The Road to Darkness

Case 9: My Weeping Heart

Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet I do lack. What am I?

One more riddle until I've won...56 minutes...that's all I have. I made my way down to the park to get some fresh air.

"Mom, can I go and play now?!" a little boy asked his mother.

"Okay, fine, but be careful," she said as the boy ran to his friends.

I couldn't help but look at them and be reminded of the kids.

"I can't lose...I just can't..."

As I thought of them, a hand touched my shoulder and made me jump.

"There you are, Yato, been looking all over for you" Berry sighed, handing me an ice cream cone.

"Berry? That's right, we were supposed to meet up this morning" I remembered.

"No worries, I got all the info, so Jimmy, huh?" he exhaled deeply, looking at the kids play.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it? Remember going up there on winter break?" Berry asked.

"Yeah...we'd play in the snow until we were blue," I said, smiling a bit.

"I remember getting my tongue stuck to a tree" Berry commented, making me chuckle.

"And remember the time-!" I cut myself off when I got up and dropped my ice cream.

"What's wrong?" Berry asked.

"We can't talk right now, he'll think I'm cheating!" I worried.

"I haven't asked a thing about the case, just about our past, there's nothing to worry about," he said.

"You don't know that! How would he know we're not talking about the riddle!" I yelled.

"Yato...sit down, you know better than anyone that he's listening and watching, nothing will get passed him" Berry stated.

"You're right....but what if...."

Berry got up and put his hand on my shoulder "we'd use to have races to see who would eat more snow and get a brain freeze."

"We'd made forts and played war..." I continued.

"We'd climbed trees and shake the snow down onto each other," he said.

We exchanged smiles and that's when a ball hit my leg. I picked it up and looked at the kids. I stared at them for a minute before tossing them the ball, "have fun."

"Thanks, Berry, it's always good to look back on memory lane."

"It's always there...just got to remember the street to go down" he smiled.

I got back into my car and ringed up Jimmy.

"What a surprise" he playfully acted surprise.

"32 minutes," I said.

"You're really struggling, huh? Can't even remember that you have 42 minutes, not 32," he said.

"I know, I'm saying you got 32 minutes until I find you and kick your ass!" I said hanging up.

"That's the spirit," he said, laughing.

"Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet I do lack. Logically speaking a table would seem correct in a riddle like this, passing all the requirements except the last but that's not necessarily true either, a table has legs but no real feet," I said to myself.

Jimmy smiled as he listened in, knowing I was wrong.

"Of course, that doesn't match the pattern does it?" I said knowing he was listening.