A Good Book

Leaves fell peacefully from the roof down to the damp earth. It was autumn – mid-October. The air, though at this point in the year mostly crisp, still periodically fluctuated back into the muggy swamp of summer, blasting a heated breeze into Harold’s still burned, freckled face. This year the summer had lasted longer than usual, pushing its way through September and into October, but it had finally subsided.

The leaves continued floating down. Tramping steps from the roof shook the balcony on which Harold was reading as if the weight of those boots may dismantle the seemingly fragile structure of the apartment building. Harold was leaning back, relaxed in his outdoor lounge chair, reading his book: The Master and Margarita, by Bulgakov. He loved everything about it. Demons, romping though the city, decapitating people with their claws, decapitating people with public transportation. It was a riot.

The boots continued stomping on the roof. The ladder in front of Harold – leaning on his balcony railing and leading up to the roof – shook as one of the gutter cleaners climbed down:

“I’ll be back!” he said, “I’ve got to go get it from the truck! I’ll be back!”

The ladder continued to shake, though the gutter cleaner still hadn’t come into Harold’s view. It was a tall roof. Cigarette ashes floated down with the continuously falling dry leaves, as if at any moment to alight them and set the building a blaze. They didn’t, though – they fell just as peacefully as the foliage.

The gutter cleaner’s legs finally came into Harold’s view. He was wearing big brown shit kickers. It was no wonder he was shaking the whole building. Harold was surprised he didn’t fall through the roof. The apartment building was mostly populated by elderly people, Harold thought. The gutter cleaner would probably fall straight through the roof and into some old lady’s bathroom. She would shriek as he crashed into her shower – just like that lady in Psycho. Hell, an old lady probably wouldn’t survive a diving dropkick from a pair of shit kicker boots. It would be very unlikely, to say the least.

The gutter cleaner made it to the ground without issue. Harold continued reading his book. He kept thinking about how easy it would be for him to kick the ladder out from the balcony as the gutter cleaner climbed back up. He would fall straight back down – right into the bed of his truck – a look of horrified shock on his face. Scared, but also comedic. It would be hysterical, like something the demons in The Master and Margarita might do. Just for kicks.

The ladder began shaking again as the gutter cleaner and his shit kickers climbed back up to the roof:

“All right, I got it!” he said, “I’ll be back up in a second, hold your damn horses!”

The ladder continued to shake. Harold extended his leg, thinking hard about whether he should create a little demonic mischief of his own. Upon seeing the gutter cleaner’s forehead rise above the balcony floor, he quickly retracted it, sinking back into his lounge chair and burying his face in his book. The gutter cleaner noticed him this time:

“How’s it going?” he said nonchalantly.

Without waiting for a response, he continued his ascent to the roof. The hammer dangling from his belt rapped loudly against the hollow aluminum ladder, clanging and clanging again. This irritated Harold. He winced – repeatedly blinking and rolling his eyes – struggling to maintain focus on his book.

Leaves started falling again. So did cigarette ashes. A shovel even fell, wedging itself cleanly in the soft fall grass. It was rusty. Harold stared at it. It pierced the ground, as if that was what it was created to do.

Harold snapped back into reality. He started reading his book again. It was raining cash. A cat sawed off a man’s head as part of a magic trick. It was getting sunny outside. The bright light gave Harold a headache. He winced again. The roof continued to shake.

“That about got it?” said one of the gutter cleaners.

“Not quite,” said the other, “There’s a big clump of shit over here in this corner. Once we clear that out, I think we’re good.”

The shaking subsided. The gutter cleaners left. All was momentarily calm. Harold could read in peace. Clouds temporarily covered the sun. The air was comfortable.

The shaking started again, though this time lighter; more of a pitter-patter, as if a squirrel or a raccoon were on the roof. Harold ignored it. He liked animals.

It grew louder, scratching and stamping. It was directly above him. He still heard the voices of the gutter cleaners on the other side of the building. They were jovial, but the nearby scratching was irritating. Harold again winced.

