idiotic investigation the 10th (Part I)

1

With a single eye, he spied morning’s acidic light seep onto the collar of his jacket; a moment this way, then he shut this single eye once more for a final and restful blink.

The day was already like the other three that came before.

2

From somewhere that was neither a dream nor the room he was actually in, he heard his name being called, and with both eyes open, he ignored it––just as he had during the three days that came before this one.

A moment like this, then once more his name was called, and again he failed to respond; instead, he stared with white sheet eyes at the neighbouring buildings. Then again his name came, this time while a pigeon glided past, and he allowed it to pass away once more.

Finally it came more loudly and with force: “Anis.”

This time, just as he had for the last three days when the voice came in that particular way, he stood up from his resting place on the floor.

“Coming.”

And the voice did not call his name again after this announcement.

3

Anis walked slowly toward the bare concrete steps that led down to the second floor.
Cold wind swept in from the open side of the building, and he avoided the puddles that were formed by the persistent drippings of the ceiling.

Arriving at the top of the steps, Anis saw a brownish head appear at its bottom.
It moved fitfully and said: “Hurry up.”

That was Tarek and toward him Anis descended.

4

Anis and Tarek stood beside each other surrounded by all the others that slept on the second floor; they were all on the road waiting for the van that goes to the city.

“Why do you keep sleeping up there? ––By yourself.” Anis remained silent as Tarek had more to say: “There aren’t even any mattresses up there.”

For a moment there was silence, which Anis eventually dared to break: “I don’t want to accidentally sleep in someone’s place.”

Tarek carried on with his train of thought: “––and you don’t even have a blanket! … Anyway, it’s stupid, you know that right? Insisting to sleep up there.”

Anis stayed quiet while Tarek shook out a few more drops: “Tonight sleep downstairs.”

“Okay,” said Anis.

“With us,” Tarek added.

Anis nodded and looked at the others; no one was looking at him or Tarek, who continued: “Otherwise they will start thinking that you are up to something. It’s still your first week.”

Was he done? ––Yes: “Okay.”

5

Anis chewed cold bread in the back of the van between Tarek and the man that was distributing food. No one talked while each person in the van received their portion of the dispensation; one by one, they each took what was offered to them and chewed.

The sun was already up. Anis wanted to say to Tarek that “it must be 8 o’clock.”
But in the end he resisted the urge.

The driver weaved his van masterfully through traffic––traffic that was gradually thickening and slowing, transforming into a clot of steel. The driver drove quietly to the sound of the radio. He sat old and crooked at the wheel, a master of speed.

When they reached the main street at which they were all to be deposited, everyone in the van disembarked chaotically––everyone except for the driver and the man that was passing out food.

The boys poured out onto the street through the van’s sliding door, each holding a shoeshine box by a strap on a shoulder, and each holding a Nido can under the other.

The bread giver slid the door shut after them and moved swiftly to the front of the van.

The shoeshine boys had arrived.

6

As the van sped off, leaving behind a dissolving jet of exhaust, the boys scattered like dice.

Anis made his way toward the road he was accustomed to starting his day on; but as he took his first step in that direction, he heard Tarek calling him.
Turning, he saw that he was standing near a kiosk, waving impatiently.
Anis hesitated momentarily before finally slinging his box onto the other shoulder and crossing the road.

“What the matter?” he called over the passing cars.

Tarek waved him in and turned his back saying:
“Nothing’s the matter, just come here.”

7

When Anis arrived at Tarek’s side, he realised that he was chatting with an old man, not the owner of the kiosk, but someone that seemed at home there in its shade.
The old man was asking Tarek for a shine, but told him to wait as the boy who worked at the kiosk was sent to bring the shoes that needed shining from “his store.”

Anis was irritated.

After a moment, he thought about asking Tarek what this was all about, but he did not. Instead, he started fingering the links of a chain used to block entrance to the adjacent alley. He ran his fingers into the grimy opening of each link before then grabbing the whole rusty thing and clenching it so that it would emerge from his sweaty palm, polished and glistening slightly. He did this, link after link, without looking at his hands once.

Meanwhile, Tarek was tapping his knuckles on a garbage bin––rhythmically, while his eyes shifted up and down the street, glancing at shoes that flopped by like freshwater trout.
He didn’t say anything.

When the kiosk boy returned, he placed the desired shoes on the floor in front of the old man and backed away to stand between Anis and Tarek.
Then, when the old man shifted massively in his seat, the boy hurled himself onto his knees and began helping the man take off his shoes off so as to replace them with the newly brought ones.

The two of them, like a mountain and its reluctant climber, laboured at this task for a minute while Tarek and Anis persisted.

When the shoes were finally worn, Tarek stopped tapping on the garbage bin and threw a glance to the end of the street.

He then took a step back.
This retreat led the old man, who was now prepared for his shine, to naturally set his eyes on Anis’ face. Anis had been standing there with his box, fiddling with the chain.

Anis understood what happened, but he didn’t have a response to this changed circumstance; so he stayed silent and did and not move. The old man swallowed deeply and adjusted his posture before extending his feet.
Then Anis automatically perched himself on his Nido can and placed the shoeshine box between himself and the old man.

*

“Boya boya.”
He tried it out countless times over the previous three days.

“Boya boya.”
He said it so many times that it came to him in his sleep on those first three nights, haranguing him like a hundred bats out of some portion of his mind that got caught on the hook of its double iamb.

