Weird guy, Bernie.
Bernie loved to sing. It became something that he was quite notorious for in his little town. The guy would just walk around singing. Not under his breath or anything, just full-on singing.
Weird looking too. About 5’3, he had brown eyes and a unibrow. His dandruff was always falling out, you could tell if he had been in a room by the clumps of matted fur that he’d leave behind.
He smelled too. Wasn’t even that bad of a smell, but it was pungent. Kind of smelled like a ham sandwich.
People used to try and get him to stop singing, nicely, rudely, physically, it didn’t matter, he’d just look them dead in the eyes and keep on singing.
There’d be town halls and he’d come up to the podium and start singing his arguments to the city council. They were good arguments too, it was a rough sight when your argument got beat by the guy who smells like ham and sang his opening statement to the tune of Cheeseburger in Paradise.
It should be noted that he was not a good singer. In fact he was terrible. He had a tendency for really reaching for the high notes. He’d get to them too, but he kept breaking glass in the process. Windows, cups, reading glasses, nothing could stand up to his tenor. It was like a cartoon, except in a cartoon the janitor doesn’t have to deal with broken glass getting everywhere.
So nobody liked him too much, or rather everyone preferred it when he wasn’t around, the guy just seemed to rub everyone the wrong way.
Animals loved him though. He’d walk around with his own little beastly posse, singing songs. Every day he’d walk by the animal shelter and into the woods and a little parade of woodland creatures followed him.
He was kind of like the mascot for the neighborhood. Sure people found him annoying but he was unique, which made them unique, so nobody did anything to make him go away.
He’s not around anymore though. About 5 years ago there was a pretty bad fire; it started in the woods and wouldn’t you know it ended up by the shelter. It was midday, but you couldn’t tell the sun was blocked by a curtain of smoke.
Bernie was just walking by, singing his songs, when he noticed the fire. The Shelter was ablaze. There were animals inside. Now, Bernie wasn’t a dumb man but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a few screws loose. To be honest, he was missing a lot more than a few. And it seemed like the thought of his only willing audience dying in there triggered something.
So he rushed into the building, I imagine it was pretty hot, you know how fires are. That was the first time he stopped singing. The quiet was eerie. Like when you suddenly walk onto a silent street in a busy city. It felt off.
It was silent for 10 minutes, the front door had caved in a few seconds after he ran in, people figured he and those animals were dead.
And then, out of nowhere, “Ave Maria” rises from the smoke. It’s Bernie’s magnum opus. He’s not singing it well, but his heart is in it. His voice rises higher and higher, outpacing the smoke and the flame.
At the peak of the song, a window breaks, and animals come pouring out. 11 in total, which was all the animals in the shelter. Bernie never makes it out, but he saves 11 lives. He never got to finish the song.
The shelter got rebuilt a few months later; Bernie got his own commemorative plaque in the driveway too.
Good Guy, Bernie.
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