Irrelevant Cheetah

So let’s take a look at the headlines, shall we? It’s always good to see what’s going on in the world.

Of course, the most important story out there is that we finally know that Anna Nicole Smith died from a prescription drug overdose. Now that I know that, I can sleep nights again. Meanwhile, Keith Richards is still kicking. Go figure.

A man in Pullman, WA was charged with theft and burglary after police found 93 pounds of women’s undergarments in his apartment. No notches on the bedpost, though, oddly enough.

A fertility nurse accused of killing her husband apparently searched for “how to commit murder” on Google. That’s not exactly an everyday search, is it? Kind of along the lines of “how to sterilize a tapeworm” or “removing elephant urine from a tuxedo.”

And finally:
Am I the only one who’s getting a teensy bit nervous about all the goings-on in the Persian Gulf? It’s getting just a little tense, isn’t it? Should I be worried? I mean, WE HAVE AN INSANE PRESIDENT WHO’S BEEN ITCHING TO START SOMETHING WITH IRAN ANYWAY AND NOW HE’S GOT AN EXCUSE AND…

/end rant

OK. I feel better now, I think. I’m going to go buy some canned goods.

When I was in college, I was going to be a musician. In fact, I think I had plans to be a famous rock star, though of course in a non-commercial, very Bohemian sort of way. My roommate and I formed a band, which (in my opinion at least) wasn’t half-bad. We played covers, but also some original material I had written. I’ve written music for everything from jazz band to symphony orchestra to solo piano to, of course, rock band. I don’t do the music thing anymore, having decided to pursue the written word instead.

My sister, on the other hand, is an artist. I shared an apartment with her briefly my first year of college - she, the painter, and me, the musician. She has since moved to photography, but her chosen medium, visual art, remains the same. I have always remembered a particular conversation I had with her once concerning the differences between our respective art forms. I was speaking about music, but the conversation can be applied to writing as well.

I had expressed resentment that someone could just look at one of her paintings and experience it, while in order for them to enjoy one of my works they would have to set some time aside and experience it from beginning to end. Someone could decide she was a great artist in the space of a few seconds, but it would take them several minutes at least to make up their minds about me. I envied her that (and in many ways I think I still do.)

She, on the other hand, had actually wished for a way for people to experience her paintings over the course of a span of time, instead of all at once. She was interested in finding a way to extend the experience of art appreciation over time, and she envied me the fact that my art ‘took time.’ It’s an interesting division between the two. Art such as photography is very ‘now’ while music and writing are not grounded so much in the present.

Of course, one can argue that it doesn’t take long enough to experience the written word, as well. Being neck-deep (and treading water frantically) in my own novel, I can completely sympathize with the point of view that it is unfair that readers can read so quickly what it takes writers so long to write. I’m a speed-reader, and I must admit I sometimes feel guilty for being able to go so quickly through someone else’s blood, sweat and tears.

But the fact remains that a book can not be experienced in a glance (a definite bummer sometimes, given my current want-to-read list.) It must be experienced sequentially, word after word, page after page, chapter after chapter. If it’s a good book, you lose track of who and where you are and become part of the story.

But isn’t that the mark of true art, no matter what the medium? When it takes you away from who you are and makes you more than you were, isn’t that art? Isn’t that what we, as artists, strive for? Does it matter whether it takes a moment, or an hour, or a month?

Which do you prefer?

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has widely been regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams

I would submit that number two in the List of Great Cosmic Oops would be the design and manufacture of that two-legged hominid species, Homo Sapiens. About fifteen billion years after the aforementioned Beginning, on a backwater planet towards the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, apes crawled out of trees, shook hands and began trying to sell each other life insurance and scented doilies.

In the great scheme of things, we’ve been around for a cosmic eyeblink. Evolutionarily successful species like the shark are just now waking up to the fact that not only are we here, but that we taste pretty yummy as well. We’re like the new item on the menu that everyone’s talking about.

But in the short time we’ve been here, we’ve come up with so many ways to be not only completely useless, but harmful as well, that if there were a galactic record book for that sort of thing, we’d almost certainly be in it.

Greatest number of ways to kill each other - Homo Sapiens
Most unique ways of killing each other - Homo Sapiens
Greatest number of ways of abusing each other - Homo Sapiens
Largest variety of ways to torture other living things before chopping them up and making them into soup - Homo Sapiens

I watch the news every morning, and perhaps I shouldn’t, because my already-pessimistic nature is becoming downright anti-human. I have many days when I truly believe that we should just be wiped off of the planet and let the next species step up and see if they can do any better. In fact, those days far outnumber the days when I have any amount of faith in humanity at all. It’s pointless to list any of the news stories - just take a look on CNN at any given time and the stories of murder and abuse and kidnapping and war and terror and on and on and on just fill the page.

I’m not sure why we’re here, either individually or collectively. Perhaps (and I am really starting to believe this) we are an evolutionary mistake. Nature’s “Take Two” (Take One being the dinosaurs.) Once we screw up our lines enough, maybe the Great Director (whoever or whatever that may be) will yell “Cut! Get these idiots off the set!” and our understudies, the squid, will step up and start out with “I think, therefore I am.” Then the elephants and the whales will go off and bitch about how they didn’t get chosen again.

