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    Flannery's Bear
    Flannery's Bear
    Flannery's Bear
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    Flannery's Bear

    By Ulf Wolf

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Once upon a time there were three children who meant to save the world.

    The first, and the oldest of the three—and whose name was Flannery—knew this on arrival: the world was in terrible trouble. The Great War, still less than seven years past, had left the world in a darkness that for all the optimistic political rhetoric—and the noble aims of the League of Nations—never quite lifted and which was soon to return fully fledged with a small mustache and renewed violence.

    The second child—whose name was Heather, and who was the youngest of the three—arrived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in December of 1950, just a little over five years after the Second World War finally ended, and on the very day that her sister Flannery left Ridgefield for her painful and prolonged audience with death. When in her seventh year, Heather's Irish Catholic father beat her younger brother senseless with his fists, and then killed him by tossing the lifeless five-year-old boy down a set of stairs—deemed an accident by the local Irish Catholic investigator, and grandly forgiven by the local Irish Catholic priest—Heather knew that evil roamed freely in this world and that God seemed to turn a blind eye. She did, however, not remember that she was meant to give God a hand.

    The third child, Gabriel, was born on the 9th of August, 1945. He took his first breath the very instant that the atom bomb over Nagasaki, Japan, detonated. He was later to muse that his first lungful of air contained the souls of 40,000 Japanese children. He (like Heather) had no notion about his purpose on this Earth until one summer morning when 40,000 dust motes, shimmering in the slotted sunshine of an abandoned attic (where a man recently had hanged himself), suddenly began to sing.

    Then there was the fourth child: Netoniel.
    Siblings all.

    :

    Gabriel was half-way up the dilapidated ladder. The day was Saturday and the date was July 23rd, 1960. The time was a little after ten in the morning. The rungs showed evidence of age or rot or both so he proceeded up them slowly, taking care to place his feet close to the sides where they would be the strongest. The ladder groaned softly under his weight, but didn't seem to mind him.

    A perverse curiosity had brought him here. A few years ago—no one had been very specific about exactly when—a man had hanged himself in this very attic. If the truth be told, Gabriel didn't know that for a fact, he hadn't even asked his parents or other such authority to confirm it, but it was rumored, and quite widely—common knowledge, as it were—especially among the kids (and as yet he was not much more than one himself).

    So, in essence, a fact.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUlf Wolf
    Release dateOct 19, 2012
    ISBN9781301182619
    Flannery's Bear
    Author

    Ulf Wolf

    Ulf is a Swedish name that once meant Wolf. So, yes, Wolf Wolf, that's me. I was born Ulf Ronnquist one snowy night in late October, in one of those northern Swedish towns that are little more than a clearing in the forest. Fast forward through twenty Swedish years, ten or so English ones, and another twenty-four in the US and you'll find me in front of an immigrations officer conducting the final citizenship interview, at the end of which he asks me, "What name would you like on your passport?" And here I recall what a friend had told me, that you can pick just about any name you want at this point, and I heard me say "Ulf Wolf." That's how it happened. Scout's honor. Of course, I had been using Ulf Wolf as a pen name for some time before this interview, but I hadn't really planned to adopt that as my official U.S. name. But I did. I have written stories all my life. Initially in Swedish, but for the last twenty or so years in English. To date I have written six novels, four novellas and two scores of stories; along with many songs and poems. My writing focus these days is on life's important questions (in my view): Who are we? What are we doing here? And how do we break out of this prison?

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      Book preview

      Flannery's Bear - Ulf Wolf

      Flannery’s Bear

      Ulf Wolf

      Smashwords Edition

      May 2019

      Copyright

      Flannery’s Bear

      Copyright 2019 by Wolfstuff

      http://wolfstuff.com

      All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Smashwords License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ::

      Contents

      Flannery’s Bear

      Contribution

      About Author

      Once upon a time there were three children who meant to save the world.

      The first, and the oldest of the three—and whose name was Flannery—knew this on arrival: the world was in terrible trouble. The Great War, still less than seven years past, had left the world in a darkness that for all the optimistic political rhetoric—and the noble aims of the League of Nations—never quite lifted and which was soon to return fully fledged with a small mustache and renewed violence.