“Boya boya” unrelenting,“boya boya” through the night, “boya boya” a dissolving knife.

Yet hardly anyone actually heard him say the words; he tried his best but they would stick in his throat, emerging like bubbles, blackening his larynx like a cancer of the vocal chords. Like the shadow of a whisper, or like the corner of a sphere, the words would simply disappear––vanishing, as though they were never uttered at all.

Boya boya.

As a result, he had polished only a single shoe during his first three days on the street.
He had only managed a single shoe because its owner would not let him carry on to the second of the pair.

Even today’s opportunity with the old man, forced on him by Tarek, was a disaster.

Anis knew that his work was sloppy, that in fact, it was worse than that.
But he did not see how he could improve.

And perhaps it was only out of kindness that the old man paid him at all, because he did an equally horrendous job, soiling his socks and caking the shoes with polish.

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No one had bothered to ask him whether he knew how to polish shoes, or if he had ever done it before joining the group four days prior. Whether skilled or not, and regardless of their experience, none bothered to ask even once whether he had the slightest idea what he was doing; not even the man who gave them food in the morning and expected money in the evening.

“How much did you make today?” Anis froze when asked this question. Thankfully Tarek had passed him a couple of bills on their way back.

He handed them over obediently.

“That’s it? You’ll have to do better.” He only said this sternly, whereas he screamed at another boy who had not brought in enough, smacking his head savagely.

“Okay,” he told him and waited to go up to the second floor of the building.

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All he learned from the rest was to repeat the words “boya boya”, and to keep repeating those words until someone, anyone, extended a leg to him.

When that finally happened, when that offering came forth like a divine hand from some place beyond the clouds, some world from which Anis only expected feet and money––he would kneel down and get to work: polishing a shoe howsomever.

8

Anis found Tarek a couple of hours after the incident with the old man. He was eating a sandwich outside the hospital.

“How did it go?” He asked with his mouth full of bread and vegetables, neglecting to offer Anis a bite. The sandwich looked tempting, but Anis felt that there was a line somewhere regarding this sandwich.

Where did he get it from? “He paid me, it was fine,” Anis finally said.

His hand was sweating on the paper money scrunched into his pocket. He was counting the bills with his fingers over and again: one, two, three.

“Good.” He munched like a luxuriating ape. “Today is your first Friday, no?”

“What?” Anis was surprised by this question.

“It’s Friday. We stay late on Friday,” Tarek explained. “We go back all together in a service or two.”

“You polish at night?”

“No, we send our boxes back. They give us roses instead. What’s wrong with you? People polish in the morning, they need roses at night.” He cut off abruptly. After another savage bit of his sandwich, he look at Anis and said with a smile:

“There are also other things to do at night.”

Anis, who didn’t make very much of Tarek’s final statement, was grasping the post of a street sign. He was squeezing it as hard as he possibly could, as though he wanted to pluck it out of the pavement.
Then he started to pick at the grime caked on it.

Picking with his black fingernails: one, two, three.

––––––––––––––––––

Anis spent the rest of the afternoon wandering back and forth on the same long road.

9

The van normally came back at 9 pm, but not at the intersection where they were dropped off; instead they would assemble in the shade of a parallel road and wait there. Tarek explained to Anis that he would have to relinquish his shoeshine box until late that night, along with any money he had made, and in their stead he was to take some roses.

At night he was to sell roses.

As Anis walked over to the meeting point, and having still not fully digested the idea that he would be staying late that night, something caught his attention: someone was calling his name, but it was dark, and he ignored it at first. But as he walked, he heard it again; yet once again something instinctively ignored the call.

Finally, it came more loudly and with force: “Anis.”

He could see some of the boys hanging out on the corner, some seated and others standing, but felt that it was still early; so he decided to see who it was that was calling his name. He turned to face the person that was calling him, but it was dark.

“Anis. You idiot, come here.” It was Tarek.

10

He was sitting behind a dumpster.
Something in his hand reflected the light from the street lamp.

“What are you doing here? The van is coming soon.”

“I told you. It’s Friday.”
The thing in his hands came up to his face and he tilted his head back before throwing it back down quickly; when the thing in his hand moved away, Anis saw Tarek’s other hand come up to his face.
Then he settled down once more, his back against the dumpster.

“What is that?”

“Weesk’ee,” the word came out like a cough and a hiss.

“What? Where did you get it from?”

This was not the first time Anis wondered where Tarek got all his things from––the sandwich, the extra money, now this; and despite how excessive the bottle in his hands seemed, Anis didn’t ask anything more about it. Again it was some line he vaguely felt that he could not cross despite their familiarity.

“You want a taste?”

Anis stayed quiet before shaking his head no.
“Let’s go, the van is almost here.”

“Not until you’ve tasted it!” With that, he stood up abruptly; something about his stature changed: he didn’t look so thin just then.

“Taste it!”

He thrust the bottle into Anis’ hands and watched him with cat eyes.

11

When the van arrived, its horn wedged itself into Tarek and Anis’ conversation.

“Come on,” Tarek said.

Anis was still trying to hold the fluid down in his stomach; a wave of acidity incinerated his insides, but he didn’t say anything other than “Okay.”

Tarek put the bottle inside his jacket, picked up his box – throwing it over his right shoulder – before rolling the Nido can up from his ankle to his armpit. He took off quickly.

