Harvey

He so didn't want to press that button

Harvey bent slowly and stared at the red button. His ears were registering the buzz of the still alive engine located under the floor.

One push of the red button and the engine would unleash its conserved power and shoot Harvey and the capsule up in the lovely blue and inviting sunny skies.
Harvey touched the button gently with his forefinger which the twenty years of ocean climate had turned into a skin-clad sickle.

The finger tip was slightly red. The result of the regular push-not-push exercise he had been enjoying for quite some time, including now. Harvey did not press the button. He did not break his routine.

Instead, he just giggled, trying to keep it down. Who would care really? There wasn’t a single soul or ear in the nearest two thousand miles which Harvey's giggle would have bothered.

‘It’s your call, Harvey’, he said to himself and gave out a smirk.

He was in control. He was the master of the capsule. His complacent smile vanished as if something just popped out of thin

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air and disputed his power.

‘It is my decision! No, I will not press that button and nothing can make me do it!’

Well, Harvey was right. Each and every morning. The whole several thousand of them, he was right.

Harvey now opened the large iron door of the capsule and sat on the stairs. The cool sea waves caressed his old feet, greeting him.

That’s what Harvey thought they were doing.
He stretched out his hand and touched the playful curly edges of the waves. It would had been rude not to return the greetings.

‘Morning, Snowpuff!’

The skeleton of Snowpuff had been frozen in the posture in which the dog met the unusual tsunami that decimated the small island - his behind pointing to where house used to be.

So each morning Harvey would be welcomed by an erect tailbone perched at the center-line between two hind legs of a skeleton the remainder of which had been buried forever several meters in front of the stairs.

On days when Harvey was in a particularly good mood, he was convinced

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that what he was seeing was not just a tail and two hind legs but a middle finger. A properly extended and meant for him middle finger in all its glory. There had been some truth to that. In his living days Snowpuff was known for not being a huge fan of Harvy.
The owner of the island on the other hand, or rather the late owner of the former island, had been his friend and boss. He was a multi-billionaire and owner of a massive corporation, massive buildings and generally of stuff that you would see on the news.

And last, he was the owner of the skull that now sat placidly stuck between two chunks of small marble column right of the Snowpuff’s remains.

That rich man had bought the small island located far from any connectivity, intermodality, of any diagram, schedule and traffic, so he could manage his business.

By being far away from it.

He just wanted to be close to nature. One day nature came so close to him that it battered the small island with giant waves from a very, very close

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range. Whether it got tired, or bored, I don't know, but nature ceased the fire just before the complete demise of the island. The only thing that left on the island was the top of the big white house that the multi-billionaire had built. In that top, the multi-billionaire had installed a capsule equipped with a powerful rocket engine. His idea at the time had been to activate that engine in case of an emergency and blast off from the island immediately.

He had installed a parachute. It would activate by way of a handle next to the red button. So pulling the handle would simultaneously cut off the engine and ensure soft landing.

The capsule had been designed to accommodate him, Snowpuff and the maintenance staff - Harvey.

Harvey was in the middle of house maintenance work when the tsunami struck.
He ran to the capsule. He survived. And he was thankful or that.

But he wanted something more than just greeting Snowpuff and talking with the skull of his dead master.

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Genres:

Adventure

Comedy

Fantasy

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