Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Six – Part Two
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Six: To Plan a Meeting
October 23rd, 2002
9:02 p.m.
The town house was a rather nice one, and probably very expensive. There was a ceramic candle holder in the shape of a jack-o-lantern on the front table when one entered, and an orange pumpkin-shaped ceramic bowl filled with small give away candies. A few orange and black streamers had been placed in the window along with a cartoonish plastic witch, clinging to the window through the magic of static electricity. The Weirdo looked at the plastic skeleton on the door as he opened it. It was a resting under a wreath made of duparoh leaves in autumn colors. Halloween is the second most popular holiday in America after Christmas if you count by sales of related merchandise.
During the months of September and October it’s hard to find something not related to the holiday in some way. Even Little Debbie snack cakes turn orange for the duration. Halloween is a very important holiday in America, and it was sad to think that for these men it would now join Christmas as a time when they would have to reflect upon it as a time they were chasing killers. The Weirdo was reminded about Halloween again as he came to the heavy dark colored door. There was a patch torn on the door where the door had been kicked in. The doorknob had simply torn itself loose and part of the frame had come away from the wall. It was as if someone with a pretty good turn of strength had attacked them.
The first thing a person usually notices when they come to a scene of death and destruction, particularly in an enclosed place, is the smell. Death, even in the best of circumstances is not a pleasant smelling thing to be around. The bodies hadn’t been around long enough to smell of decomposition, but that’s not the only thing that smells in death. When a person dies, their body goes limp. That means all their muscles go limp, including internal ones. Without becoming too scatological in nature, the odor was nearly intolerable. If organs are punctured, then digestive juices could also escape, which creates the smell of vomit. Of course blood has a specific odor of its own, and that’s troublesome as well. Humans are by nature predatory animals and the smell and sight of blood tends to excite a person who still has instincts that they never learned to do anything with. The Weirdo had spent enough time in ancient cities though, and after a while in the London of the fourteenth century, one simply learns to block out their olfactory senses.
Jorgaes had let them in when they arrived, and all four of them, the four that were left, came in. Tommy was the first though the door and his face twisted up the moment he smelled the sewer that the dead bodies had released. The Weirdo came next, but the smell might have been a faint whiff on the air for all of his reaction. When Jack entered he clamped his hand over his nose and squeezed it shut to keep the smell out, as it would affect him more than the others. His senses were more acute due to the nature of his creation. The Weirdo looked at him with sympathy as he moved into the house.
Max’s face turned green and he looked as thought he might vomit from the smell when it hit him. The Weirdo closed his eyes after a moment and reached into his pocket. He drew out a small jar of Vick’s Vapor rub and smeared a bit just above his upper lip. The result was a small greenish blue variation of the sort of black smear mustache Groucho Marx used in so many of his movies. He’d considered, for just a brief moment, smearing his eyebrows as well. He dismissed this though thinking no one else would know what he was doing.
Max took the jar and made an equally large smear under his nose, handing the jar to Jack who made a large smear as well. Tommy made just a tiny Charlie Chaplin style mustache with the vapor rub and Jorgaes made an equally small spot under his nose. The stuff would, if not block, at least help deflect the smell of the corpses. They took most their time breathing through their mouths to avoid the smell as well.
When they entered the dining room they found another reason for the smell. The killer had decided that the smell of feces was not strong enough and had added to it, smearing it across the wall to give it ample space to deliver its scent. The Weirdo glanced at the wall smear and his mind captured and filed the complex ideogram that had been formed for later reference. His eyes then turned to the murdered family, and captured everything on the table as well.
“It’s a single male.” Tommy said, muttering to himself really. “One killer.”
Max walked around the table slowly, digesting the scene which he knew would haunt him later. When he woke up late at night, it would be those empty faces he would see. He noticed that the bodies had been tied to the chairs to sit up. Small slits had been cut into the backs of the shirts so that the idea that they were sitting up by themselves wouldn’t be marred.
“Set this whole thing up.” Max muttered. “Look at the amount of tape he used on the faces. He tied them to the chairs.”
“A lot of post mortem playing.” Jack said.
“Lots of cuts.” Max said. “He destroyed the girl’s face after he bashed her head in. He set her up in the chair and cut her face to pieces.”
“He ate a meal.” The Weirdo said looking at an extra plate.
