The Matter of the Case of the Skinny Girl, Perhaps With Teeth

The following is from The Jonathan. It's alright.

Jonathan mulled it over once more. He looked edgewise at the envelope, squinting. But for a thin manila line, it mightn’t have been there at all. This didn’t help matters and so Jonathan was forced to concede that this was indeed a conundrum of a mystery, akin to an enigma. He pincered his fingers for the third time into this foolscap phenomenon, retrieving the card with its uppercase inscription:

JONATHAN DO WHAT YOU MUST JONATHAN AT THE EGG SEVEN THIRTY TUESDAY WEEK SKINNY GIRL SMALL HANDBAG MURDER INEVITABLE BE SURE NOT YOURS JONATHAN FOR SAKE OF THE COMPANY PERHAPS GRIZZLED MAINE IF PRESENT OF USE DONT FORGET PRE DAWN REPORT BE SHARP MR CURTIS WATCH PS HER TEETH WHILE SINGING

He used or attempted to his analytical now on account of crash course mental awareness training the previous week mind to unravel layers of meaning and sense from this correspondence. Murder a factor. Perhaps be armed. Investigate skinny girl – perhaps the teeth are hers, in which case expect her to sing. Grizzled Maine may be a person – male? – in which case perhaps grizzled. Avoid preconception. Try not to die. Report perhaps by phone – Ms Ex works nights. The Egg is a notorious night-spot. He knew that. The handbag was unfathomable at this early stage of enquiry, and Jonathan could neither associate nor disassociate the handbag with or without the murder, which itself might be anyone’s. Forthwith he attired himself with revolver, kerchief and fedora, for it was Tuesday week from last Tuesday and early evening six-thirty, sky forming night and full of oxygenated air useful for breathing. Jonathan slammed the door with himself on the other side and dismounted stairs and hailed a taxi and walked down the stairs to the basement Egg twenty minutes having paid his fifteen pound fare to see what he might find, hoping it would work in his favour to arrive a good forty minutes before the allotted time and he made sure to look for features in faces but not too closely so as not to draw undue attention. Was it the skinny girl or the handbag that would be small?

Part III of a Story: An Alternative Ending

Maisy didn’t remember falling asleep. Considering she was waking up and despite the bleary logics usually associated with it she mustered a few concerns for her memory. Especially when taking into consideration the difficulties she’s suffered with the art of falling asleep. She wasn’t at home and, as a result, a little startled. That was until a few prompts jogged her ailing memory: the smell, the scene, a few cigarette ends- nothing too particular.
She couldn’t see a soul. She kept looking.


