On the Case - Norman L. Winchester

I am writing this from a cabin made of logs deep in a wilderness so far from anywhere I ever expected to find myself holed up with Rogers. The sky  is dark and collapsing with rain and I am concerned we will perhaps never break free of this place, but rather be consumed by cold mud without trace.

If I think too carefully about the enquiries we made and the questions we asked to lead us to this point, my head aches and fills with white noise. Some sleeping dogs should be left to lie and my gut reminded me of this when our client approached us with an apparently simple task of recovering his notebook from the belongings of a girlfriend who and run away and gone to ground. Yet I ignored my instincts and so did Rogers. We need the money and, more than that, we needed the thrill. Our offices have been festering with inactivity for some time and the atmosphere thick with reproach. I had no fingernails left to destroy, no whiskey with which to burn my chest back to life and certainly no will left to live another day under the weight of Roger's intolerable bitter fidgeting.

So we took the case and demanded a ridiculous fee upfront, he paid it and I gave my half away that night to wine and dine some not too bright but pretty thing who collapsed on my sofa in heap like a dead bird, too drunk to offer me comfort and reward for my exhausting night of wit, charm and generosity. Rogers has no idea of the male condition and mocked me by proxy from her satisfying night in with a novel while I conned myself that man needs woman like oxygen and all the while all I needed was a slap and some fresh air.

N.L.W.