He first rose from the dark crevices of a forgotten shack entrenched deep in the Alaskan wilderness. The thought that he might be a demon tethered to the earth never crossed my mind; to me he seemed like a wounded, confused animal. I cursed my poor luck and reckless abandon whilst I studied his frostbitten strands and raw cheeks. This trip marks the beginning and end of my midlife crisis. I convinced myself as my retch stifled itself in an attempt to prevent the further addition of waste to the cramped living quarters.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know someone was...living here.” I stammered, eagerly pivoting in the dirty snow to exit the once thought abandoned shack. “I’ll just look for snowmobile fuel somewhere else.” I could feel his eyes boring through my spine with a heated fervor of curiosity that warmed my face and made my ears burn.

“What makes ye think I live ‘ere, stranger?” His voice ground bone to dust and churned an endless supply of phlegm deep in his throat. With small, cautious steps, I turned back to face the strange hermit. “Think I ‘aven’t the dignity te clean up afte’ meself, eh? Think ‘m some kinda grown baby, livin’ in ‘is own filth, sleepin’ ‘ere he eats? An’ I suppose yer onea dem ‘igh-society types, eh? Got separate johns fo’ shittin’ an’ pissin’, I bet!” He finished his tirade with a spit, which glistened on the floor innocently. He smiled. “ ‘m ‘Arold, case you were wonderin’.”

Taken aback, confused by this strange man, I stood in the entrance to the shack as the door creaked and banged against it, seeking freedom from its iced and rusted hinges. “Harold….?” I questioned, moving away from the door and allowing it to embrace the wooden wall again.

“Aye. ‘Arold.” He responded promptly, almost as if he had expected to repeat himself. I stood silently across from him, feeling the frost on face below my collar give way to the warmth that reverberated therein. Delighting in this small comfort, I stared across the chilly void at Harold as he shuddered and slipped down to a ragged blanket strewn in the corner opposite me. He broke the silence with a phlegmy cough, the impacts of each mucus packet against the walls of his throat easily audible, and a question. “What’s yer name, anyway?”

I took a deep breath in preparation for leaving the sanctuary of my coat collar. “Robert Fwois.” For a brief moment I took in the full stench of the room, and my stomach lost its battle against nausea. As I added to the colorful palette of aromas inhabiting the cramped shack, I could see, out of the very corner of my eye, Harold watching me. He only watched, almost curiously, like a kitten intrigued by a butterfly. My stomach, now fully empty, rested its assault on my throat and allowed me the opportunity to once again retreat into my cloth sanctuary. Given the time to recover from my episode, and enough silence to drive a socialite insane, I regained the comfort I needed to resume conversation. “My snowmobile ran out of fuel. I was hoping to find some in here”

Harold continued to scrutinize me with his almost innocent curiosity. “Snowmobile? What’s it run on?” He shifted, bringing his tapestry of a coat, or perhaps blanket, into a beam of light streaming through one of the many cracks in the wooden structure. “ ‘S it like a car?”

“It runs on gasoline like a car.” I responded. Arms across my chest, I gripped my shoulders even more tightly. The northern chill seemed even more prominent here than outside, where the elements battered and leached the heat from a man.

Harold screwed up his face as if in thought. A great rumbling grew from deep in his throat, which slowly rose in volume and pitch only to end with a sickening splat of mucus on wood. “Might ‘ave sommat like that, but how do I know I can trust you? Hm?”

My body ceased its shivering for a moment to ponder over that question. “Trust?” I asked. “What does trust have to do with it? I’m just asking for a little help, some human kindness.”

“ Human kindness!” Harold attempted to erect himself, but only managed to shift himself into the pool of his ejected fluid. “Don’t ye dare try to talk te me ‘bout goddamned ‘uman kindness! I ‘ave yet te meet a man with e’en a shred of fucking kindness! And you, of all people, think ye can ask fo’ kindness from me?” Taken aback, and feeling more than a tad clueless, I retreated from Harold until the wooden wall and myself had become too familiar for any more distance to be made.

“I’m...sorry. I wasn’t under the impression that I’d done anything to offend you…” I managed to stammer before Harold went back into his monologue, now wonderment and shame conflicting in his eyes.