It had the remains of the meal on it. The killer had cut himself a piece of the lamb and had a portion of mashed potatoes. He had set them up and hand a meal with them, the head on the table was just a joke the killer thought might befuddle the police when they came to the scene. The Weirdo looked at the plate for a long moment, noticing the light color of the gravy, the remains of the broccoli and potato that sat on the plate.
“Anything wrong with this family?” Jack asked folding his arms. “I know how dumb that sounds but could this be less random than it looks?”
“Who did this?” The Weirdo asked. “What did they smell like?”
“Pardon?” Max asked.
“I can’t smell anyone.”
“Isn’t that because of the Vic’s?”
“Not that kind of smell Max.” The Weirdo said patiently.
“I know.” Max said. “It was just…”
“I can smell him.” Tommy said.
“Then why can’t I?”
“Why don’t we walk through this?” Tommy said, “When did this happen?”
The Weirdo looked, stretched his mind out, and took in the evidence that would take hours with a few experts. He and Tommy both closed their eyes as they collected the events. Tommy was the first to open his eyes and when The Weirdo was done he saw Tommy’s royal blue eyes drilling into him.
“We were at the store.” The Weirdo said. “About seven thirty.”
“Yeah.” Tommy said, nodding knowingly. “Do you notice anything else?”
“I can’t figure who did it.” The Weirdo said. “There is no smell. I might as well be watching the invisible man doing it.”
Tommy’s head was shaking as The Weirdo spoke. The Weirdo stopped and looked at him for a long time. Jack and Max stood back, trying not to lean against or actually touching anything. It was always hard though, trying not to fidget. Cops seemed to be able to do it perfectly. They had a special knack for not touching anything in a given room. It came from the sort of practice these two had never needed. Tommy looked at The Weirdo expectantly and then it suddenly occurred to him why The Weirdo couldn’t smell what he could smell.
“I think I know the problem.” Tommy said.
“Okay?” The Weirdo asked.
“You can’t smell yourself.”
“Pardon?”
“If I didn’t know you were at the store, beating up a punk at the time I would be prepared to swear blind that you did this.” Tommy said.
“Oh?”
“Fraid so.”
“But I didn’t.”
“No.”
“So who did?”
“Someone who can fake your scent?” Max asked.
“Have to be some good faker.” Jack said.
“I’m not sure it can be done.” Tommy said. “It’s not exactly him, but it can’t be anyone else.”
“I see.” The Weirdo said looking at the crime scene. “Me with a dash of crazy sauce?”
“Oh you can smell the crazy sauce?” Tommy asked.
“I can smell the crazy sauce.” Max said pointing to his upper lip. “And I’ve got Vic’s vapor rub up my nose and it’s not even that kind of smell.”
“He has a point.” The Weirdo said. “They poured on the crazy sauce kind heavy.”
“So what do we do from here?” Max asked.
“Jorgaes,” The Weirdo said. “I guess you better call the real authorities.”
“Are you sure?” Jorgaes asked.
“Well, right now we’ve done all we can. We might as well get as many people involved in the hunt for Stewie McCrazypants as possible.”
“If you’re sure.” Jorgaes said.
“And we were never here.” Max said.
“Oh?” Jorgaes asked.
The Weirdo looked at Max and nodded to him. There was something in Max’s eyes that told The Weirdo he was getting a hunch from some source the rest of them knew nothing about. Max turned and walked out of the room, Jack and Tommy followed. The Weirdo walked up to Jorgaes and came close enough that a very soft voice was all that was necessary to be heard.
“We know everything that happened. We don’t need to be questioned about the events. We don’t want to come back. We were never here, you just came about now for drinks and found them. Just change the story back an hour.”
“Okay.” Jorgaes said. “What about when they find some evidence that you guys were here?”
“Ignore it, let everything come through you.”
“But what if this person planted evidence that it was you?” Jorgaes asked “I mean if he could make is seem like it was you, even to Tommy, how hard would it be to plant some blood or semen of yours around here to try and frame you? I mean you’ve still got diplomatic immunity, but public opinion can be devastating.”
The Weirdo looked at the table and sucked at his lips, pulling the top lip in and pressing it in place with his teeth. He then nodded, and took his hat off. He pulled a hair from his head and deliberately stuck it into the hat so that it would be found in the hat. He then dropped it onto the floor.
“Now, you found my hat, which you can recognize and you called and confirmed with me where I was tonight. Not only that but those lads will likely want to press charges so my story should check.”
“You’re planting evidence.”
