Imagine if you will a man who is driving himself, maybe driving himself to the very brink. They say that every road leads to home, and that a straight line is the quickest route between two points, but sometimes what appears to be a short-cut can take you on an unexpected diversion, a diversion signposted: "The Twilight Zone".

*****

After 13 hours on the road Harry Johnson, 42, is nearing his destination. A traveling salesman with little to his name except his job, modest house and his car, there is no-one at home waiting up for Harry Johnson on this late Autumnal night, nor will there ever be.

Harry is tiring faster than the road ahead, and so he decides to take a seldom used back road to knock precious minutes off of his journey. Minutes which now make a much bigger proportion of his remaining life than he would care to know.

"I'm bushed," exclaimed Harry "this road seems to go on forever."

Known more-so for its narrow carriageway, uneven camber and pot-holes than its use as a short-cut, Harry is confident that there will be no-one ahead on this, the road less traveled.

"At least the bumpy road should keep me awake for the rest of the journey." he yawned.

Mere minutes away from his home town, a fox appears in the centre of the road, it pauses, and seemingly ignoring the car and its headlights he proceeds to stare straight into the eyes of Harry. Harry, while not a cruel man is not much of an animal lover, and he will never know why he wrenched the steering wheel hard to port (as his late father would have said in memory of his younger days) in a bid to avoid the defenseless night creature.

A few minutes later, Harry awakes from his pain-induced slumber. Pulling himself from the wreckage of his recently obtained '58 Chevy (check mid-range salesman saloon vehicle for this era), he surveyed the damage. The car was a write-off, he knew that, but felt pleased that only his car-insurance company would be making a pay-out, and no-one would benefit from his generous company funded life-insurance premium. As he starts walking the short distance to his town, he notices that his trouser leg is damaged, torn straight down the inner hem with a substantial amount of blood deepening the shade of the once brown material. He has another pair identical to them at home.

Harry checks himself in his bathroom after arriving home, and is mystified as to the source of his bloodied trousers. He throws the damaged clothes into the waste-bin, and crashes out on his bed, not even pausing to cover himself with the beds covers, his fading thoughts concern the moments and scale of the crash, and how lucky he is to have survived.

*****

It's the next day, and it seems events return much to normal for Harry. A short phonecall with an automated phone service similar to one he used to rent a car before secures him a vehicle for the week and he continues about his business much the same as he would any other day, the previous nights events almost forgotten to him.
Work is much the same for Harry as it has ever been, five days a week broken up into five routes, one for each working day. Like any other Thursday his stops include - although not exclusively - the offices of Brumner and Wilkins, a paper factory on the far end of the nearest city adjacent to where Harry lives.
As well as being a major contractor for the company, Harry prides himself on having a good working relation with some of the bosses there, and - through lack of proper socialising, arguably due to work commitments - they have become people that he likes to think off as friends. Their receptionist Stephanie is someone he is very fond of, but Harry has exchanged very little discourse with her over the years, and his crush has become something he has consistently put on the back burner. For Harry, the time for socialising and dating is never now, always later.

Flirting awkwardly, Harry attempts to start a conversation "looking good there Miss. Vachon," he always overstates the "Miss", hoping that she will never have to correct him with a recently ammended marriage related prefix, "Is time moving backwards? because I swear you get younger looking every time I see you."
She is not impressed with his casual lean onto her desk - pushing his hat back as he goes, a move which he thinks is straight from a Cary Grant movie - nor is she disgusted. Playfully she moves some papers out from underneath his weight-bearing elbow, forcing him to re-adjust his stance. She smiles, narrowly avoiding eye-contact.
"Mr Wilkins is just finishing up a lunch meeting. If you'd rather wait in his office for him you're more than welcome to go through."
Harry casually walks past her up to the door to Mr Wilkins' office, pausing just before entering to glance back at the receptionist.
"You know doll cakes, if you keep asking me for a date one day I'll run out of excuses." he quips.
"Oh Mr Johnson," she mocks "stop it".
As he enters the office he affords himself a grin, knowing that her cease and desist order was part of the game they always play.
One day, he thinks to himself, one day I'm gonna ask her out properly.

And he closed the door on the scene.

*****

On his way back home, Harry is pleased to note how well the car is handling. He remembers renting one just like it when he worked a big sales convention in '57 in San Diego. It was a slightly different color but the model was the same, a (???big '50's car, can anyone help me out here).
Caution being paramount to safety on the return journey, Harrys more modest speeds meant a later return to his home than usual. He checked his late arriving post and after a small meal, decided to shirk his responsibiltys - such as ringing his parents he sat down with a book to read- until another day. It was Earnest Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and he had read it a dozen times since youth, it was his favorite book.
He must have passed out halfway through a passage, succumbing to slumber before his brain could register where in the book he had got too. Half way through the next day, mid-route on his Friday rounds, he made the decision to start to read the book again.

