enough to be a little selfish as long as it causes no 
harm to others. So I ask you again, is there anything you want to 
do before you check out?" The cheerful voice in which Harry 
replied was a sharp contrast to the topic under discussion.

The man swallowed and looked away for a minute. In a barely 
audible voice, he said, "I'd like to see my kids."

Harry reached under the counter and pulled out a pad of paper and 
a pencil. Putting it on the shelf, he said, "Write down whatever 
information you may have about them and I'll see what I can do."

Hands trembling, the man picked up the pencil and started writing 
on the pad. Harry turned away and helped another person while the 
man filled out a couple of pages. When he finished, he picked up 
the pad and handed it over to Harry. His voice shook as he said, "I 
doubt you'll do anything, but I appreciate the thought."

"I'll do what I can. Life is funny sometimes. Things that seem 
simple are impossible and the impossible is simple. No promises, 
but I'll do what I can," answered Harry as he stowed the pad of 
paper back where he had gotten it.

The man paused and looked at Harry unable to believe what he had 
heard. It was a totally honest answer. In a whisper, he replied, 
"That's more than I could have dreamed."

Silva sat in the front of the truck with her jaw wired shut, her chest 
bandaged tight, and her life changed forever. No matter how bad 
her circumstances were, she knew that she had a future that would 
last longer than that poor man had. He was a dead man walking 
around while waiting to be buried. She watched as he sat by 
himself and ate the sandwich with little nibbles, his stomach 
unable to accept food at a normal rate. 

Lost in thought, she didn't notice when Harry closed up the truck 
and returned to the driver's seat. He was able to get her attention 
when he said, "Hold on tight. It's time for the Roach Coach to roll."

"Where are we going?" she asked. She cursed having her jaw 
wired shut. It was frustrating when everything she said came out 
sounding like a bug trapped in a box. The image of the bug in a 
box reminded her of times as a kid when they would catch a 
Cicada and put it in a cigarette hard box. It made a sound like an 
electric razor and they would pretend to shave like their mothers 
and fathers. She wondered what happened to the little girl she had 
been.

"I assume that buzz was a question about our destination. I can 
take you directly to the Fusion Foundation office now or we can 
make a detour to the aquarium. Which would you like to do?" 
asked Harry as he turned a corner. The traffic was light this 
particular afternoon and he had some time to kill. 

'Aquarium?' though Silva. The guy was talking about going to an 
aquarium? She turned and looked at Harry. Incredulous, she asked, 
"Aquarium?"

"Good choice," replied Harry pretending to take her question as an 
answer. He knew it had been a question, but he wanted to go to the 
aquarium. He drove off, navigating the streets as the truck rocked 
from side to side. He hummed to himself as he drove. 

After a minute, he said, "Have you ever thought about the healing 
power of music? I mean, think about it - even with your jaw wired 
shut, you can still hum. I always feel better when I hum. Why don't 
you try it?" 

She stared at him wondering if he was crazy. He acted like he 
didn't have a care in the world, but he had just talked with a dying 
man, was delivering food to the homeless that lived in the most 
miserable circumstances, and was driving around with a whore in 
his truck. The whole time, he was talking about music and 
aquariums. 

She glanced away and then back as she realized that he was 
looking at her like he expecting her to hum. The only song that she 
could think of was the one sung by the dwarves on their way to the 
mine in that Disney movie. She started humming it, not 
remembering the words.

When she finished humming as much of the song as she could 
remember, she realized that Harry had parked the truck in front of 
the city aquarium. Surprisingly, the act of humming had improved 
her spirits considerably. Harry said, "We're here."

He got out of the truck and held open the door for her. She climbed 
out with his help. Still feeling weak, she wondered how she was 
going to make it through the aquarium. As though reading her 
mind, he said, "I'm sure that they have a wheelchair that you can 
ride in while we are there."

