Page 27 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

The Yellow Peril

used to here in northern England. At home, if the weather was
good, which it usually was at this time of year, Harry and his
wife would be sitting on the front porch of their Connecticut
home with a glass of wine, watching the last glimmer of the
sun as it settled over the Litchfield hills. In fact, Harry thought,
the scene would not have been so different from the one right
here, except that his feet would have been planted firmly on the
ground, three steps off it if you wanted to be technical, and he
would have been sitting in a comfortable wicker love seat with
his arm draped over his wife’s shoulder, instead of on some
rotten bench high off the ground that was about to fall apart
any minute and send them all plummeting to their deaths.

What, Harry wondered, was he doing three thousand miles
from home, risking his life in a vain attempt to see some deer
from thirty feet up in a tree, when on practically any night at
home around dusk he could walk down the road and see all the
deer and woodchucks, and raccoons — which they don’t even
have in England — that he wanted to see?

It was a question Harry often pondered when he was on va-
cation. Inevitably, it brought on a melancholy that lasted long
after he returned home, yet never seemed to dampen his love
of traveling. No sooner would he be home than he would be at
his maps or the atlas wondering where to go on the next trip.

Harry loved to go far, far away, though he was terrified of
flying. He loved to scramble up treacherous mountain paths,
despite his fear of heights. He loved to sail beyond sight of
land even though, ever since he was a child, he was afraid of
drowning. In fact, he would travel to the moon in a minute, if
only someone asked him.

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