*****

Six months later and Harry is finding relaxing to be a problem. The weekends have become the worst part, all the TV stations seem to have some kind of interference, and on the rare time he does get a clear signal it is a repeat. The radio has become a bore, playing the same songs repeatedly to the point of anger. A quick tour of the town in his rental car offers little to alliviate the boredom, the drive-in is still playing the same movie, "Them", a giant ant creature feature and the matinee in the town centre has been staticly replaying the same Buster Crabtree Flash Gordon episode for the last six months. Despite having seen it, Harry decides to see "Them" again, but much to his disappointment there is a four minute gap at the beginning of the second reel. It happens sometimes, his brother-in-law who married his siter was a projectionist and he explained how sometimes the film would get chewed up on the reel-to-reel transfer and whole chunks would have to be cut out of the film. He wouldn't have minded so much, but he was fairly certain he'd missed the same four minutes the first time he saw the flick, maybe while he was using the facilities.
A quick scour of the bars shows the same people living the same lives who were always in there, Harry had enjoyed a brief fling with alcoholism in his thirties and it was not something he cared to repeat. After failing to start a meaningful conversation with a full denizens, some who outright ignore him, he returns home, where as always, he has a book waiting for him.
At this point in the story it might be becoming apparent that Harry Johnson is a creature of habit. He has wanted to change his job for a while but finds it easier to stay where he is than to make waves, he had meant to leave his first wife before she'd driven him to drink but he had failed in that modest ambition. He resolves out loud to make more positive changes in his life, and to become more impulsive...to try new things, he smiles to himself, in anticipation of Thursday, sure that he will ask Stephanie on that date...and maybe ring his parents like he had promised them he would.
Reaching to his bookshelf and feeling mighty fine about himself, his fingers scour past times of unread novels and instead he settles on an old favorite "Great Expectations".

*****

He return to the macrocosm of a life which is Harry Johnson another six months later, his life is much unchanged. As you can possibly imagine he hasn't asked Stephanie on that date, or changed his job. He is still running the same routes having the same conversations with the same people, still in the same rented vehicle, and no, he hasn't got around to ringing his folks yet.
As one whom lives a blinkered self-involved life, he hasn't even begun to notice the coincidences surrounding his life, the familiar conversations or the creeping sense of what the French call deja-vu, meaning "already seen". But he is stead-fast heading towards a revelation.

Once ever two years, his company force Harry to take a vacation, so he doesn't burn out. One year he inquired with Mr. Brumner about the availability of Miss Vachon for a few days during this vacation time, who claimed that she could be free for the period. Harry was too afraid to pursue it before, but this time, having sought the permission of My Bremner again, he vows to ask Miss Vachon out on a date during his holiday time.
He walks into the office, sure and confident, straight to the desk of the lovely Stephanie where he adopted a familiar lean.
"Well Miss Vachon, I notice your name plate hasn't changed so somehow you're not married yet. I've been wondering, heck, I should have asked years ago but...would you like to go on a date sometime? I'm free for the next two weeks. We can work to your schedule, not mine."
Playfully she moves some papers out from underneath his weightbearing elbow, forcing him to re-adjust his stance. She smiles, narrowly avoiding eye-contact.
"Mr Wilkins is just finishing up a lunch meeting. If you'd rather wait in his office for him you're more than welcome to go through."
"Cute. But I'm not here for work today. Didn't you hear me? I've got two weeks off of work. I'm here just to see you."
"Oh Mr Johnson," she mocks "stop it".
"I'm serious doll-face, 100%. I'm here purely to see you, so what do you say?"
She stopped typing and looked confused, before repeating "Mr Wilkins is just finishing up a lunch meeting. If you'd rather wait in his office for..."
"No." He cut her off as politely as he could, "I, Harry Johnson and asking you on a date. Granted, I should have done this years ago. So come on, don't tease me baby." he leaned in expectantly.
She almost looks upset now, as if she's struggling to find the words, she tastes them in her mouth for a few moments before re-iterating "If you'd rather wait in his office for him you're more than welcome to go through."

*****

Disappointed, Harry walks back to his car.
"I've been blown off by a broad before, but never that coldly."
He kicked the hub-cap on his rental, knocking it off of the car.
"What an ice-queen" he remarked.
Pausing for a few moments, Harry bent over to pick up the hub-cab, but paused before replacing it. he counted. Three.
Strange. He re-counted.
Three again.
The last time he had rented a car it only had three wheel nuts on the rear-left wheel, he remembered because he got a puncture and had to change the tire.
"Weird" he exclaimed to no-one in particular.
On a whim, he popped the trunk to look at the spare tire. It was flat, he could see the tear in the rubber where he'd driven over a pair of scissors left lying in the street years before. It was the same tire, it looked like the same car, but this car was a deep green, the car he'd rented had been black.
"It can't be the same car. What are the odds?"
The bounce taken out of his step, and with not much to look forward to on his vacation, Harry drove the long way home.

