What do I need? Towel. Toothbrush. Deodorant. There’s too much. Every time I start to leave, I remember something else that needs to be squeezed into my duffel bag. Did I remember my laptop? Razors? Books? A pen? Do I need a pen? I dump the bag on the bed and take a step toward the hotel room bathroom before turning to address the issue of my meager belongings dribbling over the lip of the bag and scattering themselves across the pristinely made bed. I had slept in the room’s only chair last night. Muttering obscenities, I hastily pick up and throw what I can find back into the bag.
Where had I gotten that duffel bag? A faded elephant with a six-pack and cartoony eyes hefts a dumbbell on a field of bright purple. It was from a gym, I remember. That never made sense to me. Why would anyone want to associate a gym with a really fat animal? I had never gotten around to cancelling my membership. I’d been dissatisfied with my results. It was not fast enough, so I got a decent knife and left the city. The knife! I scan the room in a sudden panic and find it lying on top of the TV, folded up beside the remote control. That would have to stay in a pocket or something. The elephant wears a pair of those shiny pants that swish when you walk. Nobody wants to see an elephant’s genitalia.
I toss the last few items without looking and head toward the bathroom, nearly tripping over my suitcase. I wish I could take it with me, instead of leaving it and most of my belongings behind. I grab my things from the bathroom, along with miniature bottles of shampoo and shower caps that I’ll never use, and bring them back to be tossed into the duffel bag. I spot a dozen more things that I would like to take, but the bag can barely hold what it has already. The seams look stretched beyond capacity. The elephant bulges out and gives me a knowing smile around his large tusks. He knows what I’m avoiding.
My eyes fall reluctantly on a leather bag buried in the corner of the room, stashed between a table leg and the wall. It’s much nicer than my duffel bag, but sports no weight-lifting pachyderms at all. I pause to pull open the curtains on my way over to the hidden bag. Morning light peeks in and I see the beginnings of an early day. Birds and children on vacation hop around the parking lot below, chirping and picking up small pieces of trash off the ground. Most of them would probably head into Boston today. Hotels are much cheaper outside of the city. Will I need a map of the area? Do I even have any maps at all?
In the two weeks I’ve been staying here, I never actually went into the city. I just needed a place to hide for a while. I check the time on a cheap clock on the bedside table””the elephant flexes as my eyes pass over the duffel bag””and sigh heavily as I squat down to pull out the bag. There is a pile of my clothes squished against the wall. I tried to wash the blood out of them but got only a revolting shade of brown instead. I don’t know if any of the cleaning staff saw it. I requested that they didn’t come in, and almost never left the room, but you never know for sure.
I gingerly loosen the straps on the leather bag and flip open the top. White bricks, pills, and bags that look to be filled with unfamiliar spices. Narcotic, hallucinogenic, depressant. I think that is what they are. I don’t know. Those are the only types of drugs I know. My high school Health class is the full extent of my knowledge on such matters. It’s not important. I know that they are illegal, and that’s still not the important part. What’s important is the pistol resting on top of everything, black and grooved and dully catching the thin stream of light creeping past the bottom edge of the curtain. I’m afraid that it will get up of its own will, turn and fire into my lungs. And that would be a simple ending to all of it, I suppose.
The gun actually did fire at me, a couple of weeks ago. I heard the bullet scream past my ear as I drove my knife into the man’s neck. I huddled against a dumpster in that alley for half an hour, shivering and””damn you for knowing it””crying. I eventually managed to drag myself up against the wall, where I shivered some more. After many minutes, I picked up the man’s gun, pulled my knife out of his neck, vomited, and then took his keys and his car and, hiding in the back seat, his leather bag filled with drugs.
The elephant was waiting for me on the kitchen table when I went home that night, smiling because we both knew that it would have to come eventually. The suitcase sat underneath the table, and I’m sure it would have laughed if it had the capacity to do so. Nobody will miss me.
And this is why the phone call terrified me. I never even listened to the message. The hotel phone blinked incessantly beside the bed. Nobody is supposed to know here I am. Nobody is supposed to even care where I am! I have to get out of here, wake up somewhere new tomorrow. I zip up the duffel bag over the gun, the last addition, and sling it over my shoulder. As I approach the exit, the doorknob rattles against the lock and I freeze. “It’s really more of a handle than a knob,” the elephant whispers in the back of my head. I guess he has a point.