“I’m planting evidence to implicate myself.” The Weirdo said. “I’m sure mother wouldn’t mind. It’s just so obvious it’s a set up, you know.”
He walked out of the house and down the steps.
“You forgot your hat.” Max said.
“No I didn’t let’s go.”
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Six – Part One
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Six: To Plan a Meeting
October 5th, 1405
4:12 p.m.
China
Lau Chan sat with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. He had heard the young man approach, but hadn’t actually looked at him. His eyes were closed and until he heard the door open he had been asleep. The young man had walked up to him and sat down; he could hear that much. The ground had been littered with fallen leaves and they made quite a bit of noise as he approached. He had been expecting this man. Pai Mai had asked him to take this odd man on.
“So you have come to learn from me?” The old man asked, still not moving.
“I hope to.” The young man said, with an accent he had never heard before.
The old man’s eyes had opened to the thinnest of slits, and he surveyed the young man. He had been recommended highly by a former student, who claimed he’d saved her life. She had explained it to him in great detail, and said despite being a foreign devil he should take the man on.
“Pai Mai asked me to train you.” The old man said, “But I have my pride.”
“Oh?” The Weirdo asked.
“She said that you are already a great warrior, that the Shaolin monks taught you much. I suspect, however, that she may be enamored of you. She spoke far too highly of your prowess you see.” The old man’s eyes opened. “For that a test will be required. I will train you if you can pass my test.”
“Okay.” The man said, completely unshaken.
It wasn’t just that the young man was calm about it. In fact he seemed to be expecting this. There was something about him that seemed to say he had done this sort of things many time and expected to do it many more. There was also something else, something not exactly human. You would have to have made a great study of humans over a long time as Lau Chan had done to see it, but there it was.
“We spar, if you can hit me just once then…”
The left hand swung out in a wide arc, Lau hadn’t been ready for the suddenness of the attack, but still he blocked it with ease. He hadn’t realized that the left hand had been a diversion though. This right hand shot straight out and slapped across his cheek. Lau’s eyes opened wide as he looked at the young man. He was clearly shocked, the young man wasn’t.
Had Lau been expecting him to strike, he could have stopped him, but he had been caught off guard. Lau Chan was still impressed by the speed of the man though. He had been fifty before he had achieved that kind of speed. No one had ever thought to try attacking before he was ready before. No one had ever been able to overcome the intimidation of sitting before the great Lau Chan before. He let the man’s left hand go and touched the spot where he had slapped him.
“You didn’t even let me finish.” Lau Chan said.
“Didn’t want to miss what I thought was probably my only chance.”
“Clever.” Lau Chan said. “I shall train you then, it will take time though.”
“I’ve got time.”
“It could take twenty years.”
“I’ve got time.” He said.
“What shall I call you?”
“It doesn’t really matter.” The young man said with a vague shrug.
The old man had been prepared for this sort of thing. Pai had actually told him when she had come to talk to him. He wanted to make sure this man would actually say such a thing though. He could tell already it wasn’t going to take twenty years, maybe five.
“You will begin by meeting the other students, and helping them with the water.”
“Water?” The Weirdo asked.
“Come.”
There was a river, at the bottom of about a hundred steps. Lau Chan’s home was at the top of a high hill, and there was a well at the top of it. The well needed water it seemed, and the only way to get it was by descending to the river and bringing up bucketfuls.
“These three are your fellow students.” Lau Chan said. “You will all learn together.”
“Hello.” The man said with a nod.
“Fill the well.” Lau Chan said handing The Weirdo a pair of buckets suspended on a long stick.
Two of the other students were resting for a moment as they waited, the long pole across their shoulders. Lau Chan nodded to the four of them and walked up the stairs again. The Weirdo looked at the buckets and at the two young men, much younger than him, who began walking up the stairs again.
“We better get started.” A young man said to him as he came down the stairs. “He gets angry if the well isn’t full before dinner.”
They went down the stairs, filled the buckets and carried them up. It was extremely hard work, and The Weirdo got fed up with it very quickly. He poured his second consignment of water into the well and thought about having to do those stairs a third time.
“Oh screw this.” He said, and then a thought struck him.
He looked at the hill and made a quick mental calculation in his head. He thought about the angle and ran his tongue along his lips. He looked at the hill, at the river that was so close to the edge of the hill. He examined the stones that marched to the river and the trees on either side.
“What?” The young man asked.