Anis, lingered for a moment, still reeling from the two or three sips he had taken. He suddenly felt very light and was unable to take the van’s horn very seriously.

The horn sound leaped up from the street, grazing all the balconies on its way back down, but it was no longer for Anis at that moment; the van horn was just another horn.
To be ignored.

Then the sound came again, and he understood that Tarek was already there, but he ignored it nevertheless.

The horn came again but Anis was staring at the cats that were chewing garbage bags.
He very suddenly became extraordinarily hungry.

The horn came another time, more persistently and with force.
He grabbed his box and can; he ran as fast as he could to the van.

12

The van sped off. Stripped of his box and can, Anis now held a bouquet.
He was suddenly invigorated, energised more than he had been in the last four days. The acidic fluid in his belly and the scent of the roses, damp and frigid, filling his nostrils.

“Do you have more?” he asked Tarek.

“Be quiet.” he said. Anis vaguely registered that Tarek was eyeing the other boys who were watching him in turn. It seemed like they had just ended a brief exchange of words.

“Let’s go.”

Anis became very slow and was suddenly embarrassed, he didn’t say anything as he tailed Tarek around the corner back to where they were standing a moment before.

13

They sipped more from Tarek’s bottle and talked about the old man.

“Why did you make me polish his shoes? He would have paid you more if you did it.”

“I know him, and I don’t like polishing his shoes,” he said this oddly, almost as though he wanted to stop midway through the sentence.

Anis didn’t speak after that remark; instead, the fluid in his belly made him change the conversation. He started asking questions about where they were.

“Hamra. Did you actually not know that yet?”

“No, no one told me.”

“Where did you used to live?”

Anis didn’t want to answer this question. He just smiled at Tarek and told him that he came from far, far away.
He was surprised at how much he was saying, surprised by how much the liquid in his belly was making him talk.

“I never shined shoes before,” he confessed abruptly.

“I know, it’s obvious,” Tarek smiled.

They sipped a little more and Tarek joked about the women inside a small bar across the road. He stood up and started swaying his hips, describing what he wanted to do to them.

Anis laughed loudly at Tarek’s remarks, very loudly.

Tarek kept enacting his fantasy, the bottle in his left hand, his right hand extended as though pulling on a clod of hair. Anis laughed uncontrollably and Tarek took a massive gulp from his bottle and let out an expansive curse. Anis laughed more crazily than he already had been. He laughed and laughed, and his voice rang out onto the street in a way that could only have been understood at that time by anyone out there, and in that place, as a taunt, a threat, a call of some unseemly kind.

Tarek suddenly settled down, something changed in a place he could not see.

In a moment, some of the other boys came into the alley. Tarek concealed his bottle, but Anis was out of control. He continued to laugh.

The boys approached, asking questions, kicking trash in the dark.
Tarek stepped up toward them, trying to break the ice.

But Anis couldn’t stop laughing at the whores he had never seen inside the bar, and Tarek tried to talk over the laughter but the boys didn’t hear him.

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“Where is Adel’s money?” Anis remembers hearing that question, and that’s all. The question struck him like all the money he needed but didn’t have.

Apart from those words there was a lot of pushing and shoving.
The alley lit up with rage and the boys were flinging punches like confetti. It came out of nowhere, as though from an open sewer grate, all this rage flooded out in the pitch black alley.

Of course Anis eventually stopped laughing, but he didn’t do anything else.
He remembers hearing the bottle fall from Tarek, hit the floor, shatter.

He remembers seeing Tarek’s body slip into the crowd of boys. He remembers seeing a broken shard glint in one of their hands. He remembers seeing Tarek cut up, sliding onto the floor. He bled quickly, his blood mingling with the dumpster drippings that zigzagged on the filthy asphalt.

Anis, as always, could not do anything. He stayed quiet, wanting the darkness of the alley to swallow him, drag him away from Tarek’s vital fluid.

Then they came for him.

14

When he woke up a few hours later, he had a nosebleed and a missing tooth.
His face was wet with garbage and his hair greased with blood.

Turning onto his back, the moon, narrow as a blade, pulled far from the Earth and it was darker than any blackness the shoeshine boy had ever seen in his life.

–––––––––––––––––– END OF PART I

[Part II has now been published..]

idiotic investigation the 9th

2

For nearly two hours, I had been driving my car in the dark. I had until midnight to deliver a package to a friend who lived on the other side of the mountain.

0

From what could be told by observing the sky, it had ceased to rain at around the time that the sun began to set.

In certain portions, the impenetrable grey above had yielded to red, and in others to yellow; then, as night finally came down, the sky, swallowing the land, dissolved into a navy universe––flecked purple where the fattest clouds roved, black where the forests sat––with the occasional glistening of moonlight on the face of the roads that stayed wet until morning.

My headlights cast a halo of vision over the shimmering ribbon of road passing underneath my car; ten meters at a time, the world could be seen before sinking away again.
Occasionally, the moon or a handful of stars would appear, providing me with a semblance of movement––reminding me that I was not just caught up in a shifting dream.

1

I had to deliver the package before midnight.
About an hour after the sun had set, I pulled over near a cliff and stepped out to stretch.

I initially turned the car off. Hesitating a moment, I looked out the windows at the blackness around me; then I turned the car back on and allowed the headlights to wash over the ground again.
The moment the door was opened, wind whipped in like a crazy thing. I had to push hard to get the door to open completely. With one leg out and the other on its way, my body slipped through before the door slammed shut.
I stood stunned beside the car, unwilling – or perhaps unable – to move.

