The philosopher came into the bar, tired as usual after a long day’s work unraveling the secrets of the universe, and sank into one of the stools by the counter. I mixed his usual drink, a gin and tonic, and set it a safe distance before him. It took him a moment to notice it, but when he did it disappeared in the blink of an eye. He looked a bit woozy afterwards, which is probably why what happened next did.
I asked him if he’d like another, and he began to reply in the negative: “I don’t think—“ but barely had the words gotten out of his mouth when, BOOM! There he wasn’t. He’s disappeared as surely as he’d been there—a point on which, after a few minutes, I was beginning to get hazy.
What sentient customers there were in the bar stared, gape-jawed as myself, and someone must have called the police because the next thing I knew red and blue lights were flickering across the ceiling and a bunch of big local guys, in uniform, were marching into the bar.
Of course, I swore to them I hadn’t laid a finger on the fellow, and on the promise of a free pint in the future they ceased their questioning. I should have known it wouldn’t end there.
The next evening, sure enough, another guy walked into the bar. By this point I had developed a nervous twitch at every ring of the bell above the door, because who knew which customer would be the next to disappear? When he got closer, however, I could tell that he was a detective, albeit a subtle one. He sat down at the seat next to where the philosopher sat and ordered vodka, which I provided. He sat quietly for a moment, commenting on the weather, asking after my wife and making general small talk; I was trembling in my shoes. Finally, he set down his drink, and with no apparent change in demeanor said, “Listen, the local police have brought me in about that disappeared philosopher.”
I’ll be having a word with them, I thought to myself, and listened to him.
“I wonder if you’d mind answering a few questions.” There’s nothing really I could have done. I shook my head no.
“Good. Can you tell me what transpired in this very bar on the night of the philosopher’s disappearance, 10 June?”
I told him, of course, omitting nothing from the gin and tonic to the patched sweater the philosopher wore. The detective made a note in his little notebook, and wanted to know the philosopher’s full name and address.
“What had your relations with the victim been in the past?” I balked at the word “victim,” but asserted that we had never been on anything less than amiable terms.
“I wonder if I could taste some of this gin and tonic.” I poured him some, and he drank it nearly as fast as the philosopher had consumed his drink the night before, presumably to see if the effect was indeed invisibility. He remained corporeal.
“Did you do anything to the victim? Did your hand, perhaps, slip over his drink, as an accident?” I denied this accusation. He shut his notebook indecisively and stood up.
“Thanks for the drink,” was his farewell, accompanied by the chink of the money he put down to pay for the gin and tonic and the glass of vodka.
The next I saw of the detective was the following Friday evening, when he came in looking as haggard and overworked as the philosopher had. He ordered gin and sat there the entire night without saying anything, swaying slightly and muttering to himself.
A curious phenomenon began to make itself known the next morning. All over town, people were disappearing into the humid summer air, as though the philosopher had brought on a plague which started at the bar and radiated out. The old gentlemen who sat in the shade of the elder trees by the bank started disappearing. Lazy students vanished in class. The detective was frantic, and he could be seen every day rushing all over town, writing down every detail of the successive cases of the vanishing townspeople. He began coming to see me a lot, at first alleging that he was searching for clues at the scene of the crime, since a lot of people did disappear there; as fewer customers brought a similar decline in disappearances, however, he dropped all pretence of coming there for business—in fact, he rarely said anything anymore.
Soon he was found slumped on the bar in front of me more nights than not, in despair over the possibility that it would be this particular case that would stymie him and end his career. Night after night, reviewing the evidence he had collecting during the day, which only reinforced his belief that the case was insolvable, he grumbled that the case would kill him.
“No, Detective, you’ll die of the gin,” I said.
“It’s the same thing,” he sighed.
He was sure that if he lived to see the end of the case he’d never be able to drink gin again; in fact, towards the end he used to buy a glass for the pleasure of pouring on the floor.
And then, one morning about six weeks after the philosopher walked into the bar, inspiration struck. The detective sat bolt upright, knocking over his glass and spilling its contents all over his shoes. He reached for his notebooks and pen, and rummaged around in his detective’s bag for the file, filled to exploding, that contained his extensive notes on the case and all the evidence he had collected, at the bar and the philosopher’s residence. He dug through the file for a moment before he brought out a sheaf of paper stapled together at one corner, and flipped to a certain page, which he looked at for a moment. Replacing the evidence in its folder, he wrote something down in bold block letters in his notebook, tore the page out and handed it to me. Then he fell off his chair.
