The Raving Antics of Tim Higher#1: "Doggone It"
It was a blooming, beautiful, radiant sunny day in Sullyville City, and Tim Higher, along with his newfound-online marital relation, Sheila Fowell were walking about the sidewalk of the more clean, shinier side of the district. Sheila, with her slightly curving and wavy dark hair, stretched her arms wide to greet the radiance of the sun. “Ah, isn’t it a nice day, Tim?” she wondered, pulling her purse atop her shoulder. Tim, almost blinded by the light, his light skin pulsing in a peculiar manner, replied blandly, “Yeah…sure,” while covering his aching eyes with his arms.
Beside the young couple sprinted a small dog, a white Scottie to be exact, energetically prancing upon the concrete walk with tongue gleefully hanging out to touch the wind that passed. Tim held on tight to one end of the dog’s leash while it hurriedly tried to scurry ahead. Tall buildings stretched across the distance, as far as the eyes could see.
Quickly and surely, Sheila stopped as a colorful scene caught her eye. It was a display of bountiful shoes, advertised at fifty-percent off in price through the looking glass of a rather expensive-looking shoe store. “Oh, Tim!” she cried, pressing her hands to the looking glass. “I’ve got to check this sale out!” She rushed toward the front door of the store, as Tim followed, but he, to his dismay, caught glimpse of a small sign that said, “No pets allowed…OR ELSE!” Tim looked down at his tiresome burden in disgust. “Confound it!” he cursed, throwing his fist downward. Tim stood in place, with leash in hand, planning to wait for the entire two hours that Sheila might use in browsing for certain shoes.
But before he could settle down, he spotted an amazing sight across the street. “Great Caesar’s ghost! A comic book shop!” He cried, yelping in excitement. He hurriedly tugged the dog across the car-crowded street and zoomed to the other sidewalk. “Eh, I’ll just tie you up by this tree over here, and I’ll be ready to go!” He said to Lowell, the dog. Quickly, Tim tied the leash around the tree into what he thought was a secure enough knot, and entered the store, as little Lowell tugged his neck against his restraint.
“Wow, I don’t believe it!” Tim cried, as he ran up to the blue-light special of the day. “It’s Ultraman Mania #12, Ultraman vs. the diabolical Captain Sinister!” He rapidly grabbed the exciting comic, as well as a few dozen others as well, and zipped toward the cash counter. The cash register could see Tim’s head bob out to the right of his gigantic pile of entertaining paper-books.
“Uh…will that be all, sir?” he asked. With a smile on his face, Tim replied, “Yessiree. Just charge it on the credit card, my good man,” he said, carefully maneuvering his arms as to keep the stack of comics from falling.
Minutes later, Tim walked out of the comic book store with a bagful of comics in each of his hands. “Well, looks like there’ll be some heavy duty reading tonight,” he said. He then turned his head to where Lowell was supposedly being held.
“Alright Lowell, let’s get a move on buddy….EH?!” Tim was astonished to see that Sheila’s faithful companion, which was entrusted in the care of a supposedly loyal marital relation, Tim Higher, was not where he was supposed to be. His eyes widened in fear as he desperately scanned the nearby areas for any sign of the little white Scottie. Frantically, Tim dropped his bags in the lot, and ran without direction, hoping by chance to run into his girlfriend’s very expensive dog. “I can’t screw things up now! This is the longest five day relationship I’ve had so far!” he cried…
His first destination was a dark alley, in which he thought he heard the bark of a small canine. “Lowell! Lowell! Here boy!” He cried into the darkness, whistling his name. Quickly he ran down between the high, red-brick, towering walls of the alley in search of his entrusted animal. While sprinting, however, Tim came across a young woman screaming out loud. “Help, help! Somebody please, this man’s got my purse!” She cried, as a masked thug tugged the woman’s purse from her arm. Tim ran straight past the two, whispering backward, “Not now, lady, I’ve got important business to attend to!” and completely dismissed the distress call.