"How in the name of all that has been desecrated by an egg-beater am I supposed to come up with a story out of just this?"

Jessica was mindlessly clicking away on her laptop playing World of Guild Wars, or Final Quest, or some such nonsense and apparently didn't deem her brother's question complete enough to justify interrupting her task with a response.

"The hallucinogenic elephant slathered itself in deodorant, swallowed a box full of doorknobs, and began chirping like a one-legged pelican."

Jessica briefly looked over the top of her screen at her younger brother.

"Huh?"

"It's a writing prompt for my creative writing class. I'm supposed to write a short story that includes five random words."

"And one of the words is a one legged pelican?"

Chad fought the urge to make a jocular retort at the expense of his sister's inability to count.

"Um... no, actually. They are elephant, doorknob, hallucinogenic, deodorant, and chirp."

"Is it supposed to be funny?"

"Not necessarily. It can be anything I..."

"Because that really wasn't." Jessica interrupted. "In fact, it doesn't even make sense. How can an elephant be hallucinogenic? Would you have to, like, lick it or something? And how does a one-legged pelican chirp anyway? Does it sound any different than a two-legged pelican?"

"Well it's nice to see that those computer games haven't completely ruined your college education."

A fleeting scowl darted across the room. Jessica continued to click away at the computer.

"Do you have to use the exact word or can you use the same--tense, or form or whatever you call putting an I-N-G on the end of it? Like chirp verses chirping."

"Uhhh......I'm not sure. The assignment doesn't say. And it's called the present participle." After a brief pause and a glance towards his English notebook Chad almost amended his statement with an "I think," but decided to let his sister think he knew what he was talking about.

"Whatever."

Clickety-click-click-clickety-click-click-click...

"Why don't you write about an out-of-work chemist?"

Chad chuckled. "Let's see. Hallucinogenic would be pretty simple, and deodorant probably wouldn't be too hard. And I could easily work in a doorknob or two if I was writing about a meth cooker working in an abandoned house that still had actual doorknobs. I could even use the chirping of the birds to portray the passage of time during an awkward silence if I was getting desperate--but what in the blazes am I supposed to do with an elephant?"

Chad saw a smirk spreading across his sister's face and knew a piercing comeback was about to be fired. He decided a preemptive strike was in order.

"There wouldn't happen to be any elephants in that game of yours, would there?"

"Hah!" She laughed and closed the lid on her laptop. "Okay then wise guy. Why don't you write a story about trying to come up with a good story based on nothing but five random words."

"You mean like give a word-for-word account of our present conversation?"

"No, that would be lame. Make it about how you stumble across a website that holds regular writing contests or something. First prize is worth one thousand dollars and you desperately need the money to impress a girl."

"To impress a girl? Really? A little cliché, isn't it?" He could hardly believe he was even considering the idea. "And besides, the whole idea is a bit risky. This assignment is graded on a curve so I need to make sure this is at least as good as what other people are going to hand in. Everyone else is probably going to come back with grand and epic tales from all the exotic places they went to on spring break. They'll do it with all five words subtly and masterfully woven in too, like they would have used them even if they weren't required."

"Well yeah, this would be about as subtle as dropping a sack of anvils in a swanky art gallery, but it'll be unique. That's gotta count for something."

"Maybe." Chad was now seriously considering his sister's suggestion, but suddenly feared that at least three other people would have the same idea.

"It's kinda the obvious solution though, isn't it? Take the five unrelated words that should take some skill and effort to work into a coherent story and simply beat the reader over the head with them."

"I dunno. You didn't think of it," Jessica replied. "Maybe you should ask your girlfriend; sounds like the kinda thing she could help with."

"Actually, she usually really likes my writing and I was hoping I could--" Chad shifted a little in his chair and with an embarrassed grin tugging at his reddening face turned towards his sister. "--uhhh... impress her with this one."

Enjoying watching her little brother squirm, Jessica tried to hold back a laugh but her meager efforts were unsuccessful.

"And you say my idea is cliché!"

Joining in his sister's laughter Chad pulled his laptop out of his backpack and set it on the table.

"Oh, I'm so going to fail!"

"That's the spirit," Jessica snickered as she reopened her computer and resumed the compulsive clicking.

