Inky's Collection of Shorts

The Perception of Thought

Prompt: mystery writing prompt challenge  — 'my guiltiest pleasure is knowing these small intimate details that no one else knows.'

He wasn't sure exactly when it started.

Maybe it was when he was twelve, around that time when everyone started to lose interest in him. His aunt had had another baby, and all the attention turned to her instead. The house was constantly filled with the sounds of visiters oohing and aahing over her crib, and their laughter when she responded in kind.

They forgot about him so easily that it made him wonder whether or not they had ever truly seen him in the first place.

It didn't matter, though. Back then, he already knew that they would forget about her as well, just like they'd forgotten about him. It was a fair trade off, he had to acknowledge. At night, when the visitors all went away, he'd stood over her crib and watched as she burbled and showed her toothless smile. "Just you wait," he'd murmured. "It's your turn now, but they'll lose interest in you soon. That's just how it is."

She'd reached out her chubby fists at him and giggled. He'd clasped one gently in his own hands, so giant and destructive in comparison, and smiled.

She was older now, just a year older than he'd been back then. Her popularity had shifted from the adoring gazes of her elders to the adoring gazes of her peers. He watched them fawn over her like birds to a sea stack, pecking at her clothes and her hair and the way she smiled, like she was the star that kept them in their orbits. It was still her turn.

But when it's always one's turn, it makes the fall all the more painful.

He'd realized, at that tender age of twelve, that the world was much more than the goggles of ladies going all mushy over a baby. And he'd realized that predicting what that world would be like — for the baby, for each of the women — was far more entertaining than the mundane joys of life.

Open pockets, the clasps of which had caught the thread of many worn jackets. The calluses that decorated each hand, like a woven tapestry for those who took the time to look. Small scratches on the arms, mementos of a factory long since pushed into the background.

"You've got talent, kid," the detective said begrudgingly one day. He stood in his office, his hands clasped neatly in front of him, and watched as the man took off his hat and rubbed his head tiredly. "Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be sat in my chair."

His finger had a band of a lighter shade of skin. There were more lines in his face than he remembered from a couple weeks ago. He looked dull, like a washed-out version of himself. A large bottle of water sat at the edge of his desk, already close to empty.

Alcoholism, he thought. I'm sure his partner must be doing better.

That one day, he knew, would come very soon.

***

The desk was uncomfortable. It felt constraining; too small, too limiting to his intellect. He needed room to pace around, to gather his information and store it where it could remind him of the small details he'd forgotten overtime. He didn't forget anything, of course, but he needed that space to breathe.

"You're moving out?" the receptionist asked, surprised. Her fingers hovered over the keys on her typing machine, taking a rest from their strenuous dance for the first time in hours. "But why? We have all the accommodations you could possibly—"

"Thank you," he said, cutting her off. "I'll see myself out."

"Wait, Mr. Holmes—"

The door closed with a soft click. Well-oiled, perhaps a little too much so. He wondered if he'd be called back again in a handful of weeks to perform the exact job he was now leaving.