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When I woke up it was clear I had missed the first few minutes of an event with no cause I could fathom. The entire view out the window was a thick cloud of swirling chalky off white dust being carried off by the wind. Old and young shouting and crying outside and in the rooms behind me. I hobble-lunged down from upstairs dodging the panicked couple I had stayed with overnight. Hoofed it past samey stucco and tile-roofed McMansions, frantically half loaded cars, two deserted looking houses that you could only tell had been mid-paintjob by the ladders, tarps, open garage and Econoline vans, logos now unintelligible, down to house [----] and didn't even have to finesse any info out of that neighbor or the other neighbor like I expected, they were outside telling everyone within earshot what I needed to know. I caught the tail end of what looked to be a mid 60s woman saying that the next door neighbor had written a goodbye note on a Forex trading forum they both frequented and some other one I couldn't make out. She had gone inside to check on her and found her body. No one else had been living with her for at least a week after some older guy left. I started running back. As soon as I made it back through the front door I started searching, grabbing a mug full of what turned out to be scissors in hopes there was a decent pencil or pen inside. After repeating the process with highlighters I gave up and made it nearly to the guest room and my precious cargo, past the couple whom I had left unaddressed in my own panic and determination. The fairer one (I had forgotten both their names after some combination of the polite but awkward dinner the night before and the shock of the morning's events) called out to me while I tossed my bag for paper and envelope. I only noticed her again when she sat down at the edge of the bed. The slant in her shoulders and the look on her face told me if I wanted to excuse myself in an unremarkable fashion, one not involving the police, that I had better give her something. I explained I was looking for my grandfather, who had sent a letter implying he was leaving his temporary lodgings behind. He was estranged from my father and had been worried he would get his number off my phone, hence the letter. He had managed to find a room at a house with an address auspicious to me but not my father or his other children. He made an oblique reference to an obscure song that he knew was burned into my memory, one containing a four digit number as the only spoken words. I didn't know how safe it was to tell her about the inheritance, so I reflexively made as if to close the door, halfheartedly moving from the bed to my knees to paw at the edge of the door. The door was impeded at the halfway point by a hand sewn cotton toy sliding underneath. I could never prove it, but the sight of my gingerly pulling the door back and a tiny frog dressed in a button down being revealed as the cause of the stuck door may have dialed down the tension in both of us such that my simultaneous worry that the door closure would read as a predatory rather than protective move didn't appear to be one she shared. I showed her my grandfather's letter and apologized for the part where he mentioned something bad was coming and that he was going to light out of town for OOOO if i didn't make it there in ten days. I told her I wasn't about to ransack a dead woman's house for any letter he left behind, even with the commotion as cover, and that I was heading home. She arranged the door slightly ajar, talked to her partner downstairs for a minute while I checked my phone for texts i sent my own mentioning their first names and address. (R---- and A---) and sat back down and wrote a short note, placed it in an envelope, asked her to look at and then seal it when she came back in case anyone came asking. Whether or not the visitor seemed in my corner was immaterial. She took it, gave me a slight hug, and I had them drop me off at a Greyhound on the way to their hotel secured by A---. I stared off into the horizon once we were on the freeway. I felt all the speculation burn away through a pinhole in the back of my skull and I closed my eyes. When I woke up, I had a text from R---- explaining that she had talked to the neighbors on either side of the house of interest and included a letter they found, split into several images. I thanked her and tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep.
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Apr 2, 2022 19:57
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 08:14 |
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