      The second child—whose name was Heather, and who was the youngest of the three—arrived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in December of 1950, just a little over five years after the Second World War finally ended, and on the very day that her sister Flannery left Ridgefield for her painful and prolonged audience with death. When in her seventh year, Heather’s Irish Catholic father beat her younger brother senseless with his fists, and then killed him by tossing the lifeless five-year-old boy down a set of stairs—deemed an accident by the local Irish Catholic investigator, and grandly forgiven by the local Irish Catholic priest—Heather knew that evil roamed freely in this world and that God seemed to turn a blind eye. She did, however, not remember that she was meant to give God a hand.

      The third child, Gabriel, was born on the 9th of August, 1945. He took his first breath the very instant that the atom bomb over Nagasaki, Japan, detonated. He was later to muse that his first lungful of air contained the souls of 40,000 Japanese children. He (like Heather) had no notion about his purpose on this Earth until one summer morning when 40,000 dust motes, shimmering in the slotted sunshine of an abandoned attic (where a man recently had hanged himself), suddenly began to sing.

      Then there was the fourth child: Netoniel.

      Siblings all.

      :

      Gabriel was half-way up the dilapidated ladder. The day was Saturday and the date was July 23rd, 1960. The time was a little after ten in the morning. The rungs showed evidence of age or rot or both so he proceeded up them slowly, taking care to place his feet close to the sides where they would be the strongest. The ladder groaned softly under his weight, but didn’t seem to mind him.

      A perverse curiosity had brought him here. A few years ago—no one had been very specific about exactly when—a man had hanged himself in this very attic. If the truth be told, Gabriel didn’t know that for a fact, he hadn’t even asked his parents or other such authority to confirm it, but it was rumored, and quite widely—common knowledge, as it were—especially among the kids (and as yet he was not much more than one himself).

      So, in essence, a fact.

      From which beam? he wondered as his head cleared the opening in the attic floor and his eyes slowly (while dilating) took in the windowless and darker space above him—which beam had the man hanged himself from?

      There were several to choose from. There were—he counted them, one, two, three, four—five joists, each spawning its vertical riser supporting the fairly thick and roughly hewn ridge beam running the length of the peak of the ceiling.

      He took this in for quite a while, but he couldn’t picture it. There would not be space enough for a fully-grown man to hang himself from any of the joists and tying a rope to the ridge beam would have been quite a project, possibly too hard for someone that intent on dying.

      The distance from the attic floor to any of the joists was less than six feet, and with the rope and the noose and at least five or so feet worth of man, he would be staying put on the attic floor, no matter what—no matter which one he chose. Unless, well, of course, he realized with a little shiver, of course: he would have secured the rope to the joist just above his head where it crossed the open hatch he was now standing in.

      He looked straight up and yes, yes, of course, that’s what he had done. He would have secured the rope from the joist right here, then placed the noose over his head, tightened the knot, kicked the ladder down onto the floor below and then jumped through the hatch. That would still count as hanging oneself in the attic, wouldn’t it? or at least from the attic, if indeed it had happened at all.

      Then the shiver returned and said: you are at this very moment, it said, standing on the fourth rung from the top of this ladder, occupying the very same space that the hanging man would have dangled in, life draining.

      Gabriel shivered some more. Then he tried to taste it.

      How did he die? he wondered. Did he know enough about hangings to place the knot just right—slightly to the left of but touching the atlas, he had read—so the fall would snap his neck, or unaware of this had he strangled himself and died from asphyxiation? Most hanging suicides do—the same article had said—do strangle themselves. He imagined the hanging man, losing breath and life, to never breathe again.

      Gabriel held his breath and counted. By forty his lungs had had enough and screamed for air and he obliged. The man could have done the same, he thought, could have reached out and heaved himself up by the edge of the opening, back up to the living.

      Then again, what’s to say that he didn’t? Or that he tried to, and failed. What’s to say that he didn’t try to claw his way up the rope and onto the attic floor, without much success, desperate for breath, strength draining.

      Then again, what’s to say that it happened at all? It probably wasn’t true. Kids talking.

      Outside the little house a cloud found the sun and suddenly the attic turned several degrees darker. His next thought was that even the sun knew about the hanging, and was sending him a warning: get out of there.

      Maybe he should.

      But: Oh, god, you’re such an idiot, the sun knowing about it. You’re here to look around, so look around. Besides, if someone did hang himself in here, that was years ago, no bodies here now, so come on.

