The man sitting in the corner of the dingy bar guzzled down yet another glass of beer as he stared out through hazy eyes at the world around him. It was late at night and there were not many others in the small establishment, just the tender and a few other lost souls who looked almost as depressed as he was. Almost, but he doubted anyone could be feeling the hurt inside that he was now.
He rolled his head back in an attempt to clear it, though it only made it worse, and then managed to slide his chair back. With nothing left to do, he stood from his lonely table and staggered up the bar, the hundredth time that night for all he knew, all the while sneering at any other form of life that happened to fall into his line of sight. As he approached, the tender gave him a wary eye, followed by an equally disapproving frown. Groaning, he told himself that he didn't really care what the barkeep thought anyway. He didn't care what anyone thought.
"One... more round," he slurred, the alcohol heavy on his breath.
"I told you three drinks ago, Harvey," the tender snapped, turning his back. "No more. How are you gonna get home anyhow?"
"Don't care..."
Spinning, the barkeep faced him squarely and set his hands firmly onto the polished surface of the counter.
"Listen, you. Don't be talking like that. You're the great Harvey Whitman, the all powerful attorney who always gets his man. I wonder what a lotta people would think if they saw you in here every week like I do."
"Everybody... hates me," Whitman wheezed. "They can all just... well... whatever. I don't care. Just gimme another cold one."
"I tell you what I'm gonna do, Harvey. I'm calling a cab and you're going home."
"Listen here...!"
"No, you listen here," the barkeep snapped in a hushed tone, but very much full of command. "You're gonna destroy yourself and I'm not gonna help you do it, understand?"
The tender didn't wait for a reply.
"You're angry, Harvey," he continued, his words easing up a little. "You're angry and you're lonely. But this isn't the answer. Go home and sleep this off. If you remember anything I've said, you'll wake up and take a good long look at your life."
"Didn't ask for any lectures..." Harvey stammered.
"You've done quite a bit with your life, but whatever you think you're missing is in your own mind."
"My head hurts... quit talkin' so loud." the drunken attorney moaned, gripping both sides of his head.
"Lemme give you a little bit of advice, Harv. You can walk a long way, cover a whole lotta ground, but only when you stop for a moment and turn around can you really tell how far you've gone."
"Easy for you to say... you've gotta wife and two kids. People who love you."
"When you figure out why, Harvey, you'll be a much happier man."
The keep whirled away without waiting for a reply that wouldn't have done either of them any good anyway and retreated to the phone at the back of the bar in order to summon Harvey's ride. All the attorney could do then was sit, wishing how bad he could have just one more drink, though knowing that in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Good things happened to other people, never to him. It had always been that way, and so it would always be.
As he drove his expensive luxury car along the bustling highway, Harvey Whitman once again reached up and pressed in the sides of his tender temples. How his head hurt this morning, he thought, trying to fight away the pain that just wouldn't go away. The drinking was always a wonderful escape from the loneliness of his life, but these next day consequences were becoming harder and harder to take. In fact, he had barely managed to stagger out of bed, for the world around him had been spinning faster than he could comprehend. Only now was the greater, dismal picture beginning to finally come back into focus.
"Now concentrate," he groaned to himself, shaking his head and staring out at the road ahead. "You've got one foreclosure to finish up and then you can go home and sleep."
How wonderful that sounded to his ringing ears... soothing, relaxing sleep. Everyone was equal there, alone in their sleep. He didn't know why that comforted him a bit, but it managed to do just that.
Now, all he had to do was get this over with. Luckily, the task was easy enough. Old Mrs. Bloomfield had been unable to make the payments on her home for quite some time now, ever since her husband had died, and the time had come to evict her. A very eccentric lady, she had stubbornly refused to budge, and thus he, as an attorney, had been dispatched with the paperwork to make the foreclosure final.
Of course, she had brought this all on herself. Sure the old house had been in her family for countless generations, but she should have planned ahead. It certainly wasn't worth his worry. She deserved what she got. Where she went from there was no concern of his, only the signing of the papers. So all he had to do was go to the house, get the signatures, and then leave. Then, Harvey could get back to his own problems.
Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly realized that his exit was upon him, and he veered right into the exit lane, almost on top of another unsuspecting vehicle. The horn blared behind him and a shout rang out.
"Learn how to drive, ya moron!"
Harvey's stomach gnawed at him. Just for that, he wished a thousand curses upon the other driver. It was certainly deserved. Slamming a hand onto the steering wheel, he told himself that everyone deserved to have a lousy day, every day. After all, he did.
He pulled into a quaint neighborhood, full of many years of history and grown with beauty and age. Great trees lined the street of Harcourt Avenue, behind which stood regal and angular homes, many with elegant wooden fences and lavish gardens spotted with floral arrangements that ranged through every color of the rainbow. The area was quiet, cozy, and comfortable, he decided, which was everything he was not. Nevertheless, it brought him some form of comfort, though the back of his mind scolded him for it. He just had to fight this off, like he did his mornings after a night at the bar, and get on with things. Life was a daily struggle, nothing more.
He quickly found Number Fourteen, a house even more lovely than most on the rustic street. The flowers were kept even brighter in this garden, the yard even more neatly trimmed, the trees even more grand and wise, the home itself even more warm and inviting. To Harvey, it almost seemed to be a cottage, though a very large cottage, in the middle of the forest, off the beaten path, inviting weary travelers who had journeyed long and hard on some great quest. All that would come to an end soon, though. It was his job to see to that.
His car pulled up to the curb and soon he was at the door, ringing the doorbell for what seemed like hundreds of times too many. He had to roll his eyes as the realization came to him that even the doorbell was cozy, just musical enough to warrant it.
"Come on, lady," he muttered to himself as he waited, his head still pounding mercilessly. "I know you're here. This'll take just ten minutes and then we can both..."
The door swung open with a slight creak, revealing to Harvey Whitman a very old woman, probably approaching ninety. She was elegant and proud of stature despite her great age, and every bit as eccentric in appearance as his clients had informed him. Her eyes, though... that was her main feature, silver in color like the moon on the clearest of nights, so much full of life, yet somehow sad and distant.
"I can hear you, young man," she spoke, her words laced with the wisdom of many years.
There was a twinkle to her eye, a spark of some sort, very tiny but unmistakably there. After meeting and then turning away from the unflinching gaze of the old woman, Harvey wanted nothing more than to get on with this.
"Hello, Mrs. Bloomfield, I am..."
"I know who you are, Mr. Whitman," she interrupted.
With a graceful shuffle, she opened the door wider and stood slightly to one side, never taking her gaze from him. The corners of her mouth bent upward among the wrinkles, forming a mysterious smile that was somewhere between welcoming and mysterious.
"Please come in."
Harvey paced back and forth across the antiquated living room, large but also painfully comfortable, like everything else about the place. Glancing about, he noted the decorations of the room, an old woman's touch all too apparent in them. Antiques and old collectibles lined every wall, and were placed with a pride and precision upon every piece of suitable furniture. There were model cottages and animal statuettes of every type, old photos in elegant picture frames, dolls and toy horses, and just about anything else that anyone could ever imagine. For a while, the attorney found himself distracted by all the useless possessions, though it passed soon enough. Possessions had never made anyone he knew of truly happy before, most importantly himself, no matter what their value or number was. Nevertheless, Old Mrs. Bloomfield seemed to have plenty of both here.
"Please sit down, Mr. Whitman," she sternly spoke, swaying back and forth in a wooden rocking chair across the room. "That pacing is enough to make an old woman dizzy."
Harvey snapped his attentions back to the matter at hand.
"Er... no thank you, Mrs. Bloomfield. As you know, I have a job to do and then I'll be gone."
The woman's silver eyes flickered from him to the papers he carried under his arm and then back again.
"I know... you've come to kick me out of my house."
Harvey decided he was not in the mood for this at all.
