Non-canonical out-take

[Notice: this post is not part of the Harry, Mark, and John canon-- anyhow, the careful and attentive reader who's been around since the early days, will know where to put this.]

John had been following her for quite some time, when she came really close to spotting him. Following somebody who knows you is quite difficult, especially in broad daylight. But over the past few months John had been practicing this fine art: first with strangers, people he first saw on the train, or on the bus; than he switched to people he knew by sight. After a few days of tracking potential prey John couldn’t really tell, whom he had really known beforehand and the people he got to know by following them. If you follow a stranger repeatedly they will eventually feel familiar. And if you, or as soon as you know somebody, you will be able to predict their patterns of moving through your domain. John had never had a thing for hunting, but following strangers sparked his instincts and he felt like he had been missing out on something, having never spent ours in the forest, trying to spot and kill an animal.

You know, the hardest part is not getting spotted. If you constantly stay in plain sight and do not attempt to hide what your doing it won’t take longer than, say, some twenty minutes and you’re out. That is, if you’re lucky and if your in a crowd. Otherwise, it’ll be probably no longer than twenty seconds. But if you’ve done your homework you know the patterns. And if you know the patterns along which the object moves following them gets a lot easier. You can fall behind or take a short cut or a little detour and still find them again. Anyway, now, John was following her. His prime object. The one, for whom he’d been training. The problem was, he wasn’t too familiar with the territory, not being in his home town. He lost this advantage and thereby it didn’t mean much that he knew her. Actually, that made it a lot harder – you see, she knew him as well.
When she came close to spotting him, John had been following her for maybe two hours. That day. Ever since he got of the train two weeks earlier he had spent most of his time to study her behavior, her patterns. That day, he had waited for her to get off work and then started his usual routine. The problem was, she did not stick to her pattern. She broke the rules. Well, she didn’t know that she was part of a game. She didn’t know she was game.

Going to a funeral (finale, morendo)

Please read parts one and two of this triptych first. Thank you.

Harry Sr. hadn't been that young, but still his passing away had been somewhat unexpected. Well, it's not like he had been vegitating away for a long time because of some disease. He had died of some heart thing. You know that kind of thing you're born with and never find out about til you suddenly drop dead. Like people sometimes do in movies for dramatic effect. Dying from a genetic heart defect is something that could happen to anyone basically. So, listen up you screen writers! Cheap but effective plot device! The death of a minor or even major character will give your teenage drama or tragicomedy the necessary twist after 75 minutes. I'm sorry, I digress.
So, Harry Sr.'s dying at the age of seventy-something in a state of seemingly perfect health was the reason for this very particular gathering. Apart from John, Mark, and obviously: Harry, all the necessary personel for some kind of family drama was there. You know, a weird kind of drama, something Danish maybe.
Harry's mother was a weird person. She seemed untouched by her husband's death, treating the guests like the occasion was a birthday or something. Harry's sister seemed less stable, she had obviously cried a lot the passed few days. John could tell, but Mark? Mark couldn't. He was, ...like... 10 miles high or something. Harry's brother, two or three years younger, was actually quite likeable, contrary to the guys' expectations, after all that Harry had told them--

Sorry, but I'm afraid we have to finish this without a proper ending.

Going to a funeral (interlude, andante)

"Harry. There's someone on the phone for you", Mark said -- Before you read on, you might want to read the first part of this triptych, I mean... if you haven't already. -- Mark stepped back out on the terrace while Harry went inside to talk to whoever had called.
---[script]---

John [still sitting in his deckchair]: "You just saved my life, man, kind of."
Mark: "You're welcome." [walks over to old leather armchair, picks up bottle of beer, hesitates seemingly with no reason. His eyes wander around for some time, the silence between the men suits the scenery -- sunset, remember? and eventually sits down. The whole process might take up to a minute, suggested effect: jump cuts.]
Harry [returns to the terrace; his drug-induced cheerfulness has apparently vanished. He squints repeatedly, leans againgst a wall and begins to speak] "My sister." [pause] "My dad. He is dead."
---cut---

Too bad a few pages are missing here. That would've made some heart-wrenching scene. Imagine Harry finding the right words to express his family problems, which like in 99.9% of everybody's case, are closely entangled with his emotional problems. After hardly more than two or three sentences the guys decide to go to the wake and funeral together. The distant noise of traffic begins to mix some soft strings... the music accelerates to said adante and then there could've been a cut to ...maybe a montage of the guys packing their bags, going down to Mark's car, placing backpacks in the spacious trunk (Remember? You can possibly fit a body in there... actually you can, easily...) --- and bam! Next thing you know, we're on the road. That is... Harry, Mark, and John are.