      Could be ghosts, though. No, not in broad daylight.

      Convincing himself that he was quite safe, he stepped up another rung, then another, then held his breath: the attic was dead still, just the renewed groan of the ladder. He looked all around and could see no danger. And he was brave, right? Yes, he was.

      Then he ascended the last two rungs and stepped out onto the attic floor. Here he rose to full length. His eyes had adjusted now to the diminished light and he could see quite clearly by the sunless daylight seeping in through the narrow slots between the vertical planks of bare walls.

      Dust, and lots of it, softly contouring what it covered with a wheat-colored blanket. Things in the corners. Things. He walked over to take a closer look, treading carefully, but even so stirring clouds of dust into the air behind him—obscured by the gloom.

      Yes, things: shoes, two of them but not a pair (odd, that), the lower part of a broken ax handle, a bicycle seat (surprisingly new), a pile of old newspapers (from a little over a decade ago by the dates), a wooden bowl, huge. He pictured someone kneading dough for very large loaves of bread in the thing, old hands, grandmother-old hands, it was that kind of bowl, and he wondered if it might have value; whether this bowl in particular was one of an impossible-to-find kind that would make him immensely rich now that he, Gabriel, intrepid youth, had discovered it, and as such would pave the way for a great, rich life as yet unlived and undefined.

      Of course not, it was just an old wooden bowl, tossed up into this above- the-ceiling out-of-the-way as in the way and worthless. Besides, it was chipped, and cracked. Not worth much, if anything. Or it wouldn’t be here, would it? Of course not. Maybe in a hundred years.

      More newspapers. These were in a neat pile, held together with fraying string. He blew on the top paper to clear the dust, then read the date. Not as old. 1955, August. He untied the string and looked at the next paper. August 1955 as well. So the whole pile. He straightened up and looked around some more. More newspapers, these nailed to one of the walls as makeshift insulation, now torn and peeling, and only on this far wall. Why, he wondered. Then he looked closer at the other walls, and saw traces of newspaper on all of them. So, they had initially covered the whole attic. Not much of a padding, he thought. He leaned closer to check the dates of these papers. 1941, 1942, war pictures, originally in black and white, now more like brown on yellow. Fighting in Finland. Sweden still neutral, it said.

      At that moment, outside, the obscuring cloud released the sun and the attic virtually exploded into light, surprising his eyes, now used to the cloudy gloom. He turned around by reflex, as if someone behind him had just thrown a light switch, and found the air startlingly alive with a long row of brilliant sheets of dust where the sun now raced in through the evenly spaced bars of narrow air between the wall boards.

      He had never seen anything quite like this, anything quite this beautiful before, not in his entire life. It was a gallery of sun and dust and suddenly—it’s the only way to describe it: they started singing.

      He stood stock still, then sat down on the neat pile of papers, very slowly so as not to disturb the display. Very slowly down, down, and now he was sitting.

      Seeing and hearing this silent song shimmer in the still air, he felt a need he had never felt before: it was to capture some of this, to, somehow, preserve what he saw—in words.

      Not taking his eyes off the flickering sheets of dust and sunrays, he groped for and found a stub of pencil in his left pocket, and a sheet of paper in his back pocket. He unfolded the sheet (it held a phone number to call, don’t forget), turned it over, smoothed it a little on his lap and touched it with the pencil, thus:

      Am I a troll or a human being?

      I don't know.

      But I do know that long before

      I came here

      this page of my life

      was long written.

      Here he stopped and read what he had written.

      Somewhere within him a not-so-kind voice begged to demur, in fact it ridiculed him a little—just a little, mind you, a sort of snide whisper—for what he had just so reverently done had nothing at all to do with engineering, his paternally decreed, and on the whole much manlier, destiny.

      But, he managed to answer, this felt right, it was right somehow, important somehow. Yes, they were just words, of course, he knew that, just made up words. Still.

      He read them again. They sounded true, these words, though of course they were not. Just fantasy, but good fantasy, he said to himself, or thought to himself so loudly that his ears picked up on it.

      He read the first line again, aloud. Listening closely to it while he read. Then he crossed out a troll or a and being. Then read it again: Am I human? That, he knew, was the better question, the real question. And again he read what he had written:

      Am I human?

      I don't know.

      But

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