A Mosaic of Shattered Glass

2

If you want something, look for it

If you don't know where something is, look for it

It is important to look for things

You may not find what you are looking for

But you will find something

And that something may be better than what you were originally looking for.

-Seek and ye Shall Find, by Tiffany Fletcher

---------------------------|--|---------------------------

   I walked back to my apartment from the police station. I had filed a report for grave robbery, but I doubted they would do anything. They rarely do.

   I gave them a description of the man, as far as I could remember him. Blonde messy hair, grey-blue eyes, with a small nose and a pronounced jaw. He was thin, uncomfortably so, and he wore a lab coat and thick gloves. Something about him reeked of arrogance.

   I remembered I had to pick up some meat on the way home, and stopped by one of the butcher's shops. Tube meat, mind you, not animal meat, I can't afford to eat that very often. Animals were difficult to raise here in the domes, but it was easier than in the frozen outside.

   It said to be so cold out there, that the air itself has frozen solid. That, of course, is ridiculous. How could the trams run between the domes outside if the air around them was solid?

   It was still very cold, though. That's what happens when you have no sun.

   I walked into the butcher shop and the smell of meat and ossaviv and nue-fluid and blood collided with my nose. Stepping in line behind the customer ahead, I heard him talk with the butcher.

   "Are you sure this pig's gall bladder is fresh? Like, fresh fresh?" the man inquired.

   The butcher sighed. "Yes, the pig was slaughtered this morning."

   "All right, well, it better have been. Because I will know." And with that, the man ahead of me paid, put the organ in a small box, and walked away. As he did, I saw his face.

   I was stunned, unable to move, barely able to breathe. It was him. The graverobber. Practically paralyzed, I watched him leave, and then swiftly turned to the butcher. "Who was that?"

   The butcher removed one of her disposable gloves, threw it away, and scratched her chins. "No idea, he came here last week, saying he needed a pig's gall bladder, and a fresh one. I told him that'd be hard. Can't tell one organ from another, to be honest. Now the meat I know, but the organs? They're all sausage filling to me. He left, came back with a book, and showed me which one was the gall bladder.

   "Of course, I told him I would charge him twice the usual amount, as it was specific and had to be fresher than a day, but he agreed, saying he would be back in a week. And, well, here he was. Now, the funny thing is, when I asked him what he was going to cook, he looked at me like I was crazy. And then he-"

   But I didn't here the rest. I left, making my way out the door. I looked to the left, then to the right. There he was! He stood on the other side of the street and was waiting for the carriages to stop so he could cross another one.

   I followed him, from a distance mind you, but I still followed. He walked to Fabious University, named after an esteemed doctor of medicine I would later find, and headed into one of the buildings, marked δ. A letter from an ancient language, the equivalent of the letter d, I believe.