To be continued.

Going to a funeral (prelude, adagio)

Harry's dad died. The guys went to the funeral together. Weird? Indeed. After all, in the past few months they hadn't really been close, you know. Actually you might say they never really were that close. Okay, back in 19-- when they moved in together they might have been, or they thought they were -- which is the same most of the time, right? Anyhow, when Harry's old man passed away someone, a brother? his mother? ...well, some family person called. At that time Harry hadn't been too involved family-wise anymore, for a few years already. When you become more or less financially independent, visits boil down to once a year -- and before you know it, you don't even make Christmas. "Sorry, Ma, can't make it this year -- really I'm sorry." That kind of thing. And usually it's not very helpful when, as soon as you show up on the doorstep, your folks moan about how you waste your life away, not working in a decent job and all. "Your younger brother, so successful... he'll be made partner in no time. They love him up there. And he comes over to visit us every other---" Fuck it. Let's just start this story at the beginning.

"Yup..?" -- it was Mark who answered the phone. In his usual monosyllabic fashion. The guys were just smoking some weed on the back terrace, watching the sun set on their lovely industrial district, which offered affordable housing with a very bohemian chic to it. In a few years they'd probably have to move, because of all the posh Sex-and-the-City-style bars and restaurants that would open and flood this nice part of the city with, well, women who think they look like Sarah Jessica Parker while it's actually even worse. And what's more, they all behave in a way that silently screams: "Yeah, I'm miserable, but that doesn't mean I can't get wasted and feel free!" or something. Damn! I always get sidetracked by stuff like that... So. The sun was setting, drenching the red brick landscape in some kind of orange (color wise, not as in fruit). Distant traffic provided an atmospheric soundtrack. Sitting in his deckchair, John was rolling a second joint on his copy of the 10th anniversary edition of Stephen Hawking's Short History of Time, in his lap. Harry finished the first one and as he threw it off the roof with the flick of a wrist he said something like, "You know what? You're probably not the first one to roll a joint on that book." John continued his work, without even looking up. Harry rambled on (that's his usual stoned behavior). "And you know what else? I was probably not even the first person to witness somebody rolling a joint on that book and commenting on the fact." Having finished his job, John lit up. He tilted his head only very slightly, turning in Harry's direction. Obviously, he disapproved of Harry's obnoxious dope talk.
"Actually, I wonder if..." Harry paused, breathing audibly. "I wonder if the first person to witness somebody doing what you just did, commented on the act just like I did. I mean, saying-- saying it was not the first time, though actually--" Again, he paused, but this time, apparently, for effect: "...it was!" Mark answered the phone which had been ringing. "Gentlemen", Harry concluded, when Mark returned from the living room, "We have a chicken-or-egg situation."

As the title suggests, this will be continued.

Danish film

It's a night like many nights before (not recently though). Harry, Mark, and John are out, as in: not here. But let's pretend we're with them and can listen to what they have to say. That is, if they have, wait: if anybody actually really has to say something anyway.
Was that too much? If so, I'm sorry. So, here's the deal. The boys have just been to a movie, something foreign, subtitled. Not the cool kind, nothing Asian. Something European. Danish!
The scene: post-movie drinks at a shady, basement kindof place. Illegal activities likely to be going on nearby. One of the guys, could've been Harry... but I don't remember, recommended the place. The other two are somewhat pissed off about the place, but since alcohol is mandatory, its source and environment in which it is consumed are secondary at best.
"You guys, you know what?" (stupid question, indeed) Mark asks, while John gulped down what was left of his badly mixed cocktail. He didn't seem to listen and given the circumstances, listening to Mark's forthcoming little speech about ...whatever didn't seem too necessary, or promising, or... anything.
Mark: "I think Danish film, in general, all this not-really-funny-still-you're-supposed-to-laugh-stuff-- is awfully overrated." At this point, realizing his not so high expectations fulfilled John puts down his glass to leave for the men's room, without another word. Harry, in need of a refill, is looking around for the barkeeper who is busy at the other end of the bar.
"Harry! Come on! You know I'm right. After all, the most famous Danish director is now making American movies... with mixed European casts, but still American movies..."
"Dude, I could not care less. What I want now is Dutch beer. Not Danish film."

