The "Expletive-Deleted" Case - Entry 10

It was the shards of glass I remembered first; thousands of pieces of jagged former-skylight falling and catching little dollops of moonlight and flicking them around the house like one plummeting disco-ball after another. Then, all I felt was nauseating realization; the stomach-turning recollection of that one minor detail that hadn’t occurred to us as Randy and I sat drunkenly weaving together our master plan oh those many nights ago at One Duke...and now I was awake, covered in the rancid-smelling, medicine-drenched covers of a hospital bed for the second case in a row, the sticky, half-inch thick mummy-wrappings of twelve rolls of gauze, holding on to the fading memory of Randy, the abject horror on his face as obvious as a footprint in fresh snow, getting pulled through the broken back-window of Shinkleblossom’s house and off into whatever hell she had planned for him during her getaway.

The idea itself was flawed, as Randy and I followed our plan to the letter; the moment he crashed through the skylight, I began to howl through the traffic-pylon as a means of inflicting distraction and discombobulation on the nearly-asleep Shinkleblossom, and the precisely-set shaving-mirrors were throwing the light from Randy’s glowsticks all over the interior of the house. Shinkleblossom shot up from her half-slumber, staggered from Randy’s glowstick whirling and my alternately guttural moaning and high-pitched shrieking, and took some apprehensive steps towards Randy as I snuck up behind her, donkey-saddle in tow. She spun around and caught me with the talons of a particularly foul-tempered falcon, but we were expecting some sort of reprisal, and when she spun back to face Randy she caught a glowstick between the eyes that dazed her just enough to allow me to fashion the donkey-saddle to her back. She spun towards me again, though slower with the added weight of the saddle, and caught a face-full of my spittle and echoed yelling from the traffic-pylon that was positioned directly at her face. She spun around yet again, and the repeated spinning caused her to lose her balance somewhat, so Randy took the opportunity to jump on the saddle and force her down onto all fours...but she abruptly bucked him off with the strength of a bronco five-times her size, and in my diving attempt to subdue her further I just grabbed an armful of air; she had escaped our trap while lunging for the only object that was to be our undoing: the light switch.

Incandescent, 140-watt old-person indoor flood-lights blinded all three of us, and through our spotted gaze we saw ourselves in the full ridiculousness that was hidden from view in the blissful darkness of the pre-lit home; the donkey-saddle fastened around the gut-fat of a heavily-breathing Shinkleblossom; the shaving mirrors that had fallen flat from their original propped-up positions around the room that, either way, really made no difference at all; both our Lawson Detective Agency © Brand Rain Coat and Lawson Detective Agency © Imitation Brand Rain Coat shielding mine and Randy’s identities, but not our shame at conceiving such an insanely purposeless plan of revenge.

What were we trying to accomplish? How could this have possibly ended? I was sliding backwards through fifteen-feet of shattered glass and slivers of wood-trim before I was able to answer those questions, now recalling both the psychological pain of seeing Randy burst out into tears on the back-saddle of Shinkleblossom and the physical pain that lead to the jigsaw-puzzle torso as I looked at the wounds underneath my bandages. I had my answers now, but they involved freeing myself from the clutches of this hospital before I freed Randy from his at the hands of that geriatric she-devil.

I was going to need some help...and jell-o, as I was feeling faint.

Entry 11