“I said screw this, which gives me an idea.” The Weirdo said. “Where is his axe?”
“Over near the fire wood.” He said. “But we don’t chop wood until…”
“Never you mind that.” He said. “You want to lift buckets like a mule?”
“I think that we lift buckets for more than water.”
“Yeah well blow that for a lark. He gave us one objective, so I’m going to fill the one objective he gave me.”
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
You really want to know, don't you?
This is the kind of advice I give them.
Step #1: Get a Camera
Step #2: Take about a hundred thousand pictures.
Yeah, still the same advice, but I give more details because they actually want to know. Here is the honest and objective(ish) truth behind my feeling for photography - You can't learn art. I really and truly believe that. You can learn drawing, or how to play guitar, or sculpt clay, or do the things photoshop artists do, but you cannot learn to see things and to notice the details in things. You can't learn to translate an emotion if you never have that emotion. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.
I said that on the other post, but I'll say it again and again. You can learn how to compose a shot, you can learn what lights to use, you can learn how to manipulate film or what all the little buttons on photoshop actually do, but if you have no art in your soul... then nothing. I am have grown old enough to know that there are some people who have no art in their soul. I have no idea what to do about them, but it's a fact. Maybe, if they were reached when they were younger, but at their advanced age? No. Maybe if they found a sufficiently patient teacher, but as I can barely stand to be around them it's probably not me. This isn't about so-called talent, by the way. Talent is a squishy word that requires a hell of a lot of modifiers. This is about the desire to do something. Create something, record something, show something, be part of something, what have you. Desire and drive.
So you've got the desire, and you've got the drive, and you have $300 and you want to start shooting photos. So you start looking as cameras and WOAH! THAT $300 WON'T GO FAR! Slow down, the world hasn't ended. Those are some of the really high end models we just looked at there. That's not as big a problem as you might think. You went looking in the wrong direction is all. You don't want those when you start out anyway. Check this out, Pentax, Canon, Fuji, Sony, and Nikon all make cameras under $300. And if you're really on a budget, $60 will get you a Kodak Easyshare. You'll notice those are all fixed lenses, no interchanging, but that's good at this stage. Two reasons, the first being that there's no shame in starting small, and the second is that if this doesn't work out then you haven't made a huge investment.
You may not dig photography as much as you think you will, I mean once you get into it. Images can be temperamental and annoying things to work with. You can learn a lot of basics with a little point and shoot, and then you can have a great sense of accomplishment when you trade up to the real grown-up camera. Okay, that's how I felt when I bought my Pentax. Go to the store, hold one in your hand, download the owner's manuals, read some reviews, pick on that is going to work for you. Or have one thrust upon you because your mother-in-law thinks your family needs a camera and bought this one. Whatever.
You take as many pictures with that thing as you can. Shoot everything and everywhere they will let you. I go to the zoo and Greenfield Village a lot, because I can and there are things to photograph. The restrictions of a single lens will be good for you, as will learning how to goof all the automatic functions. You need to learn the rules and then break the rules because... I dunno. Art and stuff I expect.
Shoot with that camera, shoot a lot, that's the point. Shoot until you start to feel that you can go no further with the camera. It may be a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but a good craftsman can also admit that there are better tools than this. That's when you start to save up and look toward buying an expensive camera with extra lenses and tripods and lights and flash attachments, and reflectors and everything.
You'll notice I still haven't talked about taking a class in here, that's because I never have. I've thought about it, but every time I try to look it up I'm told I need Introduction to Art, and a film camera, and a film camera class, and an English credit, and Advanced Alchemy, and this, and that... and I just don't have the time, or the money to sink into that bullshit. I've looked them up online and I've tried talking to them on the phone, both situations were so wholly unsatisfactory that I gave up and walked away. I just don't need Introduction to Art, sorry. Art and I have been introduced. Maybe you can have better luck looking up a photography class, I haven't been able to find anything where someone wasn't trying to sell me a five year degree process. The other classes I've found are of the "You point this end at the thing you're trying to take pictures of." variety, and I could just about teach one of those.
So yeah, get a camera, take a hundred thousand photos. You'll be fine, just stick with it.
I have no good ending for this post, so here is a picture of one of my cats.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
How did I take that shot? Do you *REALLY* care?
