Pulp Friday Continues...

Previously on Pulp Friday: PF 1

I finally sit up from my floor. Both the front and back of my head both throb. I smell pepper and there's a black spot in my vision for a few seconds. I start to think it would have been easier if I had been knocked out completely. Then I think about how I ended up this way after coming home expecting some relaxation time with a much needed drink.

Several people had been in my apartment. No way of knowing how long. One of those persons got dragged out while the other few (or was it several?) left in a hurry once I came home. Why were they here? The one with the sneering mouth, who pounded me with my own door, said something to me before I left. Or he left. It's fuzzy.

I decide I've really earned my drink by this point. I make sure front door is locked and walk slowly back to my kitchen. There's nothing in the fridge to mix with vodka except mayonnaise and soy sauce, so I just splash some water into the full tumbler and call it even.

Who were these people? How did they get in? What did they want and why was one of them being forcibly removed?

Sipping my drink, I walk back down the hallway to the front. There's a crack in the door where my head kissed it. I'd call it shoddy carpentry if my head wasn't so hard and thick.

There's one overturned chair in the living room, but nothing else has been disturbed. Nothing's broken or missing. There's small pieces of paper on the floor, but that could just as easily have come from the cats in one of their crazy playtimes. If it wasn't for the chair, I wouldn't think anyone had been here.

I drink some more and walk through the living room slowly. My head's starting to feel better. I stop when I see something poking out from under the couch.

It's a little white piece of cloth. I pull it out from under the couch and turn it over in my hands. It's about the size of a handkerchief. It feels damp, but even stranger, the cloth is more like paper than a handkerchief, even though it's made of cotton. The material doesn't bundle when I hold it in my fist. There's a slight crinkling sound and I can feel something other than cotton. My slightly bruised brain asks me what the hell this is.

I find the answer as I spread the cloth out flat on my table. There's something inside the cloth. I can see the outline of something square and dark inside the white material. It must have been sewn in there.

I use scissors to cut open the cloth and find out what's inside. I rip off one layer of the cloth and see something that looks like carbon paper with crumpling creases all over it. I pick it up and turn it over feeling that shudder in my spine for the third time today as I do so.

It's a photograph of my dead wife. Jenny's smiling and creased face looks up at me. There's no sound but I hear high-pitched noise from somewhere.

This will continue...

Next on Pulp Friday: PF 3
PF 4
PF 5
PF 6
PF 7
PF 8
PF 9