Natthimmel

A short story about that last citizen who didn’t want to give up, by Konrad:

Old Henry just didn’t want to move, he just didn’t. He stayed in silent protest at the edge of town, his last stand. The only enjoyment he had left was his coffee very early in the morning and his little boat he named Lucille which he took out fishing every day.

He was always seen with his little odd companion, a 10 year old perky otter he called Jimmy. Jimmy was kind of a little pirate taking nightly raids into the new town and tall buildings, stealing food: if you left your window open, you knew he was gonna make sure he got all the food he could manage to carry in his little backpack. The city of New Westville sure didn’t like these two.

Henry was an old-school architect. 5 years ago he was laid off from his former job because he refused to design the new meaningless tower-like building style with was supposed to be eco-friendly. Well that’s what they sell you on their sales pitch right: a nice looking rendered polygon model with stock photos of kids and families with stock laughter and stock enjoyment.

He was disillusioned and moved out here to try and enjoy his early retirement. Just being out here on his own did him good at first, just enjoying the quietness of the woods and the ocean breeze. He took to fishing a lot and learning about life outdoors. On one of his trips in nature he encountered this wounded otter of which he took care and took home. The otter apparently felt grateful and seemed to want to stay. Old Henry didn’t mind, quite the opposite, he liked the little fellows’ funny company. Together they went on many hiking trips along the shore line gathering loot from wrecked ships.

One day though, some prospectors came out onto the land to check for some new town planning. Henry tried to fight them off at first but due to his experience, he knew they were not going to stop: once most of those land development companies got their eye on a piece of land, you just knew they weren’t gonna give up their plans and besides Henry couldn’t afford expensive lawyers. So he retreated himself to the old building in the south part of the island, trying to hold them off as long as he could, with Jimmy being his faithful little co-pirate.