Looking up, it was impossible to make out the moon or any stars; my body instinctively did not stray far from the car door. There was nothing to look at and only wind to feel. I kicked my legs for a few seconds then struggled with the door to get back into the car.

Once inside, breathing more easily, I threw the gear in reverse and got back on the road.

2

Coming slowly to the end of an overstretched bend, the road straightened before me and the steering wheel grazed my palm in its spin back to centre.

Something foreign caught my gaze at a distance high above my headlights: a small bulb toward the end of the road, or perhaps a bonfire on the other side of the valley––I could not be sure. I slowed the car down and studied the light, but to no avail: it was too far.

Approaching, the light gradually brightened and certain marks began to appear beneath it: flat wooden surfaces, painted steel beams, a flag, even other sources of light.
There was no obvious movement, just these objects floating around and amidst some light bulbs. In time, some vehicles could be seen parked in a row off to the side, but I could not be sure of this fact from that distance.

The closer I got, the slower I drove, until I came to a complete halt about 50 meters away from the lights and things ahead.

Something moved.

My car was still in its place when a few more lights came on ahead. Three or four – or more – people appeared, and one or two of them seemed to be waving at me.
(In retrospect, they might have even been yelling.)

I was unable to take a decision about how best to react; it seemed obvious that they were beckoning me toward them, but complying struck me as a bad idea.

An out of the way portion of my brain shut down most of my body, and I turned off my car, hoping that they would forget me.

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As it happened, I was not easily forgotten.

In a moment a pair of headlights came on, tilting right and left on an axis, before getting onto the road ahead and coming straight for me.

I kept the car turned off while the approaching truck lit up the road ahead.

When it arrived, the truck parked on my side of the road and its window came down bringing forth the face of a uniformed man wearing a helmet.

He spoke but I could not hear him through the glass of my window.
I tried to open it, but I couldn’t because the car was still off.

I considered my options: either I could have signaled to him that I was unable to hear him and then turn on the car in order roll down the window, or I could have turned the car on and rolled down the window before explaining to the man that I was unable to hear him; alternatively, I could have just ignored him and sat there quietly, in the hope that he would lose interest quickly.

As these thoughts clouded my mind, the man in the other car grew visibly impatient.

His door opened and a fat boot stepped out into the wind.
Approaching my door, he continued to speak words I could not hear.

Once at my window, he knocked on the glass.
Then he reached for the handle, but it was locked; again, I would have to turn the car back on to unlock it, but I hesitated about whether to let him know first. The overriding thought in my mind was a desire to evaporate.
The man was now speaking quite loudly to me. I could just make out what he was saying.

“Is anything the matter with your car?”

“No,” I responded. “It’s just off.” Of course, he could not hear me since I did not dare raise my voice at him. I noticed that he was carrying a weapon.

He looked at me with a bewildered expression.

Another person emerged from the truck, also carrying a weapon.

3

Thankfully, the suggestion to turn the car on and open the window came from them.
I complied swiftly, and as the window came down with its noise, and as the wind blasted into the chamber of my car, he asked me a question:

“Why did you stop in the middle of the road? There’s nothing wrong with your car.”

“I know that nothing is wrong with my car,” I responded. “But, I wasn’t sure what that was ahead of me, so I stopped.” I said this while point ahead of my car.

“It’s just a checkpoint, for security; nothing to worry about,” the man said with a smile that made me suspicious.

“A checkpoint?” I didn’t know what that word meant.

“Yeah, a checkpoint.” He repeated, with the same smile, but somehow faded this time. “Just keep driving, you worried us.”

“Keep driving?” I nodded.

––I didn’t know how that was possible with all those things on the road.

4

I closed my window, and the two men got back into their truck. I began to move, slowly at first, gradually picking up speed. They drove behind me.

It occurred to me to hide the package I was to deliver to my friend underneath the seat beside me; I was worried that these people might damage or steal it.
As it happens, this was actually not a good idea.

Approaching the “checkpoint” I began to study it more carefully.

There were a lot of painted metal barriers, several tiny painted wooden houses––perhaps toilets (why would they need so many?), a small corrugated iron shack, and a dozen or so trucks just like the one driving behind me.
There were also some more people dressed like the two men that I had just spoken to, all of which were armed as well. They were standing under the various light bulbs and appeared to be waiting for me.

I couldn’t imagine why.

I was wondering whether they had been expecting me, but I could not understand how that was possible since I had not told anyone about my drive.

Either way, I approached them slowly.

5

I arrived in front of the “checkpoint” and stopped my car. I remember wondering whether to thank them for receiving me, but the expression on the man’s face standing nearest to the car pushed that thought of my head.
Besides, the name “checkpoint” didn’t seem like it would belong to a welcoming place.

He seemed to want me to place my car in a space surrounded by three barriers, one on either side of the car and a third that blocked the road ahead.

I complied swiftly, but I was still trying to figure out what “checkpoint” might have meant.

Once in place – they sidled awkwardly around the car as I moved back and forth trying to adjust my position –, they crowded around me, all uniformed, helmeted and armed.
I looked at them all one by one; they were all looking at me with the same bewildered expression that first man had on his face at the top of the road.

Then a flashlight came on, its beam throwing halos all around my car, first in the backseat then on my legs, my face. One of them knocked on my window. I opened it.