Maisy: Hello? Hello, is anyone still here?
[Standing up she notices she is naked]
Oh heavens…
I shall need to find some clothes before I leave, and leave I think I must.
[Maisy searches for her clothes]
Now... where are they? They can’t have just abandoned me... left without permission...
How rude.
[Russell emerges from underneath a fallen curtain, both he and it are patterned with blood]
Russell: [croaked but stern] Girl…
Maisy: [unsure of where the voice is coming from] Yes?
Russell: Girl!…
Maisy: [locating Russell] Oh my!
I simply cannot understand.
No I just can't understand at all.
Now...
…Why is this situation?
Russell: They aren’t coming back, they just won’t return. They’re not the type.
Maisy: [careful to hide certain parts of herself from view] Nonsense! You’re simply delivering nonsense, now if you wouldn’t mind I’d be very grateful if you could return to the start and explain, exactly what you mean and, if you can, what’s been going on while I’ve been asleep.
Russell: Well, let me try again then. You are an Idiot. One of the most horrid and sorry fools I have ever had the displeasure of answering. Though, believe me, I’m hardly one to speak.
…
As soon as you began mouthing claptrap and making nuisance, you could see it in her eyes, it was blatant, in Sukie’s eyes, she had it in for you and you right well deserve it too. You idiot nuisance.
Maisy: Pardon me, this is outrageous. Really. I have been nothing but courteous as far as I can tell. A perfect guest to the best of my abilities and I, simply, will not have such nasty things said. How outrageous!
Russell: You really have to open your eyes a little, girl. Can’t you see what’s happened? Them! They have left you and me and taken everything- your money, the clothes off your back, any shard of dignity you had secretly felt proud of, gone. Everything. You were conned, robbed! Surely you can see that.
Maisy: I am neither an idiot nor a nuisance but I am waiting for an apology.
Russell: For Christ’s sake, aren’t you listening? The trouble you’ve gone and brought upon yourself and me. It’s not me who should be apologising! Girl!
[Russell gasps for breath but merely splutters]
How ignorant, how unbelievably unaware can you be? Do you realise you have nothing left: no clothes, no home, no dignity. Any insult I can concoct doesn’t serve the purpose adequately.
[Maisy twiddles her hair, Russell grows increasingly flabbergasted]
…
Everything you do clearly demonstrates what a naïve little girl you are, girl.
What an accident.
Girl.
I should, certainly, have kept quiet and let you untangle your own messes.
You have no idea. You can’t see further than yourself. And You’re the least polite rudest, horridest slip of a beast , I can’t tell which …[splurgh]… of you was worse - she may have been looking for trouble but you know, yes you know that you’…
[Russell expires]
Maisy: [smiles a little and affirms quite quietly] How rude.



Maisy took the blood-soaked curtain from over Russell and wrapped it around herself. Though she wanted to cry she couldn’t. Now seemed like the right time to head home, Maisy decided. And she, simply, walked home.

Untitled

Girls strip their clothes and part their thighs with feathered sticks they’re checked for lies by pierced men sweat-covered in lust with heads of swine who drop from trees and laugh and scream as little boys with legs of ants eat fireworks and start to dance as bones from the ground begin to rise helped by starving children crying and laughing and begging to get beaten by women who tug their udders raw and hoarsely squat amongst the timber as mice and rats jump up to bite and tug their genitalia and draw blood from which their daughters sup to make the men groan and scratch themselves new limbs from old because all they see is flesh and breasts yet taller now the bones have grown to catch them all between the shadows so that they dance in a cage or perhaps a stately pleasure dome of rare delight but this one has ensnared the night.

Part II of a story: a Conversation.

Characters:

Maisy: The protagonist
Sukie: The girl with the moped, who may or may not be, ultimately, regarded as the antagonist.
Brute Special: A very large beast of a man with much hair and a quiet voice. It is said that he once ate a kitten which is untrue.
Russell: A talking Kittiwake, very very wise.
Duke: A dwarf. Busy with day-to-day life in attempts to forget his difficult to reach aspirations
Juan: A little taller than Dukesy. Speaks in Spanish, which I find difficult to translate.
Tender: Ex-fortune teller, saturnine man with very little to say.