“Remember what the doorknob said, and feed your head,” White Rabbit, a song about a ”˜trip’, the effects of a hallucinogenic drug, played as Sonu Mangeshkar sketched a picture of the elephant god, Ganesha.

He found that listening to music helped him draw. Well, it more or less drowned out the screaming and yelling coming from down the hall as his parents fought.

People always thought Indians were rich, successful, and smart, but the reality was that they had the same chance of success as any immigrants- little, if any.

His mother worked at a supermarket in the produce department while his father worked as a waiter in an Americanized Indian restaurant whose cuisine was about as authentic as a three-dollar bill.

The harsh sound of shouting in Hindi as obscenities and curses were traded would fade as the real action began and insults, cruel names, and fists weren’t the only things thrown.

At times like this, Sonu sometimes seriously considering taking his friend, Raul Jimenez, up on the offer of moving in with his family.

He looked at the shrine he’d made to Vishnu who, in all His incarnations, was the protective god of Hinduism, and Sonu often wondered why Vishnu didn’t protect his family. He knew that people made their own choices and he was fine with that, but why couldn’t Vishnu impose some kind of order in the home? Or was that Shiva’s job since Shiva danced the order of the world?

Sonu looked up when his sister’s bird began to chirp merrily. He hated Fidi, but there was nothing to be done about it, so he ignored it as best he could and continued drawing.

He lost himself in his artwork while his parents’ fighting escalated.

Maybe he’d get lucky and the neighbors would call the police though he doubted that would happen. Shiva wasn't the god of luck.

“Hey,” Raul climbed in through the window and took his shoes off before hopping off the window sill and landing neatly on the floor near the shrine to Vishnu.

Being Catholic, he’d never really understood his friend’s Hindu beliefs, but he liked the stories of the heroes and villains and found that they were far more interesting than the same old stories that were told throughout the Bible.

“Hey.” Sonu turned his iPod, a gift from Raul, off and looked up from his sketchbook. “Don’t mind them. They’re just getting warmed up.”

Raul shook his head slowly. “They’re really bad tonight. I could hear them from my room.” He sat down and looked at the sketch. “How come your gods look so weird?”

“No idea,” Sonu’s almond-brown face was broken by a dazzling smile. “But on the bright side, I’d rather look at the worst of them than my parents on a good day.”

Raul sighed and looked at the statue of Vishnu briefly. “C’mon over to my place tonight. Ma’s making tamales. They’re chicken since you don’t eat beef. And how come Hindus don’t eat beef? Is it because Hindus are vegans?”

Sonu shook his head slightly. “Cattle are sacred animals.” He looked at the hallway at the sound of his father slapping his mother hard enough to send her to the floor. He wished his parents would stop fighting for just one night. “It’s a long story… kind of like everything else in Hinduism.”

Raul nodded slightly. Hinduism was nothing if not complex. He put a hand on Sonu’s narrow shoulder. His own parents fought sometimes, but they never resorted to violence. The worst they got was saying that they didn’t want to talk right now. The debate would resume when they could do so calmly and reasonably. Some kids weren’t so lucky, and Sonu was one of the unlucky ones.

Sonu fought tears at the sound of his father bellowing that if his woman didn’t have dinner ready by the time he got home, she’d be sorry.

Raul’s dark eyes went to the hall and then to Sonu. “There’s tamales and Lupe’s over.”

Sonu looked worried. Raul’s sister wore a weird kind of dress and hat and she looked a bit scary.

“She’s a nun. If you need to talk about anything…” Raul’s face brightened with a smile. “She might ask you to put on some deodorant first, though. You Indians…” he shook his head. “Maria…”

Sonu grinned. Indians had a reputation for being smelly, and he understood why. They ate a lot of curry and other spicy foods, and people generally smelled like what they ate for some reason. “We eat a lot of curry.”

“Whatever you eat, man,” Raul shook his head. “You raise your arms, you clear the room.”

“What can I say? Kali lives in my armpits.”

Raul laughed at the joke about Hinduism’s most violent deity. “C’mon, amigo. This place is more toxic than cafeteria food.”

Sonu set his sketchbook and pencil down and stood up slowly. His parents wouldn’t care that he was at Raul’s house. “I don’t see why they have to fight so much.”

Raul shook his head. “Me neither. Let’s go.”