As you know, I keep a selection of photos up at work. I work as the head of the photography department of a local chamber of The Emerald Partition, which is a way for me to tell you and for trolling search engines not to pick up on it. I make the photo displays, using my own photos as fodder. Just something for people to look at as we waste time and space. Quite frankly, there is a giant digital iceberg heading our way, and I'm busy filling the champagne buckets on this particular Titanic. What I'm doing isn't exactly going to sink us, but it's going to seem ironic when we look back later.
This is a way for people to see something interesting and for people to notice that I can take a nice picture. It also gives me a reason not to get despondent, seeing my better works cheers me up, even if it's just this shot of a traffic light, which I find beautiful in its ordinariness. Also, there could be a talent scout for a major Hollywood studio wandering the area and might notice me. Okay, that other thing is clearly not going to happen, not in that neighborhood, but I do enjoy getting to see the pictures. There is also the ego fluff when someone asks where we got the pictures and that they look professional and all of that. And it all comes crashing down when the questions begin.
There is a photo, this photo...
and up walks one of my co-workers who admires it with one or two other people who have stopped to take in the assault of beauty that is my photo display.
"How did you take that picture?" She asks.
"With a camera." I say, smiling slyly to show her that this is just a gag.
"But how did you get so close to the tiger?"
"Camera with a zoom lens." I explain and one of the other people starts to giggle.
"Well, how did you get the tiger to come? Did you pose the tiger or did you wait for the tiger?" she continues in earnest.
And... how do I even explain it? I pointed the camera, the tiger was there. The tiger doesn't pose because tigers care less than a honey badger. This is one of those things that people tell me is not supposed to bug me, but it really, really does. I kind of hate pointless questions and mindless small talk. I hate telling people what I did on the weekend, I despise sharing what we had for dinner last night and I cannot stand sharing the creative process with people who are not creative. Particularly I have problems with the non-creative types who don't really want to know, they just want to keep the conversation going. I don't want to keep the conversation going, I want it to stop as soon as possible. I hate this part, having to talk about my art. I was listening to the News Quiz when I painted This Picture. I was thinking that when she abandons the script, Sandi Toksvig is actually funnier than when she reads what's in front of her. There is no great revelation of the truth behind my soul in that painting. My heart remains closed to the picklocks of art interpreters. I have no truth to tell, or rather I have so many it comes to the same thing I don't want to talk about it. My problem tends to manifest and crystallize when discussing photography. With painting, or drawing, you can hide behind bullshit and medium. With cameras, you've just got the camera. You can't bullshit, you have to be honest. And honestly, I can't be buggered to engage in idle chit chat about cameras and lenses.
"What kind of camera do you use?"
Now, okay, not a bad question, but it comes from someone who just admitted they don't know how their Canon Powershot works. Sometimes they want to get really advanced and ask about the lenses I use. Would it matter what I told them? If I lied and said I use a Zildjian 16 Crash, would they know that's not a kind of camera? If I said I used a Zedtrex 45 Lens, or a Naxmar 99 for long shots, would they get that I made the two names up and that the numbers are utterly meaningless? And since the Pentax K-r has been discontinued, does it matter? Yeah, you can get a K-5 or a K-30, but I don't know if either of them are any good. I use a Pentax camera almost every day, and I know nothing of their products beyond my trusty Red K-r. Also, I have no idea how they work, just that they do. I'm glad people who understand Science are doing Science to improve my life, but I don't understand a jot of it. I use the lens that came with the camera, and another zoom lens I bought. I had to look up our order history to make sure that was the right zoom lens. I don't know the names, I barely know what the numbers mean. It's a camera, it's got lenses, some of the lenses let me see things that are far away. If someone said that they were into photography or was thinking about getting into it and wanted to actually discuss the method, I would be more than happy to talk about it with them.
The problem is, I can take gorgeous shots with that Canon Powershot we talked about before. If that's all I've got to work with, I can make it work.
"How do you take pictures like that?"
You have no idea how hard it is not to say "I point the camera at what I want to take a picture of. That's always the first step." Again, I sometimes don't remember what exactly I was doing at the time that one shot was taken. I take to many, many pictures (as some of you have grumbled) that they can sometimes evade my memory. Oh, yes, I remember when this one was taken, or that one, but they were circumstances when beauty leapt out at me and smacked me in the face before being caught between my lens and my CCD. Again, what are you looking for here? A story of how the picture was taken? A legend? A tale of adventure? As a storyteller and artist, I don't just hand out tales of high adventure for free and as a counter monkey I don't have time to tell stories. However, for you fine people I have written a book. Well, not really a book, but a helpful guide. It is entirely based on my experience...
