Poor Humor

Untitled Part 1

Dru unlocked the tank, pulled on a glove, and began to sift through the leafy foliage littering the mossy substrate at the bottom. With every fruitless turn, rubbery leaves spreading out over the peat like a failed card trick, his heart began to thump harder against his ribs. He withdrew, examining the mesh lid of the terrarium. His suspicions were confirmed; there was a jagged hole in the woven wires, large enough to fit his hand through.

The old church was always sweltering those days, now that spring had turned to summer, and heat tended to rise right into what used to be the steeple, but currently served as Dru's lodgings. This was a good thing; it kept his insects happy, and no one hardly ever bothered him. He could still think of one person, though, who would go so far. The game was afoot, he thought to himself, perhaps overdramatically. There was a bug-napper on the loose, and come hell or high water, by the end of the day, he would have Rhea back where she belonged. After all, specimens like her didn't come around by mere chance.

Yes, it was always hot, rainclouds skirting Brooklyn like the entire borough had caught the pestilence. Somewhere, a tree withered and died, a scarecrow lodged between slabs of sidewalk. In the graveyard behind the church, grass wilted over white bones long cleaned by white worms, untouched by centuries. The church was not a church any longer, it was a boarding house, peopled by the only tenants providence could justify harboring in the dark and mottled wood, over places where pew and pulpit and preacher once pressed their weight. In the steeple, Andrusha Reshetnikov held himself to principle in spite of the infernal heat, buttoning a black, double-breasted jacket over an ivory dress shirt, slipping a tie around his pale neck. He was prepared to sweat.

There was only one person who would dare to kidnap his prized lady from her kingdom, in such a rude and brutish way. He happened to live right below Dru. He also happened to be, Dru spitefully considered, slipping down the narrow stairwell into an equally narrow, twice-shadowed hallway, a complete asshat.

At the end of the hall, on a small mahogany plaque, there was carved a name in cursive. Lynne Llewellyn Trehearne esq. Announced the dainty letters, equal parts hauteur and underlying passive aggression. Of the four tenants, he was the only one with a personalized doorbell installed at the entrance to his room. Not wanting to give Lynne the satisfaction of using the fixture, Dru ignored the silken rope that hung beside the door altogether, knocking brusquely on the panelled wood.

The face that answered the knock, its owner throwing open the door with disdain, was one that Dru had often daydreamed of never seeing again. For the moment, it was set in a lazy expression of arrogance, pale eyes just barely registering Dru, straw colored curls raked halfway back in a way that said 'I want to look like I don't care, but my ego time and time again betrays me'. His slightly tanned brow was almost imperceptibly furrowed. There was a fat, green iguana draped over his shoulders.

"It appears I am needed." Lynne's mouth curled in a smug smile. On his shoulder, the iguana blinked, lazily. There were two sets of eyes on Dru, and neither of them was particularly appealing.

In an attempt to assert himself, Dru made bold eye contact, squaring his slight frame. "Are there any large pests loose in this room? Besides you, I mean. One of my specimens has gone missing" Beyond Lynne, Dru could just make out a fantastically large enclosure in the twilight of the room, two muddy-scaled monitors prowling in the sand piled there. A slight shiver ran down his spine; they were just the type to eat a bug like Rhea.

Lynne tilted his head, the smug look spreading like an inkblot on contact paper. "So you think I took your lousy insect? To bother you?"

"Yes. Well, no. I think you committed a ruthless kidnapping, and you are now holding my Titanous hostage in order to get me to talk to you."