“Thanks.” Sonu followed Raul out the window and to a quiet home where the food was exotic on the verge of weird, but never made conditional like so many things were in his own home. He smiled when he saw Mrs. Jimenez setting the table in the kitchen.

“La puerta is always abierto, Sonu,” Mrs. Jimenez gave Sonu a gentle hug and smiled warmly. “Always. You come over anytime, si?”

“Si,” Sonu dried his eyes on his sleeve and answered in Hindi. “Estudi.” Thank you. It was good to know there was one place in the world where people didn’t yell and scream and where he’d always be safe and welcome. Such places were hard to find, but that was how Shiva wanted it, and that which was hard to obtain was treasured.

Kalen ”˜Musubi’ Bomprezzi looked at the list he’d been given and wondered for the thousandth time why he’d signed up for the scavenger hunt.

He had what had to be the most random list of things to find and photograph, but that was the idea behind a photo scavenger hunt. One had to find items on a list and photograph them.

He checked the battery of his digital camera and then the memory card. Everything was good to go, so all he had to do was hunt down the items and photograph them. That shouldn’t be too hard.

Okay, photographing a chirp posed a challenge. Exactly how he was supposed to create an image of a sound, he
had no idea, but that was on the list of things he had to photograph.

“Chirp.” He looked at the neat printing and wondered for the fifth time how in the world he was supposed to find a sound effect. The coqui frogs that had invaded Hawaii were nocturnal and chirped all night long. Finding a frog was easy. Photographing the sound it made wasn’t easy.

Perhaps he could record the sound and do a digital rendering of it on his computer and transfer the image to his computer. There was no rule saying just how he had to get the image, only that he had to get it.

“Chirp?” Ilea’a Kahalani shook her head at the list. “Do they want a picture of something chirping or do they seriously expect you to photograph a chirp?”

“Don’t know.” Musubi picked up the block of rice that was adorned with a slab of fried Spam tied to it with a thin band of seaweed. The snack was his favorite treat, hence his nickname, Musubi. “Figger I’ll just record a sound bite and get a digital rendering of it.”

“Works.” Ilea’a tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear and took a sip of her blue-raspberry Slurpee. “Deodorant. Easier done than said, yeah?”

“Yup.” Musubi bit into his snack again. “They jus didn’t say what kind, y’know? There’s roll-on, spray-on, solid stick… and what brand? Do they want Sure, Secret, Speed Stick or Old Spice? Or do they not have a preference? You have any idea how many kinds of deodorant are out there?”

Ilea’a shook her head and took a bite of his musubi. “What I want to know is how we find an elephant. Hi, you don’t see lots of those out here in Hawaii. Even in Queen Kapiolani Park, you don’t see a holotta them.”

“You do if you come to my house.” Musubi wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You should see my auntie. Give her a feather, tell her to wave her ears, and she can fly.”

“She’s not that big,” Ilea’a laughed.

“We Samoan. We get big out there.”

“Big as elephants with a brain the size of a doorknob,” Ilea’a looked at the list. “That’s on here too.”

“What is, a brain? They have that Bodies thing at the Ala Moana if they want a picture of a brain.”

“I saw that. It was creepy.”

“It was?”

“Yeah. They had all these dead people. They’re real bodies. Real dead bodies put on display. It was weird.”

“Sounds it. My class is going next week to see it.”

“It’s creepy. Whoever came up with that show was on some seriously hosed fungus.”

“Shrooms?” Musubi shook his head. “Man, we don’t got enough problems out here? My neighbors next door are into that kind of garbage. Don’t they know they frying their brains?”

“You think they care?” Ilea’a tossed her empty cup into a garbage can. “Musubi, most of them are on that stuff because they don’t know better.”

“Whatever. Just don’t get me into it, okay? I don’t want to see pink elephants or do the whole Alice in Wonderland thing and ask a doorknob for directions after I use some hallucinogenic deodorant that chirps every time it’s used.”

Ilea’a looked at the list and shook her head. “Why do you think the kupuna have us doing this instead? We keep busy, we keep outta trouble.”

“Yeah. Lemme see the list.” Musubi took the list and narrowed his black eyes to read it clearly.
“Why don’t you wear glasses?”

“Who’s gonna buy them, you?” Musubi squinted at the list once more. “Been cutting back on the musubi and slurps to pay for the exam.”

