User:Zombiebaron/wip/UnBooks:The Thrilling Adventure of Dr. Pestilence P.I.; or Eggnog: First Contact
Part I, or There and Back Again[edit | edit source]
The city is dirty. That's all I can see from my window. A dirty city. Dingy and unclean. The smell overwhelming. Down on the side walk, there is a businessman taking a shit. That's not a metaphor either. His pants are around his ankles, and he has neatly placed his briefcase on the ground beside him. Its times like this when I want to drink eggnog. Just a mug full of eggnog. Perhaps with some nutmeg. Not to much nutmeg though, because I hear that it can really do strange things with one's mind, and I can't afford any lapses in judgment. Not when I'm Doctor Pestilence, Private Investigator, the world's first P.I. with a PhD. in Art History.
My craving for eggnog drives me from my bed. As I pass my tape deck, I press the "play" button absentmindedly. Brian Wilson sings "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)" as I open the fridge door. There is no eggnog. Which, is probably to be expected, due to it being August. This is utterly not cool. Not cool at all. And, to make this whole utterly not cool situation even warmer, the grocer probably doesn't have any eggnog either. Right? Well, I can't say for sure. I mean, I've not yet been to the grocer's today, and it doesn't take a PhD in Art History to know that you can't know what you don't know. Its like there are known knowns, right? There are things we know that we know. There are also known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know. As they say in Oxford: "Ignoramus et ignorabimus".
So, I find my coat and grab my hat, and make the bus in seconds flat. The bus to the grocer's. Smeugan Grocer's — a little hole in the wall of a place, but a grocer's nonetheless. It was only as was taking my seat on the bus I noticed my lack of trousers. What a fine day today is shaping up to be.
Part II, or Theatrum Orbis Terrarum[edit | edit source]
"No eggnog today", came a voice from behind the counter.
"Well, that's a fine way to great me, Chrysophylax", I replied. Chrysophylax Dives is the owner of Smeugan Grocer's, by the way. I'm not entirely sure what kind of cruel game his parents were play at when they named him, but its left an equally cruel temperament on the poor chap.
"There will be no eggnog until November, Doctor."
"Oh, but the cravings have become worse. Its not like yesterday or the day before or the day before that when I came in here only wearing my coat and hat. Today I need eggnog."
"That's what you said yesterday."
"Well, Chrysophylax, today isn't yesterday. Today I brought my...tin of," I pick up the first tin off the shelf behind me, "beans, and I intend to bludgeon you to death unless you phone the dairy and order some eggnog." What can I say? I really really need some eggnog. Just a mugfull. Is that too much to bloody well ask for?
"You're a funny one, Doc."
"Whenever I can be. I'll take this tin, if you please," I figured I could use the tin to threaten whoever's in charge of the next place in my odyssey.
"That'll be $3.33, with tax."