Girl from the North Country

(Notice: this is an alternate and extended, stand-alone version of an earlier entry)

It was a hot and humid day; the sun was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind thick layers of clouds, heavy with the promise of forthcoming rain, a purging thunderstorm. Mark woke up in a strange way. He did not slip out of sleep, regaining consciousness before even properly opening his eyes (as he usually does, as you probably and I most certainly do, usually); neither did he wake abruptly as you do from a nightmare.
When Mark woke up, he found his eyes already open; sweat was slowly running from his receding hairline down his forehead. It might have been sweat burning in his eyes that woke him up. It wasn’t the noise coming from the street, because, strangely enough, he couldn’t hear it until some two or three seconds after waking up.
He spent these two deaf seconds wondering why or how sweat could go down his face until he realized that he’d been sleeping in a sitting position his back almost upright, leaning against the headpiece of his bed. Now he could hear the noise, cars jerking downtown, stop and go, like any other morning. Mark’s lower back was in a state of slight but persistent pain. Even worse was his right arm. He couldn’t feel it and for some reason he thought he’d misplaced it, lost it somewhere on his way to bed, earlier this morning. His right hand did not move. Anxious to find it gone he turned his head.
Looking back, we might say that only then Mark was really awake. In the twilight of the drawn curtains, that hid the half-open window, he saw that his hand and half of his arm were stuck underneath something or somebody. Well, it was a body, not a person. Not anymore. A fucking corpse. “Fuck!”, Mark thought.
She was a girl. Well, it had been. It was dressed in a somewhat outdated summer dress with some kind of flower pattern. It was probably outdated enough to be fashionable again, but Mark couldn’t really think too much about that. He did not know her, hadn’t known her, that is. At least he did not remember. She still looked kind of good, a bit too much make-up though. Well, and there were those ugly bruises around her neck, which suggested that she’d been strangled.
Mark pulled his arm from under her, which unfortunately caused the body to roll over and drop to the floor, noisily knocking over several empty beer bottles. He got up and carefully climbed over the girl, narrowly avoiding stepping on her, while he was alternately rubbing his sore back and his numb arm. He realized he was still drunk. A slight feeling of dizziness forced him to drag along the wall, and he struggled to make his way through the door and beyond, down the hall, to the bathroom. He could hear music playing in the next room; apparently, one of his roommates was listening to something that sounded vaguely familiar, especially the lyrics. Was that a cover of a Bob Dylan song?
“She once was a true love of mine” – Mark could hear the vocals clearly, regardless of the droning guitars, when he left the bathroom. The door to John’s room was open and his roommate was standing in the hallway. John turned to Mark, his arms were crossed and his facial expression suggested he had seen what Mark had woken up to. “I heard something and figured you were up. You left your door open”, he said. He didn’t seem shocked, just amused in a very weird and somewhat inappropriate way. But which behavior is best, when you find a corpse next to your roommate’s bed?
It took some time to evaluate the situation. John recalled Mark bringing the girl the night before. Both of them had been drunk, just like John. How could anyone get away with a corpse in their bed and without an alibi, or any kind of explanation? You couldn’t possibly just say, “I don’t know her, I found her like this, I didn’t do it.” Given the situation, they decided to get rid of the evidence. This involved using an eight-piece knife set which one of them had bought after seeing one of these infomercials. The presenter had said, “Unbelievable! This cleaver cuts through bone like butter!” It actually did. John put the pieces in two black garbage bags, while Mark was cleaning the bathtub. He didn’t really question why his roommate had had several pairs of surgical gloves and a gallon of bleach ready, as though he did stuff like this on a regular basis. Together they carried the bags to the elevator and down to Mark’s car. They carefully placed them in the trunk.
“Dude”, Mark said, when he started the engine, “Thank you so much for helping me. I have no idea where I’d be without you.”
“What do you mean? You are helping me”, John replied, smiling. Distant thunder was rolling nearer behind the dark skyline and few drops of rain fell on Mark’s windshield.