“It was always one lie afte’ the other. Why did ye’ hafte’ hide the truth from ‘er all the time, Tim?”

“I’m Robert, not T…” I tried to inject.

“It was always ‘bout the kids when the missus was listenin’, but soon as she was outta earshot ye was back to yer lyin’, cheatin’, gamblin’ self. You were the reason the orphanage didn’t ‘ave any money! The missus thought it was damn gove’ment taxes ‘till she bit it, but I knew, and I did sommat ‘bout it!” Harold slowly relaxed. His back slid down the wall, and his head hit the floor with a dull thunk. “Money was ne’er easy ‘till then.”

Thoroughly spooked, and now certainly confused, I slid slowly across the wall, towards where the portal to the real world once stood. Once I thought myself close, I shot out an arm to probe for a doorknob, a latch, anything that might give me entry to the elements. When my blind pursuit proved fruitless, I turned my face away from Harold, who still lay on the ground, face to the weakened ceiling supports. A sudden, inexplicable feeling of scrutinization stayed my hand as it fell on the knob. Turning slowly back to the room, my senses fell under the assault of Harold’s breath.

“Ye can’t leave! Look, I’ll get a job; I’ll play yer stupid games and look at yer stupid pictures; I’ll tell ye all my feelin’s n’ such, but ye can’t just abandon me like this!” I tried my hardest not to smell his breath as he talked, but I could feel its warmth brushing past my cheeks, through my pores, between the stubs of facial hair I had grown on my trip.

“Games? Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir, but I think I’ll find fuel elsewhere. I turned the doorknob and released the elements on the two of us. The buffet knocked me off balance, allowing Harold the opportunity to wrench me away from the door and into a loosely arranged pile of empty cans, which clattered noisily as I disrupted their slumber.

“Why can’t ye give me a chance, eh?” Harold thundered, fastening the door shut again. “Where’s Martha’s good ol’ human kindness, ‘er common decency?” He cooed almost lovingly, only to burst out in anger. “Ain’t it your obligation te give me a goddamn chance?! Don’t ye hafta help me? Ain’t it part of your fuckin’ code, being a doc n’ all, to do no harm? Ye may not be skewering me with a knife, but ye may as well! Take a guy from an orphanage just te throw ‘im out on the street. How ‘bout I give ye some sympathy, eh?”

I righted myself in the pile of empty bean cans, turning to face Harold. For the first time since stumbling upon the wretch of a man, I felt I saw a gleam of intelligence, of sorrow in the man’s eyes. I could see the reflection of a man in them, a man fearfully cowering.

“I’m Robert Henry Fwois, a married man working for Global Advertising Inc. in Seattle. I’m not this Martha or Tim, or anyone else for that matter! Now may I please leave?” I stammered pitifully. Harold remained silent. He didn’t smile, or investigate, or begin another tirade; he stood there, above me, solem as the wall I had violated not moments before. “Look, if you have fuel, I can take you with me. I could help you find…..help.”

“I don’t need helpin’.” Harold shuffled back over to his phlegm puddle to make a deposit. “Martha don’t like the sympathy I gave ‘er. Police din’t like it either. Nobody cared when I dealt wit Tim, so why’s Martha still followin’ me, eh? Make a big deal ‘bout it like I was caught shopliftin’ ‘gain.” He readjusted his great patchwork coat and huddled back into his original corner.

In the silence that followed, I noticed that the path to the door no longer bore Harold as an obstruction. With the same sweep of the area my eyes chanced upon a large red fuel container propped up against the wall perpendicular to the entrance, in the perfect place to be hidden by the door whilst it stood ajar. Planning my escape, I braced myself against the pile of empty cans and readied myself for a dash to the door.

“Now...I think ye need te suffer the same fate.” Harold remarked ponderously, almost as if he had decided between two breakfast cereals. On that cue, I quickly righted myself and dashed to the fuel canister. As I clutched my gloved hand over the dirty, scratched, red plastic, its counterpart simultaneously grabbed the doorknob and turned it with a desperate fury I didn’t know I possessed. The canister flailed behind me as I fled out into the Alaskan wilderness, Harold cursing behind me.