It’s kind of a shame, really. I’d kind of like to see what kind of roller coasters the squid come up with.

9 AM. It’s a time when no decent person should have to be awake. At least not when said decent person has been awake with his friend Johnny W. until 4:30 in the morning, discussing the details of a particularly sticky case with his cohort, Jim B.

But I had to call Alice, so I swore at the sun streaming in through the blinds and reached for the phone.

It rang just as I was reaching for it. I snatched my hand back and looked at it curiously. It had been so long since I had a phone call that I had forgotten what the ring sounded like. Deciding that it was actually pretty annoying and very loud, I picked up the phone gingerly and held it to my face. “Hello?”

“Sam? It’s Alice.”

“Good to hear your voice, sister.” I slipped into PI-speak effortlessly. “Now I got some questions for you, so listen up, all right?”

“So you got a lead, then?” She sounded surprised. “I’ll be at your office in a sec.”

I hadn’t said anything about a lead. “I’ll be here,” I said, and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later she waltzed into the room wearing a little red number that had probably set off a few fire alarms on her way over. I was in the middle of self-medicating with a little hair of the dog, and promptly poured another shot to put out the fire in my loins. Immediately after I slammed it I wondered where the hell I had learned a word like ‘loins.’

“So whaddya got for me, Sam?” she purred, and perched on my desk like a slutty canary – a red one.

“Tell me, Alice. What’s your fascination with eggs? Dumpty wasn’t exactly a Greek god in the looks department. Were you just after his money?”

She gasped and looked suitably indignant. “Of course not! I loved him! And so what if I have a thing for eggs?”

“I’m just wondering: What do you do when the eggs hatch?”

“Nothing. I’m long gone by then. Why?”

“Always?”

“Yes. Now what’s your point?” She was starting to look a little annoyed, which told me I was on the right track.

“Well, you see, I was just thinking. What if you didn’t leave before one of your baby-substitutes hatched? And what if the occupant of said ovum got attached to you? It’s called ‘imprinting,’ isn’t it?” I stopped. “And come to think of it, what do you do with those eggs, anyway?”

She jumped off of my desk as if I had offered to shave her legs with a cheese grater. “How dare you! I don’t need to take this. You’re fired, flatfoot. I’ll send you a check for your time, but I’m outta here.”

I jumped up. “Not so fast. One of your eggs hatched, didn’t it? Didn’t it?!” I hadn’t realized I was screaming.

With that, she collapsed on my desk, sobbing. I stopped myself from circling the desk and stroking her hair by slapping myself. Hard.

“It hatched one day when I wasn’t expecting it,” she said through tears. “It wasn’t supposed to, but it did. And the thing that came out was just so ugly! It was so ugly it was cute! And he imprinted on me! And I loved him back!”

“But it wasn’t enough, was it?” I asked her. The right side of my face was stinging, and I was thinking about taking up smoking again.

“No! I’m a woman! I have needs, and he couldn’t fulfill them. But then I found Humpty, and everything was ok again. Until he fell.”

“He didn’t fall, Alice. He was pushed – by the chick you abandoned. By the Ugly Duckling.”

She straightened up and stared at me. “By Ugly? But… But he wouldn’t do that. He loved me. How do you know it was him?”

“Easy.” I help up one of the feathers that had been left on the bridge by T.K. “This is a swan feather. I recognize it from the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ caper I solved back in ’02, with the twelve swans a-swimming.” I reached into my desk and pulled out the shard of reflective glass. “And we all know that the Ugly Duckling has self-image issues, and I think he was so racked with guilt over what he’d done that he smashed the little mirror he carries everywhere for his misguided self-affirmations.” I threw the items on the desk. “Once I realized that ‘T.K.’ just stood for ‘The Killer,’ the rest kind of fell into place.”

Alice just stood there, silently wiping her tears and succeeding in streaking her mascara from eyebrow to chin. “I - I don’t know what to say. Is he going to jail?” she asked quietly.

I nodded. “I’m calling the chief in a minute, and he’ll put out an APB.” I couldn’t help myself. “Alice, your boyfriend’s back, but he’s going to the clink.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she looked at me with that lazy eye I found so appealing. “Oh, Sam. I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m scared to be by myself. Will you help me?”

It’s going to be tough, I know. We’re just two crazy kids trying to survive in this crazy world, and one of us is a chain-smoking alcoholic private eye with intimacy issues. But she begged me, dammit, and I had a thing for her. I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but I want to try.

At least until the Princess shows up wanting to know who killed her frog.

THE END

Apparently my writing is reaching a true grass-roots movement. I had a visit today from a critic that didn’t have much to say, but his expressions really say it all.

As you can see, he was kind of in-your-face, but his intentions were good. We spoke for a while about how I need to write more about ungulates and other cud-chewers. Then he proceeded to eat my tree.

I’m glad I’m reaching the people, I guess…