Odd Stories

There once was a family that lived deep in the forest at the foot of some seven or so mountains, which reached all the way up into the sky and poked the clouds so that it would rain down on the city below, for every season.

Harold the hairdresser, who was famed through all the city for his skill with his blade, had decided one day that he had reached the furthest depths of his understanding and skill that one lifetime could afford, and decided from this point to take it upon himself to smash and hammer hot metal into finer scissor blades, to be passed down to his successors. From here, he became Harold the blacksmith, and slowly gained a reputation in this way, although for each of his years in the city he had lost a single hair, and was now growing quite bald, he proved to be a dedicated student, even in stubborn old age. The whole city was in love with him, except for whoever it was that had to live next to the old man and his family.

"Go away," they would shout, "All that smoke coming out of your furnace is like poison, and it's turning all of our meats orange and blue."

Harold moved out into the country, but even the farmers would yell at him. The smoke from his furnace was so potent that everyone was sure he was doing something wrong, but no one could say quite what it was. He tried moving deep into the city also, to hide among the little cramped apartments, but it was no use. All the neighbours could tell where it was coming from, and inside his apartment there was always a thin yellow film coating all the walls.

"We will have to leave and go live in the mountains", He told his wife, who promptly left him. She was already tired of all the horrible smells, she told him, and said that she could not even taste the food they ate any more, it all tasted like peas soup, and said that he was unbearable otherwise anyway, in a general sort of way. Here, with a great sigh of disdain, Harold arose, and quickly swept up one of his smallest children, not a very important one as far as notable members of a family go, to go work in the mine in the mountain, searching for metals to throw into the fire.

Deep in the cave of one of the mountains, although he couldn't see it, Harold, the smaller one who was not a blacksmith, could feel his boots start to wade into water. "Don't go in!" Said two small fishes as they burst up above the surface, "It keeps getting deeper and deeper, and soon you will feel like you are out in the ocean, even if the shore is right there next to you."

"I can do it," Harold said, and he skipped across the water until his boots no longer touched the bottom. The boy did not know where he was, nor where he came from, but kept swimming until he came to a small passage, wide at first, but narrowing as he went further. The fish were saying something in the distance, but the boy could not hear them.

At the smallest point, the cave turned underwater, so that it was impossible to tell if there was any end to it without swimming in deeper. He went in, down for many seconds, and the passage was so narrow he could not turn around. The boy was guiding himself by the stones of the cave, pulling himself in deeper, when he came across a lizard that had lodged itself in a crack and was struggling to escape. The lizard grabbed the boy's hand in a fit, but the boy ripped it in two, not wanting to be trapped down there with the lizard as well.

When he came out, he took a deep breath, but had to quickly cover his mouth, as he saw something like the whole darkness moving in the cave that opened up from the small cavern passage. "Who is it?" Said the dark. The boy pulled himself up, "Harold," he said, "Do you have any metals in here?" But there was no answer. He started shuffling around the open space and saw the very feint light catch a hill that was sparkling in the dark. Harold touched it, and found that it was a mound of silver, taller than he could see. "May I have some of this?" He asked, and at first there was no answer, but eventually a call came from further into the cave, "Can you find my son? He went in the small pool you came out from. Did you see where he went?" The boy was quiet, but eventually saw an orange light flicker in the cave, dimly lighting up the whole expanse.

"Please go back in and look for him," and the torch was thrown at the boy's feet, "It won't go out under water, and not for any reason unless I put it out. If you find my son, you can have all the silver you can carry back down." The boy, knowing what he had done, took the torch and made his way as quickly as he could out of the whole cave, down past the narrow passage, swimming by the fish, who were now quiet, and up the ladder towards the daylight.

The boy never returned, but in the numerous cavernous channels that weaved themselves through the mountains, he found much more silver and tin, thanks in most part to his torch which would not go out underwater. When he was not in the cave, the torch would be thrown into a boiler, which would eventually come to help bring electricity to, and industrialize, the mountains, where the rest of the townspeople that moved there for work would have to come to tolerate the smells from Harold the Elder's small cottage home, as he was there first.