Howard’s End?

It's 4:30 in the morning and I'm lying awake next to my snoring husband thinking of Howard. I can't sleep for thinking of Howard. My eyes watch numbers flip on the digital clock and still I think of Howard. My eyes long to close and drift into the pull of sleep, but Howard won't stop poking at my brain. Maybe if I give in and stop fighting he'll go away and leave me to rest. So here is Howard...

Howard is thirty-eight years old, six feet tall in his stocking feet, and he sweats too much. Howard is single because his wife left him for his former business partner seven years previously. He lives out of a suitcase and his suits always look a bit rumpled, even after he irons them. Howard smokes Pall Mall cigarettes and he makes his living as a mediocre door-to-door salesman hawking fake leather Bibles and framed pictures of Jesus. He's happiest when he's driving down a country road with the car window down and the autumn breeze is blowing through his thinning brown hair. Howard likes to listen to Hank Williams on the car radio and he has such a fear of snakes that it borders on a phobia. Howard has a nervous habit of tap tap tapping his finger on a desk, a car dashboard, or a diner table when he is nervous. He's never tasted a kiwi, nor ever heard of one, and he's only made love to six women in his life. He never served in the war because his left leg is one inch shorter than his right and he has a slight heart murmur. Howard is very self conscious of not ever having served his country and is glad his dad died at the start of the war so he wouldn't have to duck his head in the hardware store over his son's disgrace. Howard's birthday is in April and he hates the color purple. He has a slight case of eczema on his elbows that flares up every winter. His favorite flower is a daisy.

I know all of this because I created Howard. He is the star protagonist in my next short story. He is a figment of my imagination, or maybe I'm a figment of his. Whichever. Howard is getting ready to have a very exciting adventure into which I will breathe life into. It's going to be bumpy ride. Extremely bumpy. So, now that Howard has come to life, so to speak, I can finally sleep.

Are you satisfied Howard? Good. Go away. I'll see you tomorrow.