*****

The vacation continues as weirdly as it had begun.
The much lamented phone call to his parents finally comes to fruition after a number of miss-dials and wrong connections at the hands of an incompetent operator. His parents seem strange, distant. rarely commenting on anything he has to say, but instead repeatedly asking of him the same questions. How is he? Had he met someone yet? Had he spoke to his sister recently? After a half hour or so of going round in circles he gives his love and ends the phone call, writing the whole thing off to his parents increasingly frail ages.

After a half hour sat listening to the radio after spending ages searching the band width for a clear signal, Harry decided no-one was making any new music, and that the '60's were going to be a dead decade for music. After all, it has been nearly a year since hes heard anything new or interesting. He returns to his trusty books.

He has been re-reading Aldous Huxleys "Brave New World" for a few days, it has been just as good as he remembered, but he has struggled to remember the ending of the book, which has made the re-reading all the more exciting as he tries to remember / guess where the book is going.
After an hours reading, he turns the page to a new chapter to be greeted with a blank page. Confused, he starts flicking through the remainder of the book to be greeted only by blank pages starring back at him.
Throwing the book to the floor in disgust, he turns to his book shelf and reaches for a book he hasn't read yet, finding a Ray Bradbury novel. He opens the pages and starts flicking through the blank contents. 223 pages on blank paper, except the section at the front which was still there, Harry remembers reading the sample paragraph in the book shop and starts to panic. He wouldn't have bought a blank book, surely he would have noticed when he opened it in store.
Bradbury joins Huxley, as Orwell is reached for and is too found half empty, a semi-read copy of Animal farm with a folded page indicating the premature conclusion to the contents contained. Harry starts pouring over the books he bought that would look good on his book shelf that he had no intention of reading: Bronte, the collected works of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde. They are all blank, except for a section in Richard the Third that he had read aloud at school.
In a hurry, Harry leaves his house and drives into town, running into the nearest bookshop. He starts pulling books randomly off the shelves and crazed, scours them for any sign of text. All are absent: lyrics, alliterations, rhymes, metaphors and synonyms.
Starting towards the shop assistant, Harry uses the counter to support his weight as frantically he asks "the books, what happened to all the books?".
Calmly, without looking up, the clerk points over to the section where the Hemmingway novels were situated. "Over there sir, third shelf from the bottom."
Harry follows the gesticulation with his eyes "No," he shouts much to the attention of no-one in the book store who seem unperturbed by the almost insane antics of our protagonist "what happened to the books, where are all the words gone."
Making eye contact, the assistant repeated: "Over there sir, third shelf from the bottom."
Grabbing the assistant, and visibly shaking him "No, thats what I asked you last time I was in, that was over a year ago."
Another shop clerk approached the counter and calmly asked "Is there anything I can help with?"
Harry recognised the woman, she had worked in the store since the very first time he went into the store as a young adult.
"You," he seemed relieved to find someone he knew "Whats happened to all the books?"
She smiled politely, " Certainly young man, new books are right over here" and she led him to the very first book stand he'd ever looked at when he first went into the store all those years ago. The new releases stand was full of blank books. No titles, no pictures, no write-up, no portrait of the author, and no words on the inside, although each volume varied in length seemingly at random.

He grabbed a handful of the books and ran to his car, being early winter it was getting dark early, and pausing in front of the car he realised how he could have thought it had been black when he rented it all those years ago, for he only used the car for a single night journey back then, and in the fading light the dark green was indistinguishable from black.

He raced back to his house, taking the uneven back roads for expediancy for the first time in years. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other thumbing desperately through the black page, he drove at break neck speeds. At the point where he'd crashed previously he stopped his car, in the bushes he thought he saw a glimpse of familiar looking metal. He got out of the vehicle and walked towards his old, battered car, almost completely covered with recent plant growth. He cursed his stupidity for forgetting to get the car removed or repaired and shocked, he realised it had been a year and a half since the crash. The time had moved in a blur. Just the same old same old, he thought.

He started to move the growth and the weeds from around his old car, and was shocked to find a dead person seated in the vehicle. For a fraction of a second his mind considered the possibility of a vagrant using the car for shelter and dying in the cold, but in his heart he knew the truth. It was himself.

****

What is death? Some argue it is the death of everything, we are extinguished. The end.
But what if death was the death of everything new? What if death is the death of new experience? What if life is important because our memories and everything we've done in our lives are the sum total of who we are? And what does it speak of a man- who, upon dying - doesn't realise for 18 months?
This is the case for Harry Johnson. Could he have effectively lived his blinkered, safe life forever, never realising the truth?
Or could it be argued that in all his entire life...and death, he never really lived?

Do any of us truly live to our full potential - as all that we could be -before we enter...The Twilight Zone?

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