He steered her into the aquarium. After paying an entrance fee, a 
wheelchair was brought for her to use. Situated comfortably in the 
chair, Harry pushed her down the dark path  and past tanks filled 
with colorful fish taking his time to examine each tank. At a tank 
containing a clown fish, he said, "Look at the little orange and 
white fish. It's called a clown fish, but it doesn't really look like a 
clown to me. Always wondered why they call them that. One of 
these days I'll have to ask someone that knows."

Silva looked at Harry wondering what he was talking about. Who 
cared why a fish was named one thing or another? Rather than ask, 
she just looked at the fish swimming around in the tank. Other 
people walked past, checking out the fish and ignoring them.

Harry pushed the chair on through the aquarium until he came 
across a bench that was right across from a puffer fish. He locked 
the wheelchair in place and sat down on the bench staring at the 
tank watching the fish swim around in it. After a minute, he said, 
"Years ago, I was down around New Orleans. It was about the time 
of Marti Gras and everyone was partying. I had run across a couple 
of sailors that had just come back from the Caribbean."

Knowing that he had her attention, he said, "Well, sailors being 
sailors and me being me, we started talking and telling stories. Of 
course, at that time it wasn't nearly as much fun to tell a story 
without a little drink to go with it. Anyway, we decided that it was 
time to go get a drink and crashed this really ritzy party. It didn't 
take 'em long to discover that we didn't really belong, but we had 
been there long enough to liberate a couple bottles of booze."

A woman and her two young kids stopped behind them to look at 
the fishes. Noticing that a Druid was telling a story, she hung back 
to listen. Harry said, "Well, we leave after being politely escorted 
to the door by the host. Settling in at a local park, the sailors start 
telling their stories. Now one of them sailors said that Voodoo 
witchdoctors used a part of the puffer fish to make zombies."

He looked over at Silva and saw the disbelief on her face. The 
woman grabbed her kids and held them back to hear the story 
knowing they would be interested as well. Nodding at Silva, he 
said, "Well, I didn't believe it at first, but he swore that it was true. 
Being mannerly and all, I didn't outright call him a liar. After all, 
he had just helped me get a bottle of halfway decent drink."

He chuckled and then continued his tale. "He told me that they 
made some sort of potion or something out of the puffer fish that 
they would give to the intended victim. This wouldn't kill the 
victim, but would make it look like they were dead. All the victim 
could do was lie there. Couldn't move, couldn't talk, and just 
couldn't do anything. They'd see and hear everything going on 
around them, but just couldn't communicate in any way. After a 
day his family would bury him in a real funeral believing that the 
victim was really dead, but the witchdoctor would come back at 
night and dig up the victim."

One of the kids behind them said, "Cool."

Harry smiled at the comments of the kids and continued his story, 
"So the poor victim would be convinced that the Voodoo 
witchdoctor had his soul and because of that the zombie had to do 
anything the witchdoctor wanted. The zombie would live like that 
until the witchdoctor gave him back his soul or the witchdoctor 
died. The person would live a life of emotional emptiness, neither 
happy nor sad, until the day they died or were set free."

Silva was saved from having to comment by one of the kids 
saying, "That's kind of sad."

Harry nodded his head in agreement. Taking Silva by her hand, he 
said, "Now I figure that for something like zombification, there has 
to be an opposite kind of thing. There are some folks that move 
through life in a zombie-like state. They don't hear the music, see 
the colors, or enjoy the flavor of life. Then one day, they get hit 
with some kind of counter-potion. Like the time during 
zombification, they can't talk or communicate for a while. 
However, when they come out of it, they are alive for the first time 
in their lives. They start to hear the music, see the colors, and enjoy 
the flavor of life."

Silva looked at Harry with tears in her eyes wondering if he was 
telling her that it was her turn to live again. He patted her hand and 
said, "You never know when something nice happens to you. 
Sometimes it comes disguised as a disaster."

The lady with her two kids slipped away feeling like she was now 
intruding on a private moment. One of the kids turned back and 
said, "Nice story."

"Thank you, young man," answered Harry with a grin. 