"Look... with all due respect... I am not kicking anyone out of anything. I'm not the one who's done anything wrong and I'm tired of getting all the blame! I'm here to get you to sign these papers, for a purpose which is no fault of my own! You can't pay your mortgage, Mrs. Bloomfield, and now it's time to face the music!"
There was a long, awkward silence afterward, during which time Harvey felt he had to avert his gaze.
"Do you feel better, Mr. Whitman?" Mrs. Bloomfield finally asked, her rocking still steady.
"That doesn't matter," he answered as he strode forward, pulling the papers out. "Sign these, please, so I can get on with my life."
The old woman sighed and extended a hand, wrinkled and worn with the passing of many decades.
"Help me up, please."
He took her hand and pulled, accomplishing in no time what would have probably taken her half the day. She rose and carefully stepped over to a nearby curio cabinet filled with animal figurines, each polished and dusted with care.
"These were my late husband's," she whispered. "I've always been quite fond of them."
Harvey rolled his eyes.
"Mrs. Bloomfield..."
"Have you ever had anything you cared about, Mr. Whitman? A true treasure? Even a memory?"
"Mrs. Bloomfield, I am very busy."
She turned, quite elegantly for one of her age, and faced the attorney again.
"You're lonely, Mr. Whitman. Lonely and looking for purpose. Placing blame everywhere but where it really belongs. I'll sign those papers, and your life will go on, but nothing will ever change."
"I've never had any faith in soul searching and I don't care about your observations." he growled, thrusting out the documents. "Now sign!"
"Where does life begin, Mr. Whitman, and when does the pain end? Everyone has their treasures. Even you. Perhaps the solution lies with that."
"This is nuts... lady, why aren't you in a home?"
She smiled, however unexpected that it was.
"Before I'm locked away for good, there's something I'd like you to see."
She shuffled down the hallway and disappeared into the first door on the left. Harvey shook his head and began to wonder if he was somehow still drunk. He followed the woman into the room, spouting off curses under his breath.
"Fine, but you are signing these papers, or you face legal..."
He stopped short, a treasure trove of cabinets and shelves meeting his gaze, each of which were lined with toy cars that spanned every type known to exist. There were automobiles, shining fire engines, and police cars that he was sure still had working sirens. The sheer volume of them was a sight to behold, but still not enough to completely take his mind off the task at hand.
"Very nice, Mrs. Bloomfield. Where did you get them all?"
She chuckled. "You're asking an old woman to remember a needle in a haystack. I collect them. Anything people don't want anymore, I collect. You never know when they'll be needed again."
Reaching up, she pulled down a bright red racing car, about a foot or so long. Along either side, a jagged red streak of flame was painted, one having the tiniest of dents at the back, above the rear wheel. It was the kind of car that every small boy dreamed of having. Harvey glanced at it and almost dropped his papers.
"Take this one, for instance. I'm sure some child adored this. These things can be the world to them. But, not anymore. Now this car is alone. Someone has to look after it. Might as well be me."
Memories began to flash into the attorney's mind, recollections of a time when he was innocent, carefree, and most of all actually happy. How life tended to change over the years. Where had those feelings gone now?
"B-Blazer?" he whispered, reaching out and gently taking the car from the old woman. "Can it be? It has to be a fake."
There was only one way to find out. He turned the car over, exposing a scribble of a child's name, inscripted with permanent ink long ago.
"H-a-r-v-i-e," he breathed, tracing the letters with a finger, some of which were backwards, just as he had written them. "It is Blazer! Where did you get it?"
"I collect treasures, Mr. Whitman. Treasures which are best when shared."
So many visions emerged then, of times when he played with friends, of races with Blazer, the car that always won, no matter what the competition, and most of all Becky, his best friend in the world, who had loved the car just about as much as he, but who had never been permitted to play with it. It had been his car, his treasure, not meant for anyone else. Blazer was too important for that.
He heard Mrs. Bloomfield's voice again, though it sounded so distant this time, as if coming at him across many barriers, many miles that he knew weren't there.
"Yes indeed, Mr. Whitman... you never know when a childhood treasure will be needed again..."