Hyram was Mayor of Dusk. Hyram was Mayor because his father had been Mayor, and his father’s father had been Mayor, and so on.
Hyram was an average looking Huddler: average height, mousy brown hair that lay where it fell and stayed there, brown watery eyes that mostly looked down, and a bit of a pot-belly – the kind that looked like he’d swallowed a medium-sized melon and it got stuck.
Hyram was responsible for enforcing the laws of Dusk, providing wise counsel to the Huddlers of Dusk, and overseeing the well-being of the community of Dusk. There weren’t many laws, of course, since things hadn’t changed much. Hyram’s wise counsel wasn’t in great demand, since the denizens of Dusk knew pretty much everything there was to know about life in their village.
Most of the time, Hyram huddled with his fellow denizens of Dusk, looking fearfully at the surrounding dim, dark dreariness. Once in a while, he had to resolve a petty dispute. At those times, Hyram relied on the knowledge that had come down to him from generations of Dusk Huddlers. Actually, the Huddlers of Dusk knew what Hyram knew, but they liked to make Hyram feel good about himself now and then.
On those rare occasions when Hyram was called upon to decide an issue, he would always take a deep breath, draw back his shoulders, and begin with “Hrmmmmmm…” His eyes would bulge a bit, as though the pressure building up in his head was about to push out through his eyes.
This didn’t happen often.
