Desert Rats and other Folk

“Clearly I remember it was in early December of 1983, when I met an old Desert Rat named Harry who took a liking to me. 
He lived in Wonder Valley
and was a WWII veteran naval captain whose name was Harry Malley.
We drank ouzo on his back porch watching the sun slowly slip into bloody orange hues on hot desert nights when he turned the clock back with his tales of tanker ships and whales.
One day Harry walked into a dream and forgot who and where he was.
And all the doctors and his two friends, Ralph and I, watched his brain slowly die.
In the end there was no one.
Only one sister who lived in Greece and who sent back any correspondence from him unopened, unloved…
Years of sad letters left behind unopened never told the story why A mystery about Harry.

Poor old Harry, who to everyone’s amazement left behind over a million dollars in three banks!
I sometimes wonder why Harry was so alone and why he had to die
by his own hand with a gun Ralph and I
didn’t know he had.
So damn sad.
A lonely old man who built a house that had a circular hall
who also must have had a story he didn’t want to share
and by pulling that trigger he no longer had to care.”

Dave Stancliff 

-excerpt from my unpublished book - “Desert Rats and other Folk” 

ABOVE PHOTO: Old Gold by Alan Brown