For Boredom's Sake: Eric's Tale - Chapter VI: A Meeting

For Boredom's Sake: Eric's Tale

Chapter VI: A Meeting
By Eric Greer


By midday it had started snowing again, and as night drew near, Eric began to wonder where he would find shelter. Of course, he hadn't been smart enough to steal a tent from that villager, or even a blanket. If he could time travel he could go back and steal a tent; then again, if he could time travel, he probably wouldn't have died and gone to Hell, and therefor wouldn't be in this whole saving the world mess.
Unable to find a worthwhile place to make camp, Eric walked deep into the night. The moons lit his way at times, when there was a break in the clouds, but he found himself mostly feeling his way through the dark. This mode of travel is fairly stupid, as forest floors sometimes have a bad habit of suddenly disappearing. This thought occurred to Eric as he tumbled rather violently down a hillside. When his body finally came to stop, he decided he had found a suitable place to camp.

"Hey, you! You!"
Ugh, where am I? he thought to himself. The last thing he remembered was falling.
"Hey!"
I must have hit my head on something, he thought, rubbing his forehead.
"Mister!"
How long was I out? The sky was still dark, but the cloud cover had broken, and the moons now hung bright in the sky.
"Will you stop with the inner monologue, I'm trying to talk to you!"
Looking around, Eric saw that he had come to rest on a tree-covered hillside. The figure of an old man stood a few feet from him, though his features were hidden in shadow.
"Oh, sorry," he said, getting to his feet.
"It's about time," said the old man, who was now making his way down the hill. "Well, are you coming?" he asked, looking back.
"Oh, uh, I guess so," answered Eric, somewhat bewildered.
Down the hill they went, neither saying a word. The old man was breathing heavily when they reached the bottom.
"So... where are we going?" he finally asked, as they continued through the forest.
"To my home, of course," answered the old man indignantly, not looking back.
"Of course, where else would I be following a strange old man to in the middle of nowhere?" he said sarcastically.
"Exactly," he replied matter of factly.
This old man was strange. Normally this would be where he would follow his gut and sneak off, but the idea of possibly being able to rest somewhere with a roof over his head was too alluring to pass up; he figured he'd have plenty of other opportunities to be one with nature on the long road to Lebin.

About half an hour later Eric spotted a light through the trees ahead. As they got closer, a cozy little cottage appeared.
"Nice place you've got," he said.
The old man simply ignored him, opened the door and shuffled inside, slamming the door behind him.
To say that Eric was confused would be an understatement.
"Are you coming in? Or are you going to stand outside all night?" yelled the old man.
As Eric opened the door, any preconceived notions that the exterior of the small house had created were blown away. The place was a pigsty. The floor was covered by the stained pelt of some strange creature and countless scraps of paper. In one corner stood a table (littered with dirty wooden bowls and more scraps of paper) and two chairs. A large dog slept on a pile of hay in another corner, next to a fireplace, not even acknowledging Eric's presence. On the other side of the fireplace was a disheveled looking bed.
"Welcome to my home. Sit! Sit!" said the old man, as he crossed the room. He pulled one of the chairs out from under the table, and, after picking what appeared to be a small, dead creature from it (which he nonchalantly tossed into the fire), offered it to Eric before slowly sitting in the other.
"Uh, thanks," said Eric, looking from the fire to the seat. Trying not to think about whatever had been lying there before, he sat down.
"My name is Mortimer," said the old man. In the firelight Eric could finally make out his face. He definitely wasn't much to look at: he had a woolly grey beard, a crooked nose, and his left eye appeared to drift inward. His hair was long and unkempt. All in all, he had the look of someone who wasn't quite completely there.
"Eric," he replied, quickly taking his eyes from the man's face.
"Nice to meet you Eric! My name is Mortimer!"
"Uh, yeah, you just told me."
"Did I now? How silly of me," laughed Mortimer. "Well, my name is Mortimer, and this is my home!"
"So, what were you doing out in the middle of the night? You were pretty far from home," asked Eric.
"Sleep walking, I suppose," he replied. "Nothing does a sleeping man more good than going for a midnight stroll!"
"I see." Mortimer definitely wasn't all there. "Nice dog."
"Ah, yes! That's my Mortimer! He's a good boy, aren't you Mortimer? Aren't you?" The dog didn't even open his eyes. "Damned dog. You must be hungry, am I right?" he asked, turning his attention back to Eric. "I've got some slop, if you're interested."
"Uh, sure." He hadn't eaten since the previous morning, having decided to ration his bread.
The old man then stood up and shuffled over to a large pot standing next to the fire.
"Come and get some, sonny!" he said, waving him over.
As Eric drew near, Mortimer pried the lid from the pot. Inside, Eric beheld something truly unholy. "Slop", as the old man called it, was a sickly color, somewhere between green and brown, but distinctly neither, with bits and pieces of what he guessed were small, rodent-like animals and mushrooms. There were other things floating in it, but these were the only things he could identify.
"Er, actually, on second thought, I have bread," he said, moving away from the pot, holding the bag up.
"Suit yourself," said Mortimer, grabbing a wooden bowl from the floor near the dog. "You don't know what you're missing!" He then dipped the bowl in the "slop" and replaced the lit.
"Oh, I'm sure it's delicious; but, I've, uh, made a vow to, uh, eat only bread for... ever. Yep."
"I see," said Mortimer, sitting down. He then lifted the bowl to his mouth and took a hearty swig. He sat for a moment before turning towards the dog and spitting what appeared to be a small eyeball in its direction, which landed a few feet short. "Damned dog."
What followed was several awkward, silent moments. Mortimer busied himself with his meal, sometimes pausing to spit something in the dog's direction. Meanwhile, Eric looked about the room, his stomach churning in disgust. Looking at the papers that littered the floor and table, he could see that some were covered in strange writing; others featured crude stick figures, depicting a wide range of things, from battles to gardening (others, he suspected, were pornographic in nature).
After a few minutes, Mortimer noisily finished his "slop" and threw the bowl back towards the dog. For the first time since he arrived, Eric noticed the dog react: he lifted his head to peer inside the bowl, then sat his head down again, closing his eyes.
"Well," said Mortimer, putting his hands on his stomach, "time for bed!" Standing up, he walked over to the bed. Lying down, he rolled over to the far side. "There's plenty of room for the both of us," he said, patting the empty side of the bed.
"I'm... good. I'll sleep on the floor...." This old coot was just getting stranger and stranger.
"Suit yourself," yawned Mortimer, rolling over. "Night, night."
"Night, night...."
Eric pulled the loaf of bread from his bag and tore a small piece off. As he ate, he began to wonder if this turn of events was just a coincidence or if it was fate. But, then he decided that he was too sore and tired to worry about that, and, seeing as a night of sleeping on a hard floor wouldn't help the sore part of it, he didn't plan on thinking about it tomorrow either.
When he had finished he proceeded to clear a small area of the floor, pushing the papers to one side. Using his bag as a makeshift pillow, he quickly drifted off to sleep, the steady sound of Mortimer's snoring filling his ears.


Copyright 2011 by Eric Greer. All rights reserved.