I hastened to pick the detective off the floor, and propped him against one of the tables while I called 911. The ambulance, arriving some minutes later, found him still completely passed out, and they assured me that after some rest he’d be himself again.
That taken care of, I turned my attention to the piece of paper that had been given to me. I was sure it contained the key to solving the case. Unfortunately, it also appeared to be in Latin, a language I had never studied. It took me barely any time to close up the bar and run down to the house of the high school Latin teacher, who I found reclining in his slippers and bathrobe with a box of frosted chocolate doughnuts.
He leaned closer to inspect the note I held out to him, and it only took him a moment to translate the sentence therein.
COGITO, ERGO SUM
I think, therefore I am
I don’t think that can have anything to do with it. The strain must have overwhelmed the detective’s mind; he’s gone senile. I opened my mouth to voice my opinion and—
18 June 2008
05 June 2008
Urban Myths
The origins of the urban myth which convinces small children that if they eat their bread crusts they will have curly hair are buried deep in an obscure, tightly knit neighborhood. Before the institution of this myth, it had been a tradition among the children of this neighborhood to throw their bread crusts outside for the waiting birds, who promptly ate them. However, soon the excesses of birds hanging around their houses overwhelmed the parents and one of them went on a bloody drunken rampage one night and killed every single bird in the neighborhood. With the birds gone, the children were told not to throw their bread crusts outside, but the habit persisted in a reasonable majority, and soon the alleyways were filled with a disgusting miasma of disintegrating bread crusts. To counteract the habit, the parents of the children held a secret meeting and agreed to tell their children that eating bread crusts would give them curly hair.
Unfortunately, they lacked done important factor: many of the children had no desire to have curly hair. The parents were disconcerted by this unforeseen roadblock, and they met again to brainstorm. After a few weeks of confusion, they were on the verge of abandoning the alleyways to their sticky fate when motivation came in the form of a rich woman who owned several houses in the neighborhood. While putting out her trash one day in April, she had sunk her brand-new Manolo into the quagmire, and she came raging into the parents’ meeting with the evidence of the ruination in her hand. The imagination of the group, formerly sluggish as an addict without his morning coffee, jumped into action; several of those present rented their homes from the woman. They explained that they had convinced their children that eating their bread crusts gave people curly hair, and that to motivate them they had decided to hold a contest in the subsequent months with rewards for the children with the curliest hair. All they lacked, they said, was a wealthy sponsor who would provide prizes.
The festival was held for the first time that June with great success, and the tradition continued until the grandchildren of the children were grown with grandchildren of their own. By this point, the origins of the festival were forgotten, and it was abandoned indecorously one year when its sole remaining advocate died a fitting death in her apartment, which was filled with cages of parrots, parakeets, and other domestic birds of all kinds. Upon her death they were released into the city in a great puff of yellow, green and red like the poisonous exudation of a mushroom’s spores.
Unfortunately, they lacked done important factor: many of the children had no desire to have curly hair. The parents were disconcerted by this unforeseen roadblock, and they met again to brainstorm. After a few weeks of confusion, they were on the verge of abandoning the alleyways to their sticky fate when motivation came in the form of a rich woman who owned several houses in the neighborhood. While putting out her trash one day in April, she had sunk her brand-new Manolo into the quagmire, and she came raging into the parents’ meeting with the evidence of the ruination in her hand. The imagination of the group, formerly sluggish as an addict without his morning coffee, jumped into action; several of those present rented their homes from the woman. They explained that they had convinced their children that eating their bread crusts gave people curly hair, and that to motivate them they had decided to hold a contest in the subsequent months with rewards for the children with the curliest hair. All they lacked, they said, was a wealthy sponsor who would provide prizes.
The festival was held for the first time that June with great success, and the tradition continued until the grandchildren of the children were grown with grandchildren of their own. By this point, the origins of the festival were forgotten, and it was abandoned indecorously one year when its sole remaining advocate died a fitting death in her apartment, which was filled with cages of parrots, parakeets, and other domestic birds of all kinds. Upon her death they were released into the city in a great puff of yellow, green and red like the poisonous exudation of a mushroom’s spores.
