1 A House of Gadgets and Ghosts

Leonard had lived in his friend’s house long enough to know every creak in the floorboards, every hum of overworked electronics. The place wasn’t a home—it was a haven for forgotten inventions and experiments, a tinkerer's dream and a fire marshal’s nightmare.

Now, with his friend gone, it felt like a mausoleum.

The man had died in spectacularly ironic fashion, mid-lecture on redundancy. “Two is one, and one is none,” he’d declared dramatically, seconds before his pacemaker gave out. Leonard imagined the audience frozen in stunned silence, unsure if this was part of the demonstration.

His friend’s family had descended like vultures, picking over the estate before the funeral arrangements had even been finalized. Calls came daily, each one more insistent than the last.

“You’re just freeloading,” snapped one nephew. “We have a right to this house!”

Leonard sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t even come to his last birthday. Now you’re fighting over the plumbing?”

He didn’t care about the house or the money. All he wanted were the gadgets—the projects they’d spent years laughing over, the things that only made sense to people who saw the world through circuit boards and solder. Reluctantly, the family agreed, writing off the “junk” as worthless.

Among the clutter, Leonard found a shoebox filled with cassette tapes, each labeled in his friend’s shaky handwriting. He wiped the dust off one labeled “Finnlagh the Sailor and the Seagulls” and popped it into the ancient player.

The familiar crackle of his friend’s voice filled the room.

“This is the story of Finnlagh,” it began, “a man who lived adrift—literally.”

Finnlagh had bought a crumbling boat with a small inheritance, declaring it his ticket to freedom. Finnlagh wasn’t a sailor by trade or even by hobby; he was just a man who decided that floating was better than sinking. His father always told him to sink or swim but as an adult he learned there was a third option that required less work and less natural born intelligence that he seemed to lack-float.

The tape described Finnlagh as a wiry figure with a thick brogue and a lisp so strong, his insults sounded like poetry. He was often seen yelling at seagulls—once famously shouting, “The moon’s in retrograde, and you’re stealing my breakfast!”

“Legend has it,” Leonard’s friend chuckled on the tape, “that he scared the birds so badly, they avoided his dock for weeks.”

Finnlagh’s boat wasn’t seaworthy by any stretch of the imagination. He anchored it close to shore, patching leaks with duct tape and pure stubbornness. Yet, despite his fear of open water, he stayed.

“He used to say,” the tape continued, “‘The ocean’s better than being homeless on land. At least out here, no one can tell you to move along.’”

As the tape ended, Leonard stared at the cassette player, the story settling into his mind like sediment at the bottom of a glass.

He wasn’t near the ocean. He wasn’t Finnlagh. But the thought of living adrift, of carving out a life on your own terms, struck a chord.

“The desert’s not much different from the ocean,” Leonard mused. “Both are full of things that’ll kill you if you’re not careful. I need a land boat. An RV perhaps.”

Leonard sat in his chair, flipping through the tapes like a child choosing bedtime stories. Each label teased another bizarre tale: “Threnody’ the boy who didn't exist,” “The Hurricane Philosopher,” and “A Man and His Waffle Iron.”

He selected one labeled “Threnody’’s Ride” and pressed play.

Threnody’ wasn’t your average 20-year-old. He had the smile of someone who’d figured out a secret about life and the car of someone who didn’t care about appearances.

The tape described their meeting: Leonard’s friend had just been discharged from a hospital in a small, unfamiliar town. Broke and concussed, he’d sat on the curb, contemplating his next move, when Threnody’ pulled up in a car that sounded more like a dying accordion than a vehicle.

“You need a ride?” the boy asked, his voice light with curiosity.

As they drove, Threnody’ told his story: his grandfather had invented the modern shopping cart, amassing a fortune for the family. But Threnody’ had rejected their expectations, refusing the mansion, the trust fund, and the carefully paved path.

“I’d rather live free in my car than be a prisoner in a palace,” Threnody’ had said, tapping the dashboard affectionately. “Even if the palace has better brakes.”

The next morning, Leonard’s friend learned of Threnody’’s suicide, unsure if the boy he’d met was real or a fleeting specter of kindness. He never found out when he committed suicide. If he had been given a ride by a ghost or by somebody on his final straw and he simply hadn't noticed.

Leonard played the tape again, letting the story wash over him. He pictured Threnody’’s smile, his reckless joy, his car that defied physics.

“We all reject something,” Leonard thought. “Some of us reject freedom, afraid of the unknown. Others reject security, afraid of the known.”

Leonard sold the most valuable parts from his friend’s collection, enough to put some in savings towards something he wasn't sure of yet.  But the tapes stayed with him, each one a thread in the tapestry of people he’d never met but felt inexplicably connected to.