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Smoke and Mirrors: Chapter 4
4
Trouble just seems to come my way- unbidden, unwelcome, unneeded.
~ Frank Sinatra
I arrived home at about three in the morning, since I’d had to cut my night early because of that damn wolf and the bastard on the roof. It was a small apartment building with German architecture on the east side of town -near West Cambridge Cemetery and East Main Street- in other words, an old mansion a dead-end road, across from a old plot of land where they burry dead people. No wonder the rent’s so cheap, right?
Unfortunately, I live on the third floor and my apartment building closes it’s doors at around ten… So, I usually start off by climbing the old oak on the north side of the property that faces the graveyard, and climb in through my living room window. It’s not exactly the most graceful way to get into your apartment in the middle of the night, but it certainly is the most original.
I went as far as putting my leg over the windowsill, before stopping dead, and glaring into the darkness. The place reeked of demon… And I had no intention of losing anything more than the leg I had so carelessly poked inside. “Whoever you are,” I called. “I’m not stepping another toe inside, until you show yourself!”
“Relax, girl,” a voice called from inside my apartment. “I have no wish to harm you.”
I snorted, and slowly removed my leg, backing away onto the branch. “Somehow I doubt that,” I called back. “Harmless people tend to use the door.”
“So true…” The voice chuckled from the darkness. “And yet not so true. That aside, I must wonder what is portrays of your character, that you should be sneaking through the window of your own home in the middle of the night?”
I laughed in return. “I never claim to be harmless, pal.” I grinned, glaring into the apartment. “My only concern right now is that I’ve found an annoying troublemaker hiding in the place where I sleep… Has no one ever told you, reaper, that it’s rude to barge in uninvited on someone else’s turf?”
“Oh? So, you knew what I was?” The reaper asked, bemused.
“Of course, I do!” I snapped, waving a hand in front of my nose. “I could smell your reaper stench as soon as I opened the window!”
Let me explain… To those of us who have sensitive noses, “Grim Reapers” smell like roses. Dead roses! Dead roses that’ve been rotting on top of a fresh corpse for about a week… Yeah, that’s what Death smells like.
“How quaint…” The voice snickered from behind the window. “A lower lifeform with a sense of humor.”
“How interesting…” I shot back. “A smelly excuse for a stuck-up asshole with a fetish for B&A! Who, by the way, has yet to tell my what the hell they think they’re doing in my house!”
The reaper laughed again from the shadows. “I suppose you are right, I did come here on business, didn’t I? Very well then… No doubt, it would not do well to tease the animals in their cages after all…”
I grinned at him, showing off the sharp...
Trouble just seems to come my way- unbidden, unwelcome, unneeded.
~ Frank Sinatra
I arrived home at about three in the morning, since I’d had to cut my night early because of that damn wolf and the bastard on the roof. It was a small apartment building with German architecture on the east side of town -near West Cambridge Cemetery and East Main Street- in other words, an old mansion a dead-end road, across from a old plot of land where they burry dead people. No wonder the rent’s so cheap, right?
Unfortunately, I live on the third floor and my apartment building closes it’s doors at around ten… So, I usually start off by climbing the old oak on the north side of the property that faces the graveyard, and climb in through my living room window. It’s not exactly the most graceful way to get into your apartment in the middle of the night, but it certainly is the most original.
I went as far as putting my leg over the windowsill, before stopping dead, and glaring into the darkness. The place reeked of demon… And I had no intention of losing anything more than the leg I had so carelessly poked inside. “Whoever you are,” I called. “I’m not stepping another toe inside, until you show yourself!”
“Relax, girl,” a voice called from inside my apartment. “I have no wish to harm you.”
I snorted, and slowly removed my leg, backing away onto the branch. “Somehow I doubt that,” I called back. “Harmless people tend to use the door.”
“So true…” The voice chuckled from the darkness. “And yet not so true. That aside, I must wonder what is portrays of your character, that you should be sneaking through the window of your own home in the middle of the night?”
I laughed in return. “I never claim to be harmless, pal.” I grinned, glaring into the apartment. “My only concern right now is that I’ve found an annoying troublemaker hiding in the place where I sleep… Has no one ever told you, reaper, that it’s rude to barge in uninvited on someone else’s turf?”
“Oh? So, you knew what I was?” The reaper asked, bemused.
“Of course, I do!” I snapped, waving a hand in front of my nose. “I could smell your reaper stench as soon as I opened the window!”
Let me explain… To those of us who have sensitive noses, “Grim Reapers” smell like roses. Dead roses! Dead roses that’ve been rotting on top of a fresh corpse for about a week… Yeah, that’s what Death smells like.
“How quaint…” The voice snickered from behind the window. “A lower lifeform with a sense of humor.”
“How interesting…” I shot back. “A smelly excuse for a stuck-up asshole with a fetish for B&A! Who, by the way, has yet to tell my what the hell they think they’re doing in my house!”
The reaper laughed again from the shadows. “I suppose you are right, I did come here on business, didn’t I? Very well then… No doubt, it would not do well to tease the animals in their cages after all…”
I grinned at him, showing off the sharp...