[a moped ride later and they’re in a grotty flat- it does not belong to Sukie]
Sukie: A little late to be out, girl. You do this often?
Maisy: No, I think this is my first attempt and I can’t say I’d care for it.
Not frequently anyway.
Sometimes I just can’t sleep you see and before I knew it there I was;
adventure had gotten the better of me.
[aaaaaaaah- sigh]
Sukie: And Mother & Father, what will they be doing…?
Maisy: Fast asleep I’d imagine, they’re people of habit- very fond of behaviour.
[Sukie holds out a packet of fags to Maisy, Maisy politely declines the offer while smiling. Sukie lights up two and gives the second to the man at the table]
Sukie: So your not…
[drag]
…just runnin away…
or anything like that?
Maisy: No. Sorry.
[Silence: neither of them had expected an apology here]
Sukie: Quite alright
Maisy: What about you? I can’t see a reason for anyone to’ve been in the town at that time other than irregular sleeping patterns, of course.
Sukie: Oh the devil says the night’s a ripe time for finding trouble.
Maisy: Oh but trouble’s a filthy thing, I can’t see why anyone would seek any more than they’re given. Mother has always said, ‘stay away from trouble’, and I shall. I keep myself clean as. Spotless. And anytime I see a pirate or a peddler I simply turn away.
[turning to the man at the table]
I’m Maisy you know, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.
Sukie: This is Tender…
[Tender looks over but forgets to smile, Maisy beams.]
Maisy: [in Tender’s direction] I knew someone called Tender, a real catch he was, the prize of the playground. And every lunchtime us girls would stand in a ring around him and tell him we liked him, you know. And I could’ve sworn that he liked me back the most, it was just something about his demeanour that gave it away. So one day I went to take him a little cupcake, baked myself you can imagine, and I waited until I simply couldn’t wait anymore. So I didn’t: a lady should never be left to get angry. I haven’t seen him since, too embarrassed I should think.
[Tender glanced up from what could be a newspaper. He was very much uninterested]
Enter remaining characters.
[Duke leads the way, he is cooking this evening’s feast, Juan is behind I don’t know what he’s doing as he’s Spanish and I find it hard to translate, then marches Brute with Russell perched atop his crown, Maisy’s face lights up- more friends.]
Maisy: More friends! Delightful, my my and how lovely it is to meet you all. I’m Maisy…
[curtsey]
And your names?
Brute: Brute.
Juan: Juan [I think this means ‘Sorry’ in Spanish but I can’t be sure]
Russell: Russell the Kittiwake at your service.
Duke: Duke. And I take it you’ll be staying for tea?
Maisy: With an invitation it would be plain rude to decline.
Duke: very well, we’re havin wild mushroom soup with fennel dumplins and We’ll be eatin in an hour.
Maisy: Marvellous. There really are quite a few of you, just where did you all come from?
Russell: The circus my dear. Where else?
Maisy: Well I certainly can’t think of many alternatives now but at the time you could have been from different places or anywhere for that matter.
Russell: Well there aren’t many places for talking birds, don’t you know.
Maisy: I can imagine. Well, what were you all doing at the circus?
Russell: Working, girl. We’re all very appropriate for work in a circus: dwarves, a giant, a talking bird, a fortune teller and a trapezist.
Maisy: Well I suppose. How, then, are you not still there? Surely you’d found the right place.
Russell: We didn’t feel we had, you see, that’s the whole reason we left. That circus is barely a life at all for anyone with self-respect and aspiration, girl.
Brute: We just weren’t treated right enough. We were odd and that made us less. But We couldn’t help it. We had just a pittance to our names,
[Russell listened to brute intently and then looked at Maisy and nodded as if to suggest Brute had summed it up far more eloquently than Russell ever could.]
Maisy: but at least you had a pittance and a regular one I imagine, surely you haven’t a pittance at all without the circus.
Sukie: No, you see, we do other things to make a penny or two: we steal, we rob, we plunder and pillage and take what we need when we need it. Like I said the night’s a ripe time for finding trouble. Wouldn't you agree?

Packet of Twenty

Between the chains of opportunity, somewhere, and the pitfalls of potential, in the midst of plimsolls and satchels, Mary bought a packet of twenty. She’d smoked the odd one at parties from acquaintances, her first on the building site, surreptitious, she’d liked it, liked them all, she never coughed, well, maybe spluttered, but she liked them so she bought a twenty packet from the racket on the platform that would sell to girls in plaid. She liked to smoke so Mary smoked, and in the pub with weekend feathers, Mary drank with older girls and passed and rose to any challenge that she was a schoolgirl.

Time has passed now; Mary has passed too, out of her school and into the dream lethargic as life. From phony potential to the jealousy of words, Mary’s mind can skip objective, drinking wine and smiling cigarettes and stretching limbs on waking, impassive as dawn.

