The Wax Conspiracy

Scars behind the shadow

"Exempt, not wholly, partially, and on Tuesday order with colour of stench found on packet of discount kidneys." Eugeny Tereshkov tips his cigarette into the melting ice, sighing ash as the cubes wet themselves. Rubbing his chin, "Feels much like four thirty. Already the end of day."

A voice on the speaker phone chimes in, "There were pictures in the storybook. Drawings. Paintings."

Tereshkov thumbs through a folder, dockets and receipts falling out. He finishes the cigarette into the rest of the cubes, soaking up and sinking down. Picking up the scraps, he pauses on a receipt from a restaurant.

"Know this place. Good food. But Expensive. Very expensive." He licks the lower left corner, a smudge of brown something shiny on the bottom corner. "Very good food."

"Spoke with the widow Bradley this morning. Do you have anything?" The voice crackles. The phone squeaks.

"Young lover is running up her credit cards in fancy places and eating much too rich. Stomach is strong in this one. So much rich food. Not alone. Always more than one plate. Either lover boy is hungry like a wolfing pelican or is seeing a side dish at the table."

"Good, good. Well, not good for Bradley, but at least we have something. I'll check again tomorrow. I'm sending you the storybook. Take a look at it, it's fascinating stuff. Might be something else in there that I can't see. Let me know what you think of it when you get it."

The speaker dies and gargles out a dial tone before Tereshkov hangs up. He crouches next to the bathtub of ice. "But all that rich food is why your kidneys are discount, no?"

recycling is recursion of diminishing returns
what's yours is mine to free from the cycle

He slaps the sides of face of the man in the tub, making sure he's not awake, out cold and out. The clock down the street at the town hall chimes five dongs.

"Time to shave."

Ethan Switch

Written on Friday, 3 September 2010

The Wax Conspiracy

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