Hiding the Truth

Miles tried to hide the truth from Harold, but sometimes, it was simply, positively impossible, especially when a headache threatened to erupt from his skull, squirting out of his eyes like a volcano. It was true—Harold did have a lovely voice, even when his head wasn’t attached to the rest of his body. But Harold, a want-to-be-poet/song-writer, had a dreadful nasal twang when he vocalized his own lyrics. In addition, Harold simply fainted when confronted with the fact that his wife, Lilith, was missing in action.

The truth of the matter was, Harold’s poetry, which included lyrics to his so-called songs, were beyond dreadful, and Lilith had totally disappeared; Miles assumed Lilith had been murdered, but Harold, a dry fountain of misinformation, offered no assistance to Miles' investigation. Miles kept his secrets, and attempted to keep Harold happy by letting him focus on his so called lyrics.
Miles tried tricking Harold into singing other songs, in the hopes that Harold would metamorphosis into a good songwriter. That somehow, Harold would realize what comprised good lyrics by listening to, and appreciating, some of the finer songwriters, such as Towns Van Zandt, Jackie Henrion, Patrice Webb, Paul Simon, Holly McGarry, Ben Olson, Desiree Aguiree, even Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. Why, Johnny and Bobby, as Miles referred to them, managed to pull off a great song without a decent voice. But no, Miles thought, shaking his tail back and forth across the table, Harold is hopeless.

“Oh, Harold,” Miles said. “Let’s try our new electronic tuner that we bought from FiddlinRed’s Music on that banjuke. I do believe it is slightly out of tune, which has created an echo affect, which has pushed my brain to the outer limits. Hmm?”

“Do you really think so, Miles?”

Miles pasted a little packrat smile to his lips. The tips of his teeth…