PAST Mysteries 1: "There's Gotta Be A Mystery . . . Somewhere?"

Chapter One: (Very) Humble Beginnings

     Dr. Alphonso sat bored in his chair in the little, old, run down building he called his office. His assistant, Susan, sat at a desk on the other side of the room, which was only a couple feet away. Alphonso sat with his hands behind his head, fedora over his face, and reclined with his crossed legs set on his dusty desk. 

     Business had been slow for the small detective company Pierre Alphonso and Susan Tameley had founded in the modest town of Bregondy, Wales. "PAST Detective Services: Paranormal Activity Investigators" The hand written sign read out front. It was a bit lopsided, one nail had fallen out at some point. They never really had many customers, but the past month brought in a total of one customer. A guy claimed to have seen some aliens in his basement. Apparently they were just really deformed rats.

     "Ugh," Alphonso complained, "Why does nothing ever happen here anymore, Susan?"

     Before Susan had the chance to respond, a giant mass of mayonnaise descended from the sky and plummeted through the roof of the shack directly onto their heads. The mayonnaise completely filled the room, the flimsy wall boards struggling to contain the gelatinous, behemoth-sized portion of mayonnaise.

     "Mmmph mph mmmph mmmph mmmmmmmmph!" Dr. Alphonso yelled.

     "Mph mmmph mmmph mmmph mph mph mmmmmmmph!" Susan hollered back, completely understanding what he was saying.

    She made her way to the conveniently labeled "In case of large vat of mayonnaise" lever. She struggled to pull it through the thick mayonnaise atmosphere, but eventually she was able to pull the lever. As soon as she did, a hatch opened up in the floor and all of the mayonnaise swirled into the hole, draining most of it out.

     "Huh," Susan remarked, "You know, I never thought that lever would ever actually be useful"

     "Now, why would you ever think that? Nothing is useless if you give it enough time."

     Susan let out a slight, surprised laugh, "Well, you certainly never cease to amaze me," she said as she began ringing the leftover mayo out of her clothes.

     The Doctor also conveniently had a wardrobe in the office for just such an occasion, and began sifting through it. A few slightly different shaded fedoras, coats of various styles, and a plethora of multi-colored ties lined the wardrobe. After a hefty amount of thinking, he decided on a light gray fedora, a medium brown long coat, and a maroon-navy blue striped tie.

    "Finally, some action," Alphonso said after changing, "Let's hope this is a sign for more things to come!"

     "Do you have any idea what caused it this time?" Susan inquired, "Aliens? The government? Maybe just some pranksters? Who knows? I mean, we could be dealing with a big breakthrough here"

   "No, of course not," Alphonso laughed, and picked up a newspaper off of his desk. It was from two weeks ago,"It's most likely just a brief tear in the space-time continuum. It should be a quick fi-"

     Alphonso was interrupted by a thought. He had these occasionally.

     "Oh god," he realized, standing up from his chair, "what if this isn't the only occurrence? Could it be that this is just the beginning to a world-ending catastrophe?!"

     He paused for a second, still quite tense. 

     "Nah, probably not," he decided nonchalantly as he sat back down.

     Susan, used to the Doctor's mercurial stances at this point, decided that she should probably go outside to check what was going on out there.

     She tentatively opened the door. This was a pointless endeavor, as the door, already in pretty bad shape, had been subject to a mayonnaise onslaught, and proceeded to tumble over as soon as she touched it.

     The scene that unfolded was so incredibly appalling, so shockingly horrifying, and so horrendously awful, that she had no choice but to faint right then and there.