04 June 2008
Rivalry
I wrote this to the prompt below for a writing contest in the GCW on Gaia which involved using this story generator. The theme: light-hearted drama. The main characters: depressed fortune-teller and brutal businessman. The start of the story: party. The end of the story: repentance.
The party was in full swing, which could only mean one thing: a decline. Sure enough, the rooms, filled to the bursting point, began to empty until the din was nearly tolerable.
Sharon, sitting in the corner of the dining room with her drink uselessly in her hand, was glad the party was ending, although everyone she could see was having a great time; they would be sad to go and satisfied they had come.
Sharon never felt that way after a party—or during it, for that matter. Her idea of a good time was sitting at home, rapt at some Eastern fortune-telling treatise. Lately, though, that didn’t happen much at all. Sharon, although she was a fortune teller and being interested in obscure Eastern traditions was her job, was sent to more and more parties by her boss, a hard-bitten, short little man who had little interest in fortune-telling but a lot in the money it raised. He was applying his “real-life” solutions to Tall Dark Corporations, which meant “mingling” and “interacting with the customers.” Sharon was at the party as a marketing ploy.
Sharon had been working for the Tall Dark Corporation for fifteen years before the new guy, Mr. Zapatista, came into control, and although she knew she should quit she couldn’t bring herself to. For one thing, she had traded her cat, Black Noon, to Tall Dark years ago and leaving it would mean leaving her cat. In any event, if things continued this badly she wasn’t sure she’d have a job to quit.
She was about to get up—her left leg was cramped from sitting in the corner for so long—when she spotted a man leaning against the wall just a few feet away from her. He was tall and dark and she didn’t know him; he was obviously her destiny. He turned to look at her eagerly under her gaze, and she could tell he was as uncomfortable as she was. Perfect!
***
—Cliché , she thought, but their conversation was going well. She had never had so much fun at a party in her life. The tall dark man, whose name was Derek, was not only shy but witty and intelligent—and attractive. Sharon had a difficult time focusing all her attention on the conversation, and, thanks to her long training as a sybil, she was picking up signs that he was too. When the party wound to a close, Sharon and Derek left together.
***
“What the hell were you thinking?!”
Sharon quivered at her desk beneath the rage of Mr. Zapatista. She hadn’t known that Derek was the manager of their rival firm, ShortStuff Corporation. Despite Mr. Zapatista’s protests to the contrary, ShortStuff was close to eclipsing them in the field of fortune-telling. Derek had faxed Tall Dark that morning with a dangerous proposal: Send us Sharon.
Mr. Zapatista couldn’t make himself do that. Sharon was a major earner, for chrissakes, and he couldn’t let her leave Tall Dark for a lover. Sharon was shaken at the revelation of her own worth. She left that morning’s meeting disillusioned and more confused than ever.
Of course she saw Derek, but the offer of a contract was never mentioned. Sharon was torn between Tall Dark and Derek, although Tall Dark was definitely trying to decrease her conundrum: since the offer a week ago, Mr. Zapatista had been cloyingly sweet, and even the maintenance people made sure her booth was well-swept every day, the crystal balls polished and the atmospherics appropriately smoky. Even so, after a week of teetering on the edge of a decision, she left Tall Dark to work for ShortStuff.
ShortStuff was a clean, efficient operation, and Derek was much kinder than Mr. Zapatista. Sharon reveled in her newfound happiness and peace of mind. Here at ShortStuff there were no requirements for the staff, a cheery team of fortune-tellers who ran, as far as Sharon could tell, a nice eclectic mix of stalls around the city. She visited Derek at his home several times a week; if there were whispers about this situation they were quiet ones. A month passed pleasantly. Sharon became known as an expert on Eastern fortune-telling, and when her paycheck came it was so high she nearly fell over backwards.
Meanwhile, Tall Dark was doing badly. Mr. Zapatista’s marketing values didn’t work well in the field of fortune-telling; it was no surprise when he came crawling to Sharon one afternoon, asking her to return to Tall Dark. She refused. ShortStuff was too much fun for her to return to endless, pointless parties at the houses of anonymous people. Mr. Zapatista’s final words to her, however, were shaking; he suggested he listen more closely to Derek when the latter didn’t know she was around.