“Papers.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that brief statement, so I assumed it was not directed at me and remained silent.

But then I started thinking: perhaps he wanted a check? I thought about this for a moment, and I grew nervous since I had left my checkbook at home; and also, I was a bit confused as to why he wanted one in the first place––if that’s what he even meant.

He repeated his terse demand, but when I was about to ask him what he meant, another man started banging on the lid of my trunk. I turned to face the man at the trunk but I could only see his belly through the rear window.

“You papers now,” said the man beside me. I turned back to face him.

“What do you mean?” I asked the man at my window. “I haven’t got any checkbooks, and definitely not in the trunk.”

“Official papers, for the car, your identification … What’s the matter with you? Have you never been to checkpoint?”
He said this while laughing, which slightly discouraged me from being honest with him, but I nevertheless went ahead and told him:

“No, this is my first time.”

Before he responded, I reached for the glove compartment, extracting the requested documents. When I handed them to the man – not knowing exactly why I had to do so – I prepared to repeat my question about the man at the trunk.

“Open your trunk, genius.” He said this in a softer tone than he had used before.

“––But I gave you all the papers I have.”

“Open your trunk now, we need to check it,” he said it loudly.

I complied swiftly once more, but I was a little embarrassed by this. After a moment, the man behind the car informed everyone else that there was nothing in the trunk. He closed it and I assumed that the humiliation was over.

6

They next asked me to step out of the car, saying that they needed to check if there was anything inside it.

“What do you mean? Do you think someone put something in my car?”
No one responded to this question, it was as though I did not ask it.

It was cold and windy and I was not happy about having to stand outside, but I didn’t feel that there was anything to be done. I complied.

Suddenly, two dogs were brought out of the shack. They trotted elegantly over to the car, each taking a side. They began to sniff all around, but eventually both of them stopped at the front passenger door.

One dog barked, then the other responded.
It was like one said “I found something” and the other said “No, I did.”
They were endearing, and something in me felt the urge to pet them.

“Come here boy!” I said to the smaller one, but the man next to me let me understand that this was inappropriate; in any case, the dog didn’t respond.
At that moment, it occurred to me to worry about the package that I had placed underneath the seat. I regretted not finding a better place for it.

Some of the uniformed men approached the passenger door and opened it. They extracted their flashlights and began searching inside. In a moment they pulled out the package.

“What do we have here?” one of the men asked.

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I urged them not to open the package, that I did not know what was inside it; I explained that I was expected to deliver it to my friend before midnight, unopened and it in good condition.
I was told not to speak anymore.

A man was suddenly standing behind me, restraining me, while a number of others gathered around the package.

7

At that moment every bloated purple cloud gave way and the rain came down like a hundred drums; the men pulled hoods over their heads and the dogs whimpered.

I was pushed into one of the little houses (it did not have a toilet inside it); it was just a shelter––one that I appreciated at that moment.  A hooded man, presumably the one that restrained me and threw me in there, blocked the entrance.

I was trying to see what they were doing with the package, and since I did not know what was inside it, I became curious to see; presumably, they would have opened it by ten.

There was a lot of talk, but it was drowned out by the rain and wind.

–––––––––––––––––––

After a few moments, the man at the entrance suddenly turned and started to move me, all but carrying me toward the shack. I saw that many of the men were heading inside as well, presumably to escape the rain and wind.

Once inside, they placed me before a large table over which a solitary light bulb swung, buzzing slightly. The men arranged themselves around the table at the centre of which was the package––unopened.

“Would you like to tell us what is inside it before we open it?”

“I really don’t know,” I responded. “I was just asked to deliver it to a friend who lives on the other side of the mountain.”

The rain beat down on the roof above us like troupe of tap dancers; I began to understand how ridiculous my circumstance was.

A knife appeared above the package, slicing through the tape.

8

When they finished extracting all the objects that were inside the box, they began to arrange the pieces.
At first I was unsure about what I was looking at, but something about the arranged pieces was strikingly familiar.

There were little men carrying weapons standing in different places. There were little barriers set up at different angles. There were a row of trucks, a number of little houses like the one I was thrown into a minute ago; there was even a little corrugated iron shack like the one we were all seated in right now.

The men assembled the pieces with skill without speaking to one another.
They appeared to have finished and were on the verge of breaking from their task when one of the men found a final piece inside the box.

It was a little car, just like mine, the one that was left turned on outside, spewing exhaust into the cold night.

They placed it between three barriers on the table.

When they finished arranging it, making a few last touch ups, one of the men asked me:

“What is this?”

I thought about how I would respond for a moment, but I knew there was nothing else to say, so I took a deep breath and in a steady voice I said:

“A checkpoint”.

A satisfied smile spread across my rain-wet face.

idiotic investigation the 8th

[It is recommended to listen to the following track while reading this investigation Jason Lescalleet – Un Peu De Neige Sans Raison.]

“A truly impeccable hotel. Always half-empty, always brand new.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

0

The crystal chandeliers swung unevenly over a broad segment of corridor through which a dozen or so mirrors reflected their dim and flickering amber.

An elevator opened its doors onto the 9^th floor depositing three identical gentlemen.
The identical three were identically dressed with creased slacks and graphite ties.

The elevator closed its doors behind them, taking with it its shaft of light.

Our three gentlemen made their way through the curved corridor beneath the dimming and persistently surging amber light of the chandeliers.