GreyWeirdo's Guide to taking pictures the GreyWeirdo Way!
Step #1: Get a Camera
Step #2: Take about a hundred thousand pictures.
Once you've done that, you'll basically know all that I know. Yes, you'll have to work out one or two things on your own, but you'll have done it once you do it. I can tell people how to compose a shot, how to take a better picture of the grandkids. I can explain the need to keep light sources behind you, and how different kinds of light affect a camera in different ways. I can even go so far as to suggest a camera, but really you need to take thousands and thousands of shots until you find YOUR technique. And how do you tell someone that at a drug store counter? How do you explain that there is no short path or that you can't learn art? You can learn tools, and you can gain perfection of a skill set through repetition, but some people will never be able to shoot a butterfly on a thistle because they don't notice either as they walk by? I can't explain that at work, any more than I can explain that your cell phone takes crappy pictures and you shouldn't expect it to take a photo as good as my camera.
I did eventually get the person asking about the tiger picture to understand that it was one of a hundred photos (no, really) that I had taken of that tiger that day. That it was the one shot of her that I thought was striking enough to color correct, keep and then print. Scott Adams has a comment on this, I believe it's from The Dilbert Principle. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." I have made at least a hundred thousand mistakes with this camera, and I've kept roughly ten thousand of them. Do as much, and one day, maybe you can inexplicably photograph a decapitated Mario figure in a box of chocolate as an obscure reference to St. Valentine.
Yeah, maybe not. You just don't seem the type.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Five – Part Six
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Five: The Home Life
October 23rd, 2002
7:31 p.m.
Mrs. Pendleton was English, that is to say she came from England, which is a small island just northwest of Europe. She wasn't just English though, she was well bred English. Her parents, grandparents, and apparently most of her lineage had been butlers, maids, and other assorted servants to the best families in Britain since there was a Britain. At least, that is the feeling one would get from first meeting her. The feeling one would get from being in the house with her and The Weirdo was a bit different. As a housekeeper the elderly woman was second to none.
The reason she could still keep a house where three bachelors, a married couple and two delightful children lived clean was a simple one. Mrs. Pendleton ruled by terror, absolute terror. She was very conscious to clean up, as was her job, she was also very conscious to let people know that if they cleaned up after themselves she could get on with proper housekeeping. It's not as if she were lazy, no one in the house could remember seeing Mrs. Pendleton sleeping and seldom ever sitting to rest. Mrs. Pendleton was simply one of those universal mothers, who always let people know that they should stand up straight and clean up their rooms.
The problem was, The Weirdo wasn’t afraid of anything, not anything. In a world where even the gods would eventually be proven to be frightened of Mrs. Pendleton, The Weirdo never seemed to me. He was as amused by her as she tried to pretend not to be of him. They might have once been lovers. It was possible, though no one ever had the courage to ask. There was something of Nick and Nora about them, though it was sometimes hard to see the banter for the play it was. Sometimes one of them might swipe a little too hard, but generally it was all fun.
“My God!” Mrs. Pendleton yelled as she came into the room. “What in the name of the good lord is wrong with you?”
The Weirdo looked up at her after a moment and squinted in her direction. This displays the kind of strength The Weirdo possessed. When faced with the wrath of Mrs. Pendleton, most people turned and ran. Not our hero though, he looked at her with an almost bored expression.
“Are you addressing me?” The Weirdo asked.
“What is that?” She said pointing at red and silver can that the coca cola company has used for quite some time now.
“A can of cola.” He said. “It’s a thin aluminum shell which holds a mixture of water and corn syrup. For flavoring, artificial colors and flavors have been added.”
“And what is under it?” She asked.
There was a titanic struggle of wills going on, thought perhaps the average person might not see it. Mrs. Pendleton, the housekeeper, had the sort of demeanor only school principals and prison wardens can generally manage. You wanted her not to glare, you wanted her not to yell, and you wanted her not to be angry. It wasn’t that she ever actually did anything, but people live in fear more of yelling than actually getting hit most the time. The Weirdo was unperturbed though, and he looked at the can and the table. He then considered the greater implications of that question and went for what might be the most annoying answer.
“A table?” He asked.
“Why only a table?” She asked, and then he decided to get cute.
