Ruby Red Marionette

two | junction

 Simon was pissed.

I mean, livid. I didn’t intend to tell him, but him finding out wasn’t up to me. When a bomb gets dropped in the middle of an otherwise quiet area, it usually doesn’t take much to find out. Given that all Simon did on the weekends was sit at home and watch TV, he was probably one of the first to see the breaking news.

He called me about fifty times. I couldn’t pick up the calls; the only reason I knew he was calling was because the little one-inch stub of technology that had previously been my phone lit up every minute, his name showing up in blurry letters. I’d take care of him later. All he’d get from me was an apology for the death of his puppy, maybe a hug if he was in the mood.

I was too disturbed to really focus on any one thing for more than five minutes. Ashley’s face popping right open was all I could see, the way the flesh ripped and the blood spewed about. I think it touched me; I don’t know. There were many stains on my clothing, and I couldn’t tell what they were or where they came from. I didn’t care. I just wanted to know how. How did someone bomb the place? From where? Why our fish shop?

Why did the cops think it had something to do with me?

When the police were called and came to the scene, they pulled me out from under the rubble. I was unconscious for a while, and woke up in the back of an ambulance. As soon as I opened my eyes, a group of paramedics came to me, asking me questions and doing exercises with me to make sure I could hear and see and talk and move. I was doing it, talking and moving and seeing, but I didn’t feel like it. I felt numb, like someone had their hands over my ears and I could hear that there was something going on, but I didn’t know what it was. Everybody else seemed to know.

The police seemed to know. Three detectives walked up to me while I sat at the back of the ambulance, drinking a cup of hot chocolate from the Starbucks across the street that one of the paramedics was nice enough to get for me. They spelled her name, Natalie, wrong on the cup, but it wasn’t my problem.

They approached me in a single-file line. The first one I saw was an awkward combination of height and fat. He seemed to walk with the consciousness of his physical contradiction. Next was an average man - everything about him was average. His hair, his height, his shoe size, his appearance in general. I didn’t get anything from him, no impression or vibe or assumption. He was just...there, kind of. It was a sad sight. Finally, there was the shortest of the three, but somehow I immediately knew he was the head detective. He wore a long trenchcoat and a sly expression. He looked a lot like Henry from Goodfellas.

“Good afternoon,” He said to me, one hand in his pocket and the other outstretched for me to shake. I ignored it.

“It ain’t morning anymore?” I asked.

Henry looked down - not at the ground, but more like at my feet, as if analyzing me from head to toe - and chuckled. “No, it ain’t. You know that, because I just heard you ask my good friend Natalie for the time a few minutes ago.”

“Oh really? You heard that?”

“Yep, he did.” The Paradox jumped in.

I mimicked Henry’s chuckle, looking down at his shoes the same way he looked at mine. Clarks.

“Well I guess I must be playing some kind of game with you fellas.”

Henry’s smile disappeared. He wasn’t all serious - there was still a trace of rhetorical laughter in his eyes - but he wanted me to know that this conversation would be easing into a serious direction pretty soon.

“I have reason to believe so, yes,” He said. “In fact, I know that you’re playing a game, because you just said ‘ain’t’ to me, but somehow you speak to everyone else using proper English. And you’re not brave, either. So quit the facade.”