None of them responded to the screaming that belted out of the single ovular room on this floor of the hotel; a single ovular room around which the corridor snaked like a windowless amber halo, leading back to the elevator.
The screams punctured the silent tinkering of the chandeliers, the padded steps of our gentlemen; the noises made the air warmer before they were absorbed by the halo, made quiet once more.

Our three gentlemen walked, soaked in amber.

Upon arriving at the first door to the room, our first gentleman stopped walking while the other two carried on.
Upon arriving at the second door to the room, our second gentleman also stopped
while last of the three still carried on.
Upon arriving at the third door to the room, our third gentleman finally stopped.

Our three gentlemen were positioned like the points of an equilateral triangle outside the three doors of the large ovular room.

No. 900

As one, the three identical gentlemen lowered onto their knees, each like a pot of plastic flowers, dumb, silent, and with an imperceptible quiver––pupils dilated with desire.

In time, with their shoulders hunched under the amber light of the corridor, our three gentlemen became tense and excited; something animal in them, in the hot skin of their arms and legs was raised: they began to tear at the thick carpeting, plucking up hot thread, panting quietly, persistently, intently; their toes curling inside their bright shoes.
The dozen mirrors of the corridor reflected them as they were grinding their teeth, as they were were peering through each of their keyholes into room

No. 900.

1

Mirrors only increased in number within the ovular room; pristine and lining the walls and parts of the ceiling. Some were framed with curtains.

The furniture was heavy:
A satin settee with fat buttons was a thread from bursting all over the room; the rugs, oriental and thick, lay there soaking up screams, collecting them inside their silk rectangles; some paintings, nudes in front of more mirrors hung over some of the mirror-walls; and, at the head of the ovular room, a well-made silk-thread bed of cold sheets––a bed of plump pillows and lifting scent.

Each mirror reflected every other one creating a manifold of vanishing infinities.

And at the center of each mirror there was the reflection two human figures: an older man on his knees, tied and gagged, and a woman, towering above him on a stool, leathered and frowning.

The whip came down silently on the older man’s clothed back.
His scream went straight into a carpet.

0

Our three gentlemen, still outside, peered intently through their keyholes.
Having forgotten everything but the spectacle inside, their bodies grew hot.

2

Black satin heels and naked legs came down from the stool.

The older man, still clothed, was pleading as the leathered woman kneeled over him with a small blade that she ran over his back.
She began to cut through his suit jacket and shirt, lightly grazing the skin.

Her eyes were wide and unblinking. Her smile was slight but intent.

The whip came down once more, this time on his bare skin.
This time, the noise of the whip was louder than the man’s cry.

She began to run the blade over his sleeves, again with a slight graze of the skin.
The older man’s face looked delighted.

0

Our three gentlemen, still hunched in terrible desire, did not hear the elevator return.

The doors of the elevator closed behind our man as he stepped off it, visibly concerned, dressed in pinstripe pajamas and perhaps more than a little sleepy.
His feet were bare.

He began to walk along the curve of the corridor, amidst the amber light, the shivering chandeliers, the fogged mirrors.

Reaching a certain point he stopped at side table with a notepad and a pen.
He wrote something before tearing out a paper and folding it into his pajama pocket.

A scream from inside the room made him stare at the wall.
For a moment, he studied his own reflection.

3

The older man was now entirely naked; his clothes, in tatters, were gathered into a mound on the carpet near him. He was still tied and gagged and the woman ran her fingers along the lines left by the blade on his skin.
She was standing behind him, kneeling over his lowered head.

Digging into his chest with her nails, she left cat marks, glowing red and swelling.
The older man instinctively kneeled toward the ground to protect his chest.

With his naked back parallel to the ground and hands tied behind him, fingers at the ceiling, the woman turned and allowed the weight of her thighs and the soft curve of her leathered backside, to sit on him.

Slowly her tight body came down onto his cold, naked and wounded figure.

She sat on his back, he facing in one direction and she in the other.

0

Our man, having disengaged from the mirror, began to walk slowly along the curve of the corridor once more.
After a few steps he saw the first of the three gentlemen hunched at the door to the large ovular room.

Our man hesitated but resolutely approached the gentlemen nevertheless.
Arriving behind him, he spoke.

“Hello.”

The gentlemen, so enraptured at the door, took some time in responding.
He slow turned toward our man, giving him a look that our man could not understand.

4

She removed the gag from over his mouth.

“Tell me your sins,” the woman demanded of the older man.
She was running the whip along the back of his naked thighs, his pitiful backside.

She sat, legs spread wide and lifted over heels.
Her chin faced upward; black hair severely tied back.

She was scraping the long nails of her free hand along the rope that held the older man’s hands together.

0

Our man hesitated in front of the scowling and hunched gentleman.

“Never mind, thank you.”

He walked away quickly along the curved amber corridor.

5

“I lived selfishly,” confessed the older man, face pressed into the carpet.

He began to have difficulty supporting the woman’s weight on his back; sensing this she dealt him a kiss of the whip to a fleshy part of his thigh.

He cried out in response and thanked her before arching his back once more in order to adjust her seat. The hot skin of her thighs pressed against the wounds of his back.

“More sins,” she demanded and suddenly turned to pull his graying hair back.

His face lifted: closed eyes, biting his lip in pleasure.

“I enjoy this.”

She stood up and landed the whip straight onto his spine, making him collapse.