“Well in the greater sense it’s not just a table. Under the table is the floor under that the ground, if we are talking in even greater senses than that the whole of the planet Earth is below the can. If we are as Einstein suggested, in a universe with enough matter to cause space to close in on itself and we have finite space in an unbound reality, then all things are below it. If we were to follow an ever-expanding cone from the can, after long enough the cone would encompass the top of the can. From that we can say everything in all of space and time is below the can.”
“Why is there nothing between the can and table?”
“There is.” He said, smiling and pushing very close to the edge. “No matter how close two things may appear, unless they are connected and actually one object there is always a tiny even if imperceptible layer of molecules between them. Other wise I would not be able to get the can off the table because they would be connected.”
There was no talking to him when he was like this, she reached for a small carrier and pulled a single wooden coaster from it and began to hit him in the head with it. She didn’t hit hard and was possibly the only person left on earth who could or at least would, hit him in the head with a coaster. She was tapping him in the head with the coaster when Tommy, Judy and Sheila came to the room’s door.
“Do we know what this is mister clever dick?”
“A coaster?” The Weirdo asked.
“Do we know what it’s for?” She asked, still whacking him in the head.
“To put below drinks in order to prevent small circles of water forming due to condensation from damaging the wood work?”
“Very good.” She said still whacking his fore head. “So put the item to its purpose.”
“Yes Mrs. Pendleton.” He said, snatching it out of her hand and putting it under the can. He let her see that he wiped the small circle of condensed water up with his sleeve.
“You kids need to use a coaster, too.” Mrs. Pendleton said in a voice that should have been saying “Wait a moment, I've got a sweetie somewhere here.”
“Yes, Mrs. Pendleton.” The children said together and they quickly got up and put coasters under their drinks.
“And don't go getting any crumbs on the couch, you.” She said directing this at The Weirdo.
“Right.” The Weirdo said and gave her a thumbs up, and then muttering very quietly. “My damn couch, you weren’t even born when I bought it. Get crumbs in it if I wanna.”
“What was that?” She asked.
“Nothing dear.” He said.
“That’s what I thought.”
“So who works for who exactly here?” Max asked as he came in the other door.
“Shut up Max.” The Weirdo said pretending to sulk.
October 23rd, 2002
7:35 p.m.
Kestrel McLeary was resting on her couch. She wasn't watching TV, what she was doing is a lost art in many parts of the world. Well, it’s a lost art in America anyway, she was reading. She was simply sitting on her over stuffed couch, reading a book. There is little or no reason to explain this besides the fact that Miss McLeary will later be instrumental in this story and it's important to introduce instrumental characters slowly or they come as a bit of a shock.
No really, there’s no reason for this, you might as well skip ahead.
Her golden eyes caught at phrases as they went by, her hands rested on the book to keep the pages from flipping up at her. The book was, while not a perennial favorite, a book that she had read before and had enjoyed. She had decided to reread the book because it was better than trying to watch whatever garbage was on the television.
To add a few facts to the tale it should be mentioned that Miss McLeary owned the house she was sitting in, which was on Long Island. There was a nine millimeter pistol was in a drawer in hall table, and that she was an accomplished thief but at least one with a heart of gold which is apparently a necessary in tales of this sort. You always have to have the scoundrel or the hooker with a heart of gold. These are requirements. We were required to have, besides our brooding hero, a knight in armor, a wizard in blue, a young squire and a disreputable person with a heart of gold. She either had to be a thief or a hooker and I have been informed that she could NOT be a hooker so a thief it was.
It’s interesting really, if one fully understands her later role, to consider that at the beginning she had just been a thief. To begin there, even as an accomplished and well to do thief, and to ascend to the spot where she did is really quite remarkable. After all the events transpired, and the tales, which to tell them requires the telling of this one, it’s interesting. Of course we must not be allowed to get ahead of ourselves, and so your humble narrator must rein the story back to the place where we are currently at.
October 23rd, 2002
8:38 p.m.
Jorgaes took his cigarette case out of his jacket, opened it and pulled a cigarette out. He did all of this without actually looking at the case, because his eyes were occupied. They were not occupied with a pleasant sight, quite the opposite. It was a thoroughly disgusting thing to look at, but he had a problem looking away. He put the cigarette in his lips and reached for his lighter. He wanted to have the smoke in his lungs, just to block the smell of the bodies. He reconsidered though, best not to muck up the scene any more than he had already done.
