How About This, Then?
The lemur had an extraordinarily bemused look on its face. As if it almost had expected itself to wake up this fine autumn day in the midst of the zoo and find it wasn't, any longer, a lemur. Why it would think this, no one was quite sure. Not even the zookeeper, who would loudly explain to anyone who happened to visit the lemur cage that morning that the lemur wasn't normally like this. It was hard to say which behavior was more disturbing, the zookeeper's or the lemur, quietly sitting on a stump of a log, chewing on a leaf of something he picked up at some point in the morning.
This was nothing, however, to the expression on the detective's face who was assigned to the lemur.
He was rumpled, as detectives go. He slouched down on a zoo bench, alternately watching the lemur from a pair of scuffed binoculars and lowering the binoculars to catch a glimpse through his unaided eyes. He was probably in his forties, and looked like the sort of man that would be being followed by a detective of his own. And not like an assistant detective to the main detective, but like a suspect of another one.
In fact, if you stumbled around the corner from the lizard pit to the lemur cage you might think the lemur had stolen the rumpled man's watch or something, for the glowering looks he was giving the lemur every so often from his bench. You'd also, more likely than not, stay a healthy distance from the man, even at the cost of wandering into the zookeeper's general vicinity and being subjected to the "I don't have the faintest idea why the lemur is acting so strange" speech.
This wasn't far from the truth. The detective had been hired by the head of a major television and entertainment organization to get his wallet back. It had disappeared somewhere in Australia, on a business trip, and the network head reported it upon his return to the States. His aide had turned to Fob in his time of need, and sent him off. The aide gave him several hints, most of which centered around the trip to Australia and the complete and utter lack of an expense account. Which was why Fob was now sitting in the zoo, watching the bemused lemur.
And all the more lucky when he saw the zookeeper, with no more patrons to harass, turn towards his hut. And as he sauntered back to his hut, with one last annoyed look at the lemur, he took out something from his back pocket, and swung it lackadaisically by the gold chain connecting the wallet to his belt clip. The same gold chain on the network chief's wallet.
Fob got up, stretched his legs, and went looking for an ice cream vendor.
disclaimer:
Who knew? Not us, that's for sure.
But here we are again. One last time? Or will you notice nothing at all? Will we notice nothing at all? What the heck are we talking about?
At any rate, here you go. Our last(?) issue. For now, at least. Maybe. Or maybe not. Let this be a lesson to you about the folly of planning ahead. Just go about your daily lives willy-nilly, just winging it, and it'll all work out in the end. Or you'll wind up stuck for material, as you'd no previous thoughts about what to write or do. So there you have it.
We would love to see you all again. Soon. And who knows? Maybe we'll be around, because we'll miss you all too much to bear.
(This, by the way, was a special treat from William Murphy, our old friend and collaborator in Worcester, MA. It's an early sketch for Fob, who shows up in the divine Sleep(s) on Chickens and the murderous Curious. We hope you enjoyed it.)
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