0

The three identical gentlemen were violently aroused behind their keyholes. They persisted in tearing at the carpet, in writhing within their clothes.
They grew hotter but did not loosen their clothing.

Our man was slowly approaching the second hunched gentleman, note in hand.
Arriving behind him, he spoke.

“Hello.”

In his extreme agitation the second gentleman made no response.
Our man stared, transfixed by the gentleman’s fingers as they plucked at the carpeting.

He spoke again, but it made no difference; the hunched gentleman was not there.
Our man turned to walk again, but he heard a word from behind the door that made him stop. Unable to help himself, our man leaned over the hunched gentleman in order to listen through the door.

His pajamas brushed the back of the second gentleman’s suit jacket; this contact finally made the second gentleman turn up to face our man.

He gave our man the same inexplicable look that the first gentleman had given him.

Our man moved quickly along the curved amber corridor.

6

The woman was now on the settee.

The older man was complying with her demand that he stand up and walk toward the bed, where he was to sit down with his feet on the ground; hands still tied behind his back, he stumbled onto his feet.

Once in place, she uncrossed her legs and stood up, leaving the whip behind on a cushion.

She moved toward the bed, its scent filling her head.
She moved toward the bed, his pitiful figure pulling her.

She stood between his parted legs and slapped him cleanly across the face.
The older gentleman began to stir; feet flexed, he was becoming aroused

She slapped him savagely on the other cheek.

0

Our man was moving quickly along the corridor, persistently catching himself in the endless row of mirrors. The amber light was tiring him.

He saw the third gentleman hunched at the third door and called out to him.

“Hey.”

The third gentleman responded immediately: he stood up and faced our man.

“What do you want?”

Our man stumbled on his words; he had honestly not expected to be noticed.

“…to, to deliver this note to whoever is in the room.” He said this while holding out the folded note in his right hand. “You see, I … I had a long day this morning and, you see, I’ll probably be having another long day tomorrow. And the noise. I’m on the 8^th floor, below, you see. The noise, I can’t sleep. So …”

The third gentleman simply looked back at our man as he spoke. He then made a gesture as though to invite our man to enter the room, to deliver the message himself.
As though this was a completely acceptable thing to do.

Our man stayed in his spot, not yet able to move.

7

She gagged the older man once again.

He was trying to bring himself closer to her thighs, but with each attempt he received a smack across his face.

Finally, the woman grew tired of the older man’s insolence and lifted her leg high above his and brought her heel straight into his thigh, allowing it to slowly pierce his skin.

The man let out a muffled scream; he only hardened.
Her red lips opened so that her white teeth could snatch at his hairy skin.

0

Our man, though uncertain, felt that he ought to approach the open door, that he ought not to pass up the opportunity to express his complaint about the noise. Moreover, our man was genuinely concerned about the screaming: he thought perhaps that something terrible was happening inside and that he should help if help was needed.

He stepped forward while the third gentleman simply looked at him.
Moving quickly he tried not to look into the third gentleman’s eyes, which he did not like.
When he reached the door, he prepared himself to knock on it. The third gentleman moved in closer to our man.

Upon knocking, the door – as though it had no mechanism – simply swung open.
The force of our man’s knock, though mild, was enough to push the door totally open.
Our man was surprised by what he saw.

Room No. 900 was dark as night.

“Idiot!” He heard the third gentleman snarl.

Suddenly, our man was pushed into the room and the door was pulled shut behind him.

“Stay in there!”

Disoriented in the impossible darkness of the room, he stumbled forward, trying to grab hold of something in order to steady himself. He expected to find a man, a woman, something, light; he found nothing as he stumbled forward.

Ø

Our man was at the centre of the black ovular room. Around him he heard frantic steps and hostile calls from the amber corridor. Their voices came and went, sounding much more than three at times, and at times, much less.

Then silence, and our man was as good as blind.

Suddenly, the three doors of the room burst open, allowing three streams of amber light to wash into the room around the silhouettes of the three identical gentlemen.

The three of them began to walk into the room; as one, they approached our man.

“You spoiled our fun,” one – or all – of them said.

––––––––––––––––– THE END

[For a brief essay revolving around themes addressed in this investigation, please visit the currently featured Thoughts on Idiocy.]

idiotic investigation the 7th

“One of them told me that you cannot breathe right before an explosion.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

0

Cheeks inflated. Eyes open before the mirror.
She held her breath.
Then she exhaled quickly – baah –, fogging the mirror.

Again, she inflated her cheeks, holding her breath before the clearing mirror.
Eyes open, looking right and left.
Then she exhaled once more – baah –, fogging the mirror.

A third time, inhaling, cheeks painfully inflated.
Eyes open.

In an instant, all the air came out – baah …
–– The mirror shook and the noise was deafening.

1

The car, dented and smoking, burned; it was incinerating smoothly to the gentleness of its steely tink – tink – tink.

The flames grew while the air blackened over the car’s white-hot chassis; while benzene dripped in a gleaming brown zigzag onto the gray asphalt dust; while red and white sirens echoed in countless arcs from the 32 balconies above; while the fat and emptying zero of an overfull cellular network settled deafeningly over the city; while countless screens burst to light in dimmed living rooms, showing talking faces, scrambling bodies, a vague cloud of rising smoke; while the burning car – now extinguished – was finally captured in the frame of a camera, the sound of its tink – tink – tink inaudible forever, limited now by the quick sound of talk – talk – talk.