Sharon was plunged back into dismay, but she couldn’t help following her curiosity; maybe Mr. Zapatista knew something she didn’t. So, one day, she snuck into the ventilation system.
Crawling along the endless pipes in the ceiling of ShortStuff, Sharon wasn’t sure if she was going crazy or not to trust the word of a man who had always treated her disgustingly. Nevertheless, she inched steadily towards the buzz of voices she knew marked the staff lounge. She could hear Derek’s dulcet tones faintly and crawled faster to hear what he was saying.
“—yeah, and last night too.” She stopped abruptly to listen. “She comes over all the time now.” There was muffled laughter. “What a…!” a burst of laughter edited a sentence for her, and her breath caught in rage; she caught a few lewd phrases, and then a loud mention of her name—by Derek. “I can make her do anything.” She blinked. “Anything I want.” Another burst of laughter echoed through the ventilation pipes as Sharon crawled, apoplectic and stunned, backwards, falling out into the ladies’ room and barely catching herself.
Sharon berated herself mercilessly, and when she had finished a thorough personal mental tirade for being so oblivious—it was difficult for her to find that she had been used, and so obviously—the flush of shame set in. How badly she had misjudged the Tall Dark Corporation! At least Mr. Zapatista had never misused her like this. He was truly the better person.
Derek caught her as she was storming out of ShortStuff. “Sharon! Sharon—wait, don’t…Sharon!” She stopped and looked at him for a moment. He looked remorseful. “Sharon…what are you leaving for?”
“You ought to know,” she snapped, and turned away, deliberately oblivious to his cries of dismay. Sharon left ShortStuff for Tall Dark Corporation.
Epilogue:
A few days later, beyond Sharon’s hearing, her coworkers wondered what had made her leave such a pleasant position.
“She’s crazy,” sighed Nicole.
“There’s nothing coulda enticed me away from a place like that!” Clara declared.
“I wonder what it was?” Michelle wondered.
“It was Zapatista,” came the sudden reply, in a voice old and withered as the ends of the earth; a voice so ancient the gossiping women would not have been surprised to learn its owner knew the cause of everything that had ever taken place anywhere. “He can be persuasive if he likes, and he had a secret that she couldn’t avoid.”
The party was in full swing, which could only mean one thing: a decline. Sure enough, the rooms, filled to the bursting point, began to empty until the din was nearly tolerable.
Sharon, sitting in the corner of the dining room with her drink uselessly in her hand, was glad the party was ending, although everyone she could see was having a great time; they would be sad to go and satisfied they had come.
Sharon never felt that way after a party—or during it, for that matter. Her idea of a good time was sitting at home, rapt at some Eastern fortune-telling treatise. Lately, though, that didn’t happen much at all. Sharon, although she was a fortune teller and being interested in obscure Eastern traditions was her job, was sent to more and more parties by her boss, a hard-bitten, short little man who had little interest in fortune-telling but a lot in the money it raised. He was applying his “real-life” solutions to Tall Dark Corporations, which meant “mingling” and “interacting with the customers.” Sharon was at the party as a marketing ploy.
Sharon had been working for the Tall Dark Corporation for fifteen years before the new guy, Mr. Zapatista, came into control, and although she knew she should quit she couldn’t bring herself to. For one thing, she had traded her cat, Black Noon, to Tall Dark years ago and leaving it would mean leaving her cat. In any event, if things continued this badly she wasn’t sure she’d have a job to quit.
She was about to get up—her left leg was cramped from sitting in the corner for so long—when she spotted a man leaning against the wall just a few feet away from her. He was tall and dark and she didn’t know him; he was obviously her destiny. He turned to look at her eagerly under her gaze, and she could tell he was as uncomfortable as she was. Perfect!
***
—Cliché , she thought, but their conversation was going well. She had never had so much fun at a party in her life. The tall dark man, whose name was Derek, was not only shy but witty and intelligent—and attractive. Sharon had a difficult time focusing all her attention on the conversation, and, thanks to her long training as a sybil, she was picking up signs that he was too. When the party wound to a close, Sharon and Derek left together.
***
“What the hell were you thinking?!”
