His ancestors were not just marauding, blood-thirsty, war-mongering, pillaging, rapists, and slave traders. Vikings were extraordinary explorers, experts at navigation, and sophisticated farmers. They created poems, stories, and music, produced exquisite art, and built the finest ships of their day.
With this in mind, he sat down at this desk determined to contribute his two cents worth toward righting some of these overbalanced wrongs. He’d put together hundreds of pages of notes. The time was now.
Pausing like a pianist with his fingers hovering above the keyboard, he took a deep breath. This was the beginning of his magnum opus.
The doorbell rang.
His fingers remained steady, ready to begin. Whoever it was would go away.
Silence.
Good.
He began to type: A tragic series of events –
The doorbell rang again.
Debating whether to answer it, he sat steaming at a low boil over this persistent interference.
Once more the bell rang. Cursing, he stood and went out into the living room. This would have been a mead hall, he thought, heading for the door.
Again with the bell. Vikings did not have doorbells. As he reached for the nob, he tried to control his temper. Vikings were more often pleasant and peaceful than they were fiery and confrontational.
“Yes,” he said in a very cordial manner as he swung the front door open.
There was no one there. Stepping outside, he surveyed the scene. Not a soul in sight.
Now cursing aloud, he turned and stormed back into the house. Instead of returning to his desk, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. Vikings didn’t have coffee makers, he thought.
Making his way back to his desk he sat down. He took a sip of coffee, sat, and cracked his knuckles. He wondered if Vikings knew about knuckle cracking. The historians only talked about bone cracking.
He read what he’d written: A tragic series of events. Yes.
Just as he was about to begin typing again, the doorbell rang.
This time he jumped up and ran to the front door. Swinging it wide with great force, his face contorted in rage, he expected to confront someone. No one was there.
His blood boiling, he stared at the empty space in front of him. The doorbell sounded.
He turned and pressed the button. Nothing. He pressed it several more times. Nothing.
Stepping into the house, he slammed the door behind him. The bell sounded again.
It had to be something electrical. A frayed wire? A fuse?
Opening the fuse box, he read through the list of items operated by each switch. There was no mention of the doorbell. Of course not. He reasoned that it had to be tied into one of the main lines. But which one?
The doorbell sounded again.
Dammit! He headed for his toolbox. It held only a few essential items. One was a hammer. He grabbed that and both a Philips head on one end, slotted on the other.
The bell sounded again. He went out the front door and unscrewed the cover plate on the doorbell button. Nothing appeared amiss. The little wires seemed to be in pristine condition.
“It’s got to be some kind of electrical malfunction,” he said to no one. “Now how does one go about figuring that out?”
The idea of calling a qualified electrician crossed his mind, but since he’d retired, he was living on a very tight budget.
So what? he wondered. He looked at the hammer. Thor, he thought.
Once again the bell sounded.
Looking at the hammer again, he swung it with great force, obliterating the mechanism with a single blow.
Going back inside, he saw the closest outlet. Getting down on his knees, he unscrewed the plate, exposing the wires. They were red, black, and white. Now what did that mean?
With his index finger, he prodded the wires. The bell sounded.
Lanning Lee 