I married Mary, not because she coughs now and she doesn’t like it, nor because she drinks like breathing and it’s ordinary, but because she eats a second breakfast or she doesn’t eat at all if she doesn’t fancy lunch, and she has a fine laugh, and she smokes the same cigarettes as me.

The Court of King Jelly Roll

In Bacchus’ name, lift up your spoons, for the season approacheth, little things. Even now, the reupholsterers are reupholstering chairs, purple and green. The physicians are smiling, the ladies are moist. King Jelly Roll is better, thanks be to God. The dead are buried, the table is set. Put on your hats and saddle your horses, for King Jelly Roll’s court is reconvened. The frosty veil is lifted, so come, the embarrassed and regretful, take off your clothes and thrash about wildly, in the manner of a boar in the throes of death. For, in faith, the winter’s boar does die for the summer’s pork. The thin gander swears an oath, and the fool is in the mixture. Shoots are shooting, boots are new, but the ceremony will be a barefoot affair. Do not sit down by the roadside facing the hedgerow when all the world is dead, and everything in it. For, in faith, that is the time to put your hand in your trousers, and the rod and the staff shall comfort you. The road is well lit, and is not very long. In the circle, four English leagues west of the wood where tall wolves groan, four English leagues north of the marsh where grass snakes consider, four English leagues east of the plain where women wish, four English leagues south of the bay where cormorants swoop at the backs of fishermen, the festival will be met. Forthwith, then, to the circle; wrap your wife in ivy. The leopard that was in the tree now stands on one leg in the centre of the circle, and, in faith, the tree stands proud on the leopard’s back. The nephews beloved of King Jelly Roll stand at the trestles of the five innermost tables, and no rope can bind them. The attendant nymphs shine like berries. From the nub of the mound, even now the first of the guests can be seen approaching. First among them is Brutus, and not least among them, Gog and Magog. King Jelly Roll has risen from his mossy sickbed. So lift up your spoons, in Bacchus’ name, for the feast.

Part I of a story: An Introduction

Everyday disasters happen whenever they want and wherever you’d rather they didn’t. A city holds a glut of such disasters lurking behind each affable street name and behind other places you might not have thought anything of before. Designed to happen with grace and executions, a deep-sea dive for a dreadnought a juxtaposed jive for those juggernauts and for a little girl, well, we’ll see.
There’s nothing you can do about these events they’re already there: every disaster will happen.

Now, Maisy made waves in round-a-bout ways and was not prone to disasters nor was she naïve: she’d lied through her teeth many a time but she couldn’t always grasp the simple pleasures that litter a life and she often had trouble falling asleep. One night, in the dead of night, she counted 12 dozen and eight sheep, her eyes parched and her lips flicked but not a glance of tiredness. The question, possibly even dilemma, for anyone in this situation is which option do you go for: stay where you are and hope you’re on the cusp of sleep or get up and do something?

Maisy got up and walked around, she looked around too and thought around and eventually about what she could do to make her decision a little more worthwhile. A quick look in the fridge held none of the answers. Outside a dog rattled a cat. Inside: Nothing. She snook to the cupboard (almost like her intentions were gonna make her move louder (than before)) and pinched her dad’s leather jacket- a forgotten remnant of a previous mid-life-crisis to make her feel tougher and warmer.

She was already in the town centre by the time Maisy remembered that she was supposed to be sleeping. She’d never seen the town without any people before, it’d always felt like some people’s only purpose was to walk around town centres with somethings to do- the people she never remembered or really noticed thouh she knew they were there. Obviously no-one has anythings to do at this time of night, not in the town anyway. There wasn’t much of a noise without the people either, ‘is it really a town centre if it doesn’t have any people anymore?’ she wondered on her own, ‘does it count?’.

Just louder than the silence was a noise. A little later it was louder and before she knew what it was it was a moped.

(on the moped was a girl. Yes, a girl. The girl had a convincing smile. You might know the type.)