Here, in this place, just minutes before, there was death, abruptly, decidedly.

baah –

2

Our man was parked down the street from where the explosion occurred.
The car’s rear windshield had shattered.

He stepped out of his own car––unharmed.

Urgency choked the things around him, but our man stood in his place, unmoving, the car door open behind him; he was staring at the exploded car, at its extinguished flames giving way to endless vertically rising smoke.

Beyond this our man blankly observed a traffic light, bent almost horizontally, switching lights, unheeded and unheeding.
Green. Red.
Green. Red.
Green … Then he looked inside his own car.

3

In the passenger seat there was a cage.

He saw cat paws poking through; he heard cat claws nervously scraping the plastic walls of the box; he felt that inside there was an entirely other kind of panic.

The box shivered with the thrusting weight of the animal––back and forth; unable to do anything at that moment, our man observed the box shake out its violence.

Then he looked at the street once more.

4 

She was watching the television intently; unable to sit down, she remained standing where she was, watching the same stream of images recur endlessly.

From the top of the street, hurrying past a row of cars with shattered rear windows, past a group of dumpsters dented and thrown onto their sides, past burning trees and people calling out to each other, to the center of everything––the exploded car, dented and smoking.

She continued to stand in her place, hand sweating onto the remote control, unable to sit down, watching the same stream of images recur endlessly.

From the top of the street, hurrying: a row of cars with shattered rear windows; a group of dumpsters dented and thrown onto their sides; burning trees; people calling out; the exploded car, dented and smoking. 

She tried to keep breathing steadily, she tried to not stop breathing even for a second; the effort tired her, she grew dizzy, she started to sweat more, she needed to sit down, but she didn’t; she remained standing where she was, watching the same stream of images recur endlessly.

From the top of the street, hurrying: a row of cars; a group of dumpsters; burning trees and people; the exploded car, dented and smoking.
From the top of the street:
––the exploded car,
––the exploded car,
––the exploded car, dented and smoking.

She sat down on the floor, breathing steadily.

5

Our man was standing nearer to the exploded car now; the smell of burning chemicals, melted rubber, incinerated paint, of dust falling continually, all filled his nostrils.

He looked up at a first-floor apartment, the aluminum balcony of which was twisted into a shape resembling a lower-case letter; its wilted frame stretched down onto the pavement like a hand from a deathbed.
The balcony furniture, blackened, blasted and bereaved.

Through shattered glass our man saw countless eyes.
––eyes below bleeding foreheads.
––eyes above straight and silent mouths.

Nothing but the sound of car doors: opening, closing, slamming, and opening again.
A symphony of doors.
Our man approached the exploded car.

6

From it was pulled a charred body, quickly covered with a sheet.

The single shiny leather shoe on the body was like a signature, hanging out from under the sheet––shoelace undone and the heel almost out.

Soldiers arrived in their trucks soon after: more doors opened; more doors closed.
The tape came up instantly, closing off the area immediately around the exploded car.

Our man was now near enough to touch it.

7

The charred body was being lifted into an ambulance.
Our man had seen this before––this same body being lifted into an ambulance.

The charred body finally lost its shoe. Our man hurried to the shoe, held it; hot and melted, the laces hung lightly over his wrist.

Our man had seen this before––

The ambulance doors slammed shut.
With the shoe in hand, our man watched it recede, up the street, around the corner.
Then soldiers, firefighters and journalists crowded into his view.

The ambulance was gone, even the sound of its siren evaporated.
Our man tried to recall their sound, but he could not.
The street was filled with officials.

The explosion finally occurred.
The cameras were rolling.
It occurred 10,000 more times before it stop occurring.

8 

She turned off the television.
She turned it back on; then back off.

9

Our man stayed in his place, holding the shoe.

Gradually the firefighters left one by one; the ambulances – having collected the dead, the dying, the injured and the shocked – also left one by one; the soldiers dwindled; the onlookers looked but from further away; the debris was collected.

The cameras stopped rolling.

Our man stayed, pitifully holding the leather shoe in his hand while everything left him.
Then a man in a suit approached our man; he took the shoe from his hand.
The shoe was placed in a plastic bag.

Quickly, the exploded car was pushed off to the side of the road, surrounded with steel barriers and covered with a plastic tarp.
The smoke was gone.

Our man could not remember what the scene looked like a moment ago.

10

Walking back, the dumpsters were upright again, undented––the streets no longer covered in trash.
Walking back, the trees were no longer burned and singed, their leaves and flowers in place, pristine.
Walking back, the rear windows of all the cars were intact, transparent and clean; the cars no longer covered in dust and debris.
Walking back, he opened his car door and saw that the cat was dozing calmly in its cage.

Turning, with the car door still open behind him, the traffic light was vertical again.
Red. Green.
Red. Green.
Red … he climbed into the drivers seat.

Our man’s mind had become a complete blank; he had no thoughts to think.
He closed his eyes and rested his head.

Somehow, our man slept.

11

Cheeks inflated. Eyes open before the mirror.
She held her breath.
Then she exhaled quickly – baah –, fogging the mirror.

11

Our man awoke with a thought that was making him smile.

He reached over and stroked the cat through the cage.
It was still dozing.

11

Again, she inflated her cheeks …

11

Looking at the time, our man reached forward to turn the ignition.

11

–– The mirror shook and the noise was deafening

1

The car, dented and smoking, burned; it was incinerating smoothly to the gentleness of its steely tink – tink – tink.