How Mark broke his watch (pt. I)

The night descended like an airborne predator embracing the city with wings of twilight. Thinking something probably a little less poetic Mark sat at the bar of the ----------- Club staring into a half-empty, not half-full glass of beer. It was still quite early at night and the place wasn't really crowded yet. Actually apart from barkeeper Jerry and Mark there were only two more persons present: A girl was sitting near the door, observing it, probably waiting for somebody. The other one was a guy in a white shirt, a wearing a tux vest, and on top of that: a bow-tie. He was playing pool by himself. Weird.
Mark looked at his watch: 9.20 PM. Little did he know that it would soon be broken by a sudden unexpected blow.
A cheesy piano-driven song by Meat Loaf was playing on the jukebox and when it stopped the pool player went up to it, put in another coin and another song came on. A slow reverb-laden drum beat started the whole thing, somewhat 80ish. Indeed: Phil Collins started singing and Mark decided to switch drinks and ordered gin and tonic. Unlike Collins, Mark didn't really see anything coming, not in the air that night and basically nowhere else either.

Harry actually put this up on the fridge

Body

It was a hot and humid day, when Mark woke up in a strange way. He did not slip out of sleep, regaining consciousness before even properly opening his eyes (as he usually does, as you probably and I most certainly do, usually); neither did he wake abruptly like you do from a nightmare. No, it seemed like he opened his eyes before he was actually awake. I can't really compare because I'm not a sleepwalker and neither is Mark (nor Harry, nor John by the way), but: it wasn't like sleepwalking. And not only because he wasn't walking.

Anyway, when Mark woke up he found his eyes already open; sweat was slowly running from his receding hairline down his forehead. It might have been sweat burning in his eyes that woke him. It wasn't the noise coming from the street, because, strangely enough, he couldn't hear it until some two or three seconds after waking up with his eyes open.
He spent these deaf two seconds wondering why or how sweat could go down his face until he realized that he'd been sleeping in a sitting position his back almost upright, leaning against the headpiece of his bed. Now he could hear the noise coming up from street: cars jerking down -------- Ave, like any other morning.
Mark's lower back was in a state in between numbness and slight but persistent pain. Even worse was his right arm. He couldn't feel it and for some reason he thought he'd misplaced it, lost it somewhere on his way to bed, earlier this morning. He probably hadn't slept much longer than three hours. Still, long enough to have no memories of the night before. While his left arm was fine, a glance down revealed that his watch was not. The glass was broken and the hands had stopped. (At 5.34.) He wanted to take it off and examine it more closely, but he couldn't. He couldn't move his right hand. Second attempt. No. His right hand did not move. Anxious to find it gone he turned his head.

No, looking back we might say that only then Mark was really awake. In the shade of the drawn curtains, that hid the half-open window, he saw that his hand and half of his arm were stuck underneath something. It was a body.* BAM! He was awake.
________________
*This explanation would've fucked up the tension and the proper ending -- that's why it's here:
It was not a person. Not anymore. It was a dead body. A corpse. Yes, indeed. "Fuck." That was exactly what Mark thought.

We're not through yet.

The end is not necessarily the end. Not here, nowhere actually. Not concerning Harry, Mark, and John. Even if we accept "The End" to be the end of Harry, Mark, and John where exactly was the beginning? And what happened in between?
Even if we've been here and on the other side, are we through yet? No-- of course we'e not. Harry, Mark, and John are here to stay. There are Harrys, Marks, and Johns all over the place. You might be one of 'em. Or you live with one 'em. Wait, that guy you met last night... what was his name again...? Exactly.
So, let's hear it for them, all of them. Give a big hand for Harry, for Mark, and of course for----------
...so, they're sitting on that kitchen floor, talking ...