Ilea’a shook her head slowly. Musubi’s family was one of the ones that was too poor to make ends meet, but worked too much to qualify for welfare or anything else. If they didn’t work as much as they did, they wouldn’t qualify for anything because they weren’t working enough to get by. It was a no-win situation for him, and she understood why he was so intent on staying in school and getting good grades.

Education was the only way out of poverty, and with all the temptations for trouble in Kailua and Kaneohe, it was best he stay out of trouble even if it meant participating in an inane scavenger hunt for things like deodorant, elephants, doorknobs, hallucinogenic anything, and chirp, though how he was supposed to photograph those last two, she had no idea.

“Well, might as well get shooting,” Musubi stood up and looked at the list. “Where you wanna start?”

Ilea’a looked at the list. “Let’s start with the hardest ones to shoot. Where we gonna find psychedelic-orange slippahs?”

“Didn’t know psychedelic was a color.” Musubi looked at the list.

“Me neither.”

“Okay. Let’s start downtown. All the haole there, you never know what we’ll find.”

“I’ll drive.” Ilea’a went to the jeep.

Musubi got in and fastened his seatbelt. It was going to be an interesting scavenger hunt.

          If the thought of what was waiting for us wasn’t enough to stop the heart, the stench was. I had been to many crime scenes in the past, so I was as prepared for what was coming as much as I ever could be. There was that time when old lady Willet had passed on and nobody knew for a month until she wafted across the neighborhood. And then there’s always roadkill out on highway 87 that bloats and explodes in the July heat. But this…THIS was WAY beyond that. The reek could be smelled 30 feet away with no wind.
          “There’s something dead in there,” said Fred, the owner of EZ Lock Storage.
          “You think?” I snapped back well knowing there was some type of abomination inside. I hated calls like this and the humidity was making me just plain cranky.
          Turning the doorknob to the door to the hallway for units 100 to 108, the nastiness overcame us as it opened. Brady, Fred and my own footsteps echoed as we reached unit 103. Fred raised his bolt cutters, sliced off the lock with ease, and bent to pick it up.
          “Stop. Leave it. We may have to lift prints.” I pulled out my handkerchief and raised the door from its bottom edge. A swarm of flies flew out and the odor made my head swim. It took a moment to actually focus on the gray carcass.
          “An elephant,” I mumbled to Brady as I surveyed the scene. “Why would anyone even put an elephant into a storage unit?” Of course I knew it was a rhetorical question and Brady, even on his sharpest days was never going to answer outside of a grunt. The heat of the twelve by twelve unit radiated like a sauna. Sweat burst from every pore, killing any hope of my deodorant masking my scent. But then again, this mammoth in here was crushing any foulness that my body could ever conjure up and frankly speaking, I could care less. I was just relieved it wasn’t a corpse. Yep, no therapy for me this week.
          Around the corner outside, I heard an engine turn off and the chirp of the car alarm. I assumed it would be Abner from animal control. He had only been on the job two months and was not the best candidate, but he knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else, and landed the most lucrative twenty thousand a year job in Box Butte County. I always wondered about people who pulled out all the stops to land minimum wage positions. I wondered what hallucinogenic they took that messed up their melon so bad to even want a job that much. To me, their wiring just isn’t all that right and a job like this just makes them all that much more wrong.
          “No way!” Abner said as he viewed the animal. “Come on, Joe. How am I gonna get Dumbo outta here? I can’t lift that!”
          “Abner, you’re doing a public service for us.”
          “Don’t give me that. This is just off the grid. An elephant?”
          “Ya’ could use a chainsaw,” Brady said in his flat drone tone.
          “You think?” I snapped. My last nerve was being stroked.
          “Oh jeez, oh man.” Abner began pacing the hall.
          How and why anyone would bring an African animal to a Nebraska storage unit was just plain baffling. And more importantly, who was twisted enough to dump it at EZ Storage. As much as it probably warranted an investigation, truth was, I was just too hot, smelly and annoyed to investigate.
          “Look Abner, when you finish this, I’ll submit your name for public servant of the year.” The prospect of a ten percent salary increase was enough for him to stop pacing. Abner sighed and went back to his car to get whatever he needed to clear unit 103. “Come on,” I said to Brady. “I’m supposed to meet Betty for lunch.”
          Brady started up the cruiser and pulled away from Building 21. As he rounded the corner, all of a sudden the car started pitching left and right. Brady was screaming, swatting furiously at a bee that was probably just as scared as he was.
          “Brady! Relax!” He floored the accelerator lurching us through a chain link fence alongside the front office. The cruiser crashed through an aluminum garage door coming to a stop in the entrance of a cavernous storage unit. It looked as if ten units were combined into one big unit. From a dark corner, a very large animal with fangs and menacing eyes jumped onto the car's hood. Brady had no more fear of the bee.
          “What the heck is that?” he squealed.
          “I reckon some sort of cat.”
          “You think?” Brady shot back. “Now what’s THAT?” he asked. A komodo dragon was running across the floor. Then came the parrots and kangaroo. It was a makeshift zoo and the beasts were going nuts.
          “My animals!” yelled Fred running in. He ran past the cruiser to try to scoop up some type of snake that had slithered out of its broken tank. The cat then pounced on top of him pinning him to the ground.
          Instinctively, I got out and switched on my taser. I could not believe my life was on the verge of being ended by Chester Cheetah but I had to save Fred. Just as it leaped at me, I shot my taser, zapping it down. Fred got up and jumped in the back seat. I, too, bolted back into the cruiser, panting heavily from the adrenaline rush.
          “Fred,” I said turning to him, “You need to come down to the station.” Brady started the car and backed out. Lunch with Betty would have to wait as there was now going to be some VERY heavy lobbying to do on Abner's behalf.