He was supposed to come for drinks after dinner, and found the door was open. He had been cautious, and found them around the table. There was a lot of blood, but he knew how to walk around blood. He had learned after some time about blood and about moving around it carefully. The worst of it was that whoever had done this had clearly thought themselves to be quite funny.
Carol had been decapitated, and her head was on the table. The person who had done this thing has then stuck the carving fork and knife into her head and taped Steve’s dead hands around the handles. Little Jimmy’s face had been taped to mimic a smile, and he was placed as if asking to receive the best cut of his mother’s brains. There wasn’t enough left of Suzi’s face to do anything with, it had been so slashed to pieces. There was something on the plate though, strips of her flesh had been arranged to make a symbol. The symbol told him plain and simple that this whole escapade had been a message to him. Jorgaes knew he was breaking all kinds of laws doing it, but he hit the plate with his cigarette case and sent the plate flying.
What to do, that was the question. It wasn’t a question he thought needed a very long answer, Stephen worked for a consulate, this was defiantly a United Nations issue. That being the case he could call his own people in and get them working on it before anyone else. The symbol on the plate had disturbed him as well, and he thought he knew whom it was from.
Well it wouldn’t actually be from them, it would be an agent. Still an agent had killed friends of his, and left him an undeniable sign that was meant for him to find. He walked slowly away and went out the door, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. He flipped it open and searched through the saved numbers for the one he needed.
He wasn’t sure if he should dial though, considering what it would mean if his suspicion was right. If he was right, he would open a shit storm by getting the two of them near each other. They would probably destroy each other, and possibly the rest of the city. It was possible that this could jeopardize everything. He looked at the phone, long enough for the phones light to automatically switch itself off. The effect had made him at one moment demon like in the hard white glow and a moment later, nearly gone from sight, as he tried to decide what to do.
October 23rd, 2002
8:40 p.m.
The Weirdo was sitting in an overstuffed chair, one of the many that had been here when they had gotten here. It was hard to say when they had actually begun, he couldn’t quite remember. He knew he must have met Jack and Tommy at sometime, but he couldn’t remember quite when. This was particularly disturbing since The Weirdo remembered everything.
This didn’t mean he could come up with detailed descriptions at any moment, but he would remember. His memory had two unfortunate habits, one was keeping needed information just out of reach, and the other was bringing unhelpful things up at bad times. He had tried to go to sleep so many times and yet the faces of those people he had failed to save would come swimming up as he closed his eyes. He would remember an argument he had with someone that happened fifty years ago and still felt bad about it, so he would feel bad again.
Yet the memory of how he met Tommy and Jack were kept out of his grasp, like trying to grab a cloud of colored dye in the water. The more he tired to get it, the more it evaded his grip until it diluted in the water and colored everything. He was looking out the dark windows at the trees, which were becoming leafless. There were still a few orange leaves, though they were black in the silhouette of light between the window and him.
He didn’t want to think about Shannon, but the afore mentioned troublesome memory wouldn’t let him go. It made him think of her hair, of her fingers, of the way her voice sounded in his ear. He wanted not to think of her arms resting against him, but he couldn’t help it.
It was for this reason that the phone ringing was actually something of a relief to him. The trill of a scale and the buzz of the phone vibrating broke him from his decline into self recrimination and brought him back to the real world. He picked the phone up and pressed the answer button.
“Yes Jorgaes?” The Weirdo asked.
The phone call was a fairly short one, which resulted in The Weirdo drawing the pen shaped device from his pocket.
“Pig Pen you got a copy on me c’mon?”
“Ten four Rubber Duck, what's the word?”
“We’ve got work to do. Find Sod Buster and Lost Boy tell them to saddle up.”
“Ten four Rubber Duck. I’m clear.” Tommy said and the connection broke.
The Weirdo got up out of the chair and began to move across the room in the dark. His mind had been wiped for the moment of the terrors that would undoubtedly come back to haunt him when he tried to sleep.
“What’s going on?” Judy asked as he walked out of the darkened room.
“Just business.” He said. “Some friend of Jorgaes’ got killed.”
“Will you be gone long?” She asked.
“I’m not sure.” He said. “Why?”
“I just get worried sometimes.” She said. “You guys… it just worries me.”
“Well I’ll keep Tommy safe.”
“Who’s going to keep you safe though?” She asked. “Who is going to watch over the watchman?”
“If I get in trouble I’ll use Tommy as a human shield.” He said with a wink.
“That wasn’t exactly what I meant.” She said.
“I know, but I’m being evasive.” He said.
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
