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Thump! Critisism Please
Thump!
The stubble on John’s face made him realize that he had only been dead for a night. John blinked his eyes and looked around, scratching the short hairs that covered his cheeks and chin like the mask Hannibal Lector wore. However, he was free to bite whatever (or whomever) he pleased, but besides the fact that he had no disposition to bite anybody, he also had nobody to bite.
In fact, he was completely alone in the field that he had seen only for a few seconds the night before. He looked down at the impression he had made in the grass, a comical caricature of how he looked while he was falling. The indentation on the grass would hold his body in a few minutes, and then they would find him and write up a report nice and proper. Nothing to see here folks. Alert the next of kin and whatnot. He had written up plenty of police report slips, neat and orderly. Being a detective wasn't such a bad job.
“Well,” said John, “this is death eh?” and he smiled at his private joke. If somebody was around John was sure that even if he or she (how he hated that phrase, political correctness and all that bullocks) could hear him, he or she (there it is again!) would probably assume that it was just their imagination. John stretched, yawned and cracked his neck and back. He had fallen in quite an uncomfortable position. He didn’t hurt, though, and was glad for that. He imagined the terrible pain of being eaten by a shark or a tiger or a pack of gutter rats and then was thankful for the shock that made his heart painlessly stop beating.
He looked up to see if any balloons were out this early (It was a good view of the sunrise, 1,000 feet really didn’t have many obstacles to block the view.) "It's a nice day,” He said aloud.
“Yes, well, I’ll tell the boss you think so,” the monkey said from behind him. “Anyway, how did you enjoy being an investigator?” The monkey was always a few minutes late.
“The coffee was bad this time around,” said John, turning around to face his guest.
“It never does get better,” said the monkey.
“So this time it was the hot air balloon.”
“Better than the rats.”
“Yeah, I suppose it was.”
This was about the 8th time John had met with the monkey. His first meeting was the only frightening one. The monkey explained that he was only an agent, and was John’s guide for the time being. The monkey (who has and always will be referred to as “the monkey”) proceeded to install John in a new body, which would die only to let John find the monkey again upon death.
“So, what’ll it be this time?” the monkey said “I know of an opening in the upper west side; expectant mother who is quite wealthy. You’re a good guy, John, you can have that one if you'd like,” said the monkey.
“That sounds cushy.”
“Oh believe me, it is. You could have that…or you could have something a bit less pampered; there are openings all over the world.”
“I don’t know...surprise me,” John said. He snapped his arm back into its socket in a futile attempt to rebuild his smashed body.
“I always do.”
And it was true.
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To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of the mists, and may each and every one of us give the devil his due.
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