Sharon quivered at her desk beneath the rage of Mr. Zapatista. She hadn’t known that Derek was the manager of their rival firm, ShortStuff Corporation. Despite Mr. Zapatista’s protests to the contrary, ShortStuff was close to eclipsing them in the field of fortune-telling. Derek had faxed Tall Dark that morning with a dangerous proposal: Send us Sharon.
Mr. Zapatista couldn’t make himself do that. Sharon was a major earner, for chrissakes, and he couldn’t let her leave Tall Dark for a lover. Sharon was shaken at the revelation of her own worth. She left that morning’s meeting disillusioned and more confused than ever.
Of course she saw Derek, but the offer of a contract was never mentioned. Sharon was torn between Tall Dark and Derek, although Tall Dark was definitely trying to decrease her conundrum: since the offer a week ago, Mr. Zapatista had been cloyingly sweet, and even the maintenance people made sure her booth was well-swept every day, the crystal balls polished and the atmospherics appropriately smoky. Even so, after a week of teetering on the edge of a decision, she left Tall Dark to work for ShortStuff.
ShortStuff was a clean, efficient operation, and Derek was much kinder than Mr. Zapatista. Sharon reveled in her newfound happiness and peace of mind. Here at ShortStuff there were no requirements for the staff, a cheery team of fortune-tellers who ran, as far as Sharon could tell, a nice eclectic mix of stalls around the city. She visited Derek at his home several times a week; if there were whispers about this situation they were quiet ones. A month passed pleasantly. Sharon became known as an expert on Eastern fortune-telling, and when her paycheck came it was so high she nearly fell over backwards.
Meanwhile, Tall Dark was doing badly. Mr. Zapatista’s marketing values didn’t work well in the field of fortune-telling; it was no surprise when he came crawling to Sharon one afternoon, asking her to return to Tall Dark. She refused. ShortStuff was too much fun for her to return to endless, pointless parties at the houses of anonymous people. Mr. Zapatista’s final words to her, however, were shaking; he suggested he listen more closely to Derek when the latter didn’t know she was around.
Sharon was plunged back into dismay, but she couldn’t help following her curiosity; maybe Mr. Zapatista knew something she didn’t. So, one day, she snuck into the ventilation system.
Crawling along the endless pipes in the ceiling of ShortStuff, Sharon wasn’t sure if she was going crazy or not to trust the word of a man who had always treated her disgustingly. Nevertheless, she inched steadily towards the buzz of voices she knew marked the staff lounge. She could hear Derek’s dulcet tones faintly and crawled faster to hear what he was saying.
“—yeah, and last night too.” She stopped abruptly to listen. “She comes over all the time now.” There was muffled laughter. “What a…!” a burst of laughter edited a sentence for her, and her breath caught in rage; she caught a few lewd phrases, and then a loud mention of her name—by Derek. “I can make her do anything.” She blinked. “Anything I want.” Another burst of laughter echoed through the ventilation pipes as Sharon crawled, apoplectic and stunned, backwards, falling out into the ladies’ room and barely catching herself.
Sharon berated herself mercilessly, and when she had finished a thorough personal mental tirade for being so oblivious—it was difficult for her to find that she had been used, and so obviously—the flush of shame set in. How badly she had misjudged the Tall Dark Corporation! At least Mr. Zapatista had never misused her like this. He was truly the better person.
Derek caught her as she was storming out of ShortStuff. “Sharon! Sharon—wait, don’t…Sharon!” She stopped and looked at him for a moment. He looked remorseful. “Sharon…what are you leaving for?”
“You ought to know,” she snapped, and turned away, deliberately oblivious to his cries of dismay. Sharon left ShortStuff for Tall Dark Corporation.
Epilogue:
A few days later, beyond Sharon’s hearing, her coworkers wondered what had made her leave such a pleasant position.
“She’s crazy,” sighed Nicole.
“There’s nothing coulda enticed me away from a place like that!” Clara declared.
“I wonder what it was?” Michelle wondered.
“It was Zapatista,” came the sudden reply, in a voice old and withered as the ends of the earth; a voice so ancient the gossiping women would not have been surprised to learn its owner knew the cause of everything that had ever taken place anywhere. “He can be persuasive if he likes, and he had a secret that she couldn’t avoid.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