As Tim Higher closed in on the end of the alley, the small barks that he could hear grew louder in decibels. “Yes, that’s it! He’s ALIVE! He’s ALIVE!” He cried, almost maniacally. Tim finally drew near to the dead end wall of the enclosed area, but was distraught to see or hear nothing when he came to a close. “WHA!?” He wondered, awestruck. “But…I…I…could’ve sworn…!” As he felt hope sinking into the pit of his stomach, never to return, it began to brew anew as the faint barks could be heard again, but this time in a different direction: from above. Tim rapidly looked upward to find part of a leash being dragged from the side of a building onto the roof.
Tim’s eyes widened once more. “You gotta be kiddin’ me!” He yelled in disbelief. In front of him, as he looked up was a fire escape. So bravely and stoutly, Tim rose to the challenge and climbed the rusty, faulty fire escape.
Two stories up, and Tim was on his way to the top. As he climbed the ladder, though, a clanging noise made his heart jump upward. It was the sound of metal coming apart. He looked up to see that his ladder was becoming undone, and the bolts were slowly loosening themselves from their holes. Tim’s mouth stupifyingly gaped open as the rust-ridden ladder began to fall. With a flash of adrenaline, Tim rallied his way to the top of the ladder, and made an athletic-worthy leap toward the next floor of the fire escape.
With breath lost, Tim leaned against the window, tongue hanging out, and lungs inhaling heavily. Meanwhile, through that window, a young lady came out of the shower, with towel on her head and covering herself. As her hand touched her head, her eyes met those of the tired Tim, whose face was pressed up against the window with mouth open and tongue hanging out. His breath seemed to fade and reappear upon the glass window before him. The young woman shrieked in terror. “AaaaaH!” She yelled in a shrill, high tone. “Peeping Tim! Peeping Tim!” she repeated.
At the sound of screams, a large, buff-looking man came out of nowhere, with baseball bat in hand. “It’s Peeping Tom, not Peeping Tim, Ally,” he said in his scruffy voice. His eyes widened too, as he saw Tim outside the window, staring into his girlfriend’s apartment room. “You son of a…” he said, raising the bat high in the air, while charging toward the window. “I’ll teach you to spy on my girlfriend! RAAAA!”
With a powerful blow, he cracked the window open, but fearing for his life, Tim had already jumped up to the next ladder, with feet dangling in front of the broken glass. The angry man quickly grabbed hold of both Tim’s legs while dropping the bat onto the ground. “I’ll teach you to mess with me! Huh!? Huh!?” he said threateningly.
Tim struggled with all his might to try and shake the unbelievably strong man off of his legs. “Get off! Get off!” Tim cried. “You’re too heavy!” But the man would not desist. He continued to struggle, attempting to leap up and down to completely bring down his opponent.
However, things went out of control, as the man was too heavy, and the rusty fire-escape began to give way, taking the large man with him. “Too much weight! Let go! Let go!” Tim demanded, as his fingers began to slip from the ladder above. The other man shook his head. “Not on your life, buddy!”
But the man would not have to, for Tim’s shoes were both tied insecurely, as he has proved to make a habit of, and the shoes, along with the young man, fell to the ground below, but not without sending a few curses Tim’s way thereafter. With that out of the way, the sock-wearing Tim climbed up the rest of ladder to the top of the roof, while the young woman was calling out to her befallen boyfriend.
Upon the top of the apartment complex, Tim could see the young-menacing dog in the middle of the area, with its small black eyes staring back at him. Tim crept up to the dog slowly, and in a calm voice stated, “Here boy, come on, come on!”
The dog was making sudden, twitch-like moves, as if it were to dart away again in a moment’s notice. But each time it did, Tim slowly faltered in movement, attempting to gradually gain leeway in retrieving the lost pup.
With just a few steps until attainment, a sudden ill touched Tim beneath his sole, as a piece of sharp glass was felt piercing through the sock and skin of Tim Higher’s foot. “Awwooooohh!” He hollered into the distance. The dog titled his head in astonishment, and repeated Tim’s phrase. Lowell too hollered the same, “Awooooh!”