The scratching and stamping drew closer, finally latching loudly onto the gutter directly above Harold’s lounge chair. The gutter bent and rattled; it nearly broke. A furry purple leg momentarily swayed looping below the gutter. Harold saw it. He thought he must be hallucinating. He tended to hallucinate.

“Not again…” He thought despondently.

He shrank back in horror. Horrified of himself. He snapped up in his lounge chair, gripping the arm rests, looking around anxiously for his invisible enemy. There was no one there. He forced himself to lay back and relax, a crazed, wide-eyed smile on his face. He wrenched open his book, struggling to read; the ink on the page seemingly smearing from his disturbed, blurred vision.

The scratching continued.

The gutter cleaners were walking back to the ladder, characteristically shaking the instable building. It shook and shook. The scratching continued.

“Shit!” said one of the gutter cleaners, “That was a hell of a job! I wasn’t expecting anything like that. Those gutters were dirty as hell!”

They kept pace toward Harold. The scratching continued.

“Aw, hell. I know! You don’t ever think cleaning gutters is going to be much of a job; other than climbing up and down a ladder, that is; but man! Shit will tire you out sometimes; that’s a fact! You’ll learn that soon enough; once you get more experience under your belt.”

The steps continued. The shaking grew dizzying. The scratching continued.

Harold briefly saw a purple toenail, clutching tightly at the gutter above his head, scraping against the aluminum. Hallucinations.

Harold sat shaking. He closed his book; he couldn’t read. The book’s cover showed a cat wrapping up and clawing at the moon. It looked crazed and angry. The scrape of its nails sounded as if against aluminum. Harold blinked. He looked up to the gutter. The purple leg was still there, hanging lazily, but scraping in time against the gutter; as if intentionally creating abysmal music.

“Glad we’re finally done for the day!” said one of the gutter cleaners, as one of his shit kickers lowered itself onto the top rung of the ladder.

The ladder shook. His other leg twisted around the side of the roof and also stepped into the top rung:

“Hell yeah,” he said, “Let’s get the hell out of here and go grab some brews! I know a place with good fried pickles! You worked hard today; it’s on me!”

The shit kickers climbed continued their descent, rung after rung, from the top of the roof into Harold’s field of vision.

There was a scuffle on the roof, followed by a pained grunt.

Harold saw, through the legs of the first gutter cleaner’s shit kickers, the figure of the second gutter cleaner flying from the roof. He was thrown, like a line drive shot between short and third, between two branches of the ancient tree in the parking lot; its roots splitting up the asphalt as it continued its growth.

His skulled cracked against its trunk. He fell to the ground.

The other gutter cleaner, the one with the shit kickers, turned around, bewildered.

He scrambled down the rest of the ladder, stumbling and falling face first down the last four or five rungs. He collected himself in the grass and ran to his coworker. His coworker was obviously dead; he didn’t need shit kicker boots to notice that.

“Wha… What?” He said. It was all he could muster. He didn’t even turn around and look at the roof. He was either too afraid, or too confused. He just knelt there next to his fallen comrade, sobbing.

Harold was also confused. He blinked and blinked again. He smacked himself in the head, as if to help him snap out of it. He closed his book and retreated into his lounge chair.

The scraping on the aluminum started again as the furry purple leg showed itself.

This time, it climbed down. More purple legs appeared at every edge of the gutter; as if sprouting out of it.

A massive head appeared. The legs, it turns out, weren’t legs, but arms. It was a creature unlike anything Harold had ever seen. It looked happy; it seemed crazed. It started laughing.

It pointed to the parking lot, where the gutter cleaner and his shit kickers still knelt next to his dead friend. It started laughing again. It climbed down onto Harold’s balcony, crawled into his lap, and gazed into his eyes.

Its eyes were huge, far larger than human eyes. They shifted color; from blue, to red, to purple, to black. It opened its mouth. A rancid smell engulfed the balcony. It spoke to Harold:

“I really do look like a hallucination! Note my shadow here in the daylight!”

Harold gasped and tried to wriggle away.

“Very well, very well!” said the demon, “I’ll be a silent hallucination!”

The demon disappeared. The gutter cleaner, from the parking lot, looked up angrily at Harold.

Harold screamed.

End