The Animated Short

"I think I've seen you when I picked up work from Mike." starts the email reply.

Great, thinks Harry, she's not even sure who I am.

"Sure, I can waste an hour. Here's my number. Call me."

It was Wednesday and it was raining so Harry's shoulder hurt more than usual. Now that it was all over and there was no more Chris, Harry started looking desperately for distractions. Anything to take his mind off of the idea that she would walk in his front door again, kick her shoes off, pour a glass of wine and sit herself down at the kitchen counter the way he used to envision her doing.

She never did, or course. But it was one hell of a fantasy. And it was a fantasy he played over a lot because reality, well, was reality. It hurt, it was cold and the color of mop water most days. So he played out Chris, went back to London and relived the days one quiet hour at a time.

This was anything but healthy and Harry knew it but wouldn't stop himself.

Harry hated making phone calls. At least at the office, he could hide behind the professional persona of managing editor. At home, he could only be himself, and himself was not good at cold calls when he had a good head of self confidence up which he decidedly did not now.

He dialed. Busy. Fuck. Probably on the phone with some girlfriend. Or guy friend.

He dialed again. Still fucking busy. Well, gee, ninety seconds later, what are the chances of that?

The Weather Channel was on and Harry forced himself to watch until and through the next local weather broadcast. Then he turned the sound down and dialed:

"Hello?"

"Kathy."

"Yes."

"Harrison Moss."

"Hi."

And she knew who was calling and why and they had a short conversation filling in a little background information on who she was and who he was and he suggested they meet for coffee. She said fine. Harry hung up, shaking his head and wondering if it was all really happening.

It was and it was still when she got out of the car to meet Harry at the coffee shop the next Saturday.

That was the place he had last seen Chris.

How fitting.

He bought two regulars and they sat. The place was empty since the morning crowd was gone and the pre-movie crowd had yet to arrive. Ben was behind the counter. Ben was a friend of Harry's. Harry had once hired him to build a stone walkway at what was now Josette's house and used to be Harry's once too. Then they were bar buddies. Anyway, Ben knew enough to busy himself in the back room. He'd hear the unlikely customer in plenty of time.

Harry and Kathy bantered back and forth. Small, stupid things designed to keep a conversation moving and not upset anyone or give anything away. But Harry kept looking in her eyes. They were dark. Brown but almost black, deep pools that if you could dive into, you'd have to take an unimaginable amount of air into your lungs. Deep, mysterious, dark. Eyes that hid something the redhead in the pink sweater wanted hidden just for the sake of, what? Mystery?

There was a store in the next town over that Harry used to like to go to when he owned his big old house. Now that he owned his little, really old house, he didn't go there anymore. The house was a place to live and not much else. Make it comfortable. But comfortable to Harry was being surrounded by old and interesting things and the store, an architectural salvage place, was where he liked to go to get these things. Kathy had an appreciation of old creaky artifacts it seems. So Harry jokingly says "I should call you next time I go."

"You should."

And Harry smiled as he began to play that possibility out in his mind.