Henry: One
Henry had presumptions of at least mild attractiveness. He wasn't wrong; he was optimistic.
Thursday began with the realization that the few seconds at the end of his dream would probably be better than the next 12 hours or so of his day; the final surreal moments lingered as Henry attempted to infuse what excitement they had provided into what was quickly becoming the real world. He failed.
To Henry's disappointment, midway through his shower he had already forgotten what the dream was about. All that he could remember was that it had been something deeply profound, something life changing in it sheer grandeur. He gave up on it as he stood over the toilet and observed, once again, that yellow and blue make green. He flushed and cleared the experiment so that someone else might gain his newly reinforced knowledge. So much for profound, he thought.
He stood in front of the mirror for what seemed like at least ten minutes (it was really only about 45 seconds), as he usually did first thing in the morning. He practiced making faces at himself - the silly ones always came first. After that were the mockingly ferocious faces - what he imagined a serial killer might look like when he faced himself, first thing in the morning, right after a thoroughly enjoyable pee. Did killers enjoy peeing as much as he did, Henry thought? He quickly concluded that if they didn't they were certainly missing out. Of course, that all depends entirely upon the severity of the need to pee, he continued, but realized that they probably just pee and don't think about it, like other, what he presumed to be normal people, probably do. These were almost always followed by the male-model faces; with the squinted eyes and feigned solemnity of a Calvin Klein make-believe man. As devilishly handsome as he imagined he was first thing in the morning, he was reminded by the corrective lenses that graced his face after his shower of the crooked nose, uneven ears and permanent under-eye circles. And yet, despite all this, Henry had presumptions of at least mild attractiveness. He wasn't wrong; he was optimistic.
It was always after this role-playing that he looked very seriously at himself in the mirror and tried to see himself as someone else might, staring very deeply into his own eyes and imagining what might become of the rest of his life. He didn't blink because he knew that doing so would interrupt the experiment; he just stared for about a full minute until every detail of his own face would fade except for his eyes, staring back at him with the same intensity he imparted upon the mirror. His brain would do the rest, filling in the face he imagined might stare back at him in twenty years or so. He broke off his ritual early and began to get ready for the day.
The source of this ritual had always been a mystery to Henry. He was keenly aware that, had others known about this odd little self-indulgence, they might think he was very strange; which he may have been, but he wasn't sure. There were several things he wasn't sure about, there always had been. But no one was sure, Henry reasoned to himself, were they? He supposed maybe some were delusively so, but left it at that. Besides, he was going to be late.
Henry had never been the type of person who really cared that he was late; his principle concern was making sure other people were never disappointed in him. He would work very hard to give anybody who cared to know him a favorable impression of his character, but more often than not he didn't have to try very hard.
He waited at the station for his commuter train into the City. A very sullen rain fell briefly that morning. Henry barely noticed it coming down until he was struck in the face with a large drop. It surprised him more that it should have. Henry sat and enjoyed extended moments, punctuated by a few cargo trains that screamed by the platform - silencing the birds, and disturbing the air.
The shower had stopped by the time the train arrived and left in its stead a moist, warm calmness to the air that was filled with the songs of a thousand small birds in the surrounding trees, and that wonderful smell of damp, clean earth that follows rain.
Henry always loved that morning train ride. And there was something about this particular morning that reminded him of the intensity of the dream he'd forgotten about. The feeling excited him but left as soon as it had come. He let the moment pass without trying to save it.
The train ride was so much better than driving. He'd heard the commercials that argued it was better because it was less harmful to the environment than driving tended to be, but he really didn't care all that much about that. Sure, he pretended to care, and sometimes did (like so many others, when it was appropriate) but the silent view was what he really loved. Driving demanded too much attention to the road, and how interesting was that? He'd never been a good driver, anyway. He thought too much while driving to be a good driver.
He pitied those who buried themselves in a morning paper or slept, neglecting to experience the unfolding countryside; it was more than enough to keep him waxing quietly philosophical for the duration of the hour commute. From the train it rushed past in layers of blurred green, white, blue, black and gray; playful lambs dotted the landscape from the blazing orange, purple, and red sun stained morning horizon to the sweeping rock-walled velvet green fields close to the train.
Nobody noticed when he showed up late. Today was going to be better than he'd originally given it credit for. Today was going to change his life.
Next: Henry: Two