Seeing this as the chance, the wounded Tim darted for the pup. But it was too quick, and the befuddled Tim soon found himself in a marry-go-round chase atop the apartment-building complex, running in circles to retrieve that which he had lost due to self-interest.
“Come on, Lowell! Be a good dog! Come on, fragnabbit!” He yelled, getting angry by the second.
A few laps were run as the passage of time flowed by, and Tim began to feel a just a bit out of breath. “Come…on….Lowell….be a…..good….bo….” he gasped. He then had a brilliant idea, as he stopped in his tracks and turned himself around. Quickly he ran against the direction that Lowell was running in, in hopes to catch him off guard.
But the dog was too quick yet again, and he turned himself around, running in the opposite direction. “Darn it all!” Tim cried frustrated. But utter terror crept into the very essence of his being, as he saw the dog just defiantly out of all contempt for life, jump off the side of the building. “Wha!?” he cried. “Lowell, noooo!” He yelled, running after the falling dog.
With great brevity, and an unerring amount of stupidity, Tim dove off the side of the building as well, aiming to glide down in a relatively straight path to save the pup, as if he were trying to fly.
“I’m not gonna make it!” he cried, as he saw the dog fall closer to the ground in the split seconds that passed in the air. But to his utter relief and surprise, the white Scottie dog landed upon its own feet, seemingly unhurt and unharmed. Tim himself whipped his brow in disbelief in midair. “Whew,” he said. “I thought that only happened to cats…” But soon he realized the complete danger he was in, as he saw impending doom creeping closer and closer into his vision.
However, also below, the cries of “Help, help! He’s running off with my purse! Somebody please help me!” could be heard. The young thug smirked deviously as he sprinted at what seemed to be a clean, and triumphant getaway, a great feat done by the robbing of a young, defenseless woman. “Sorry, lady, ain’t no Ultraman or Arachnakid to just come flying out of the air to save you now, Har-har-har!” He bellowed.
Alas, how incorrect that young thug was, for out of the sky came not a bird, not a plane, and not Ultraman, but a young man…a young man whose morals stood by him every step of the way, a young man who would stop at nothing to keep his girlfriend’s best interests at heart, a young man who would do anything to keep his first long-lasting relationship work…that man, flying, or at least, falling with style, was…the ever-illustrious Tim Higher.
Tim landed with a loud thud upon the grievous thug that lay quashed on the concrete ground. His hand had opened up which left the purse unguarded upon the ground. The knocked out thug was groaning in pain. “Uuggh…” he said.
Tim shook off the pain, and let his vision clear to see little Lowell running out of the alley. Quickly Tim followed in his last efforts to retrieve that which was rightfully his girlfriend’s.
Finally the dog stopped, across the street, at where seemed to be a familiar spot. It was as if the little canine had given up willfully, for he sat, with tiny buttocks on the ground, and tail waving in front of a store door.
Tim finally grabbed hold of the Lowell’s leash and he triumphantly proclaimed under running breath, “…Gotcha…”
The door opened and out came the familiar face of Sheila Fowell, who had a half-dozen bags pitched upon her arms. “Oh, hello there Lowell. I trust that Tim has been taking good care of you? I hope you guys got some good exercise while walking without me.” Tim stood leaning against a tall tree, with sweat protruding through his shirt around his neck and armpits, and mouth gaping open, seemingly to take in that treasure of the atmosphere we call air into his lungs, replenishing his muscles with the added fuel they so desperately needed. “Yeah, we got some exercise alright,” he replied.
Then, Sheila took out a box out of one of her great big bags and opened it. “Oh, Tim, I’m so glad you got rid of those awful hooves you call ‘shoes.’ I got you some new ones…they’re Nike running shoes, so now we can go running everyday to stay in shape! You and Lowell could even spend more time with each other and do it everyday now!”
Tim laughed hysterically, doubtful of what was happening, hoping that the day would just vanish and that he would never have to run with the dog ever again…that is of course, before he renewed old habits, and once again lost the very thing he sometimes wished he didn’t have at certain, undesirable times…his consciousness.