Joe staggered down the hallway trying the doorknob of each room he passed. He knew with an absolute certainty that he was out of his mind, yet he was unable to use that intellectual knowledge to change his behaviour. All the doors were going to be locked. Everyone had gone home, and the security service the hospital used checked and double checked the doors to make sure that they were locked. Even so he had to yank and twist each knob as it floated into his sight.

There were worse obsessions. He had read of people with OCD who literally washed the skin off their hands. Like him, they knew rationally that their hands were clean, but some irrational place in the back of their minds over-rode the intellect and made them complete their ritual again and again and again.

Joe thought that the best thing he could do was return to his room and wait for the chemical that had him in its grips to release him from bondage. While he was thinking this, his body lurched down another corridor until at one door the knob tingled in his grasp like a live wire. It turned easily and the door swung open.

He heard the piercing chirp of an armed security system. This was trouble. His mind and body were in sync for the few seconds that it took him to walk over to the keypad. Unfortunately once he was faced with those numbered buttons they parted company again. He thought of the most common patterns that people chose to remember their codes, and looked for patterns of wear on the keys that would give him a hint. While he was thinking his fingers were punching arcane combinations into the pad. Three, then twenty-seven; three squared, then eighty-one. His fingers were in the middle of three to the eight when the security guard arrived.

Joe was actually pretty impressed, he didn’t know he could manage those kinds of numbers in his head.

“Freeze!”

Joe’s fingers punched in the last three numbers and he turned and smiled at the guard.

“I’m not really crazy, but just in case, you might want to be careful of the elephant sitting behind the desk.”

The guards gun never wavered from a spot just to the left of Joe’s breast bone. He growled something into the radio that sat on his shoulder. The elephant peered at Joe over her glasses and shrugged at him. She didn’t look dangerous, but you could never tell with elephants. About a dozen people a year were trampled to death because they inadvertently annoyed an elephant.

Another guard appeared, he didn’t draw his gun, but yammered at the first guard. Joe could understand a word. His mind was losing its grip on his insanity. He was sure they were speaking English, but what travelled down his auditory nerve into his brain sound a lot like monkeys chattering.

Perhaps if he tried chattering like a monkey he would actually be speaking English. Joe tried it, and the second guard pulled his baton while the first growled into the radio some more. Joe tried lion, dog and pig (he did a pretty good pig as a child). Each try resulted in a bit more white showing around the guards’ eyes and more flapping from the elephant. She was obviously becoming agitated.

That was when Joe decided to try elephant. It was just as three more guards arrived. It was a good thing they were there because the elephant trumpeted at him and looked like she was ready to crush them all into the carpet. Joe was sure the stains would be impossible to get out. He let the guard hustle him out of the room.

They escorted him down the hall but they wouldn’t let him try the doorknobs. Joe’s brain knew there was a reason for this, but it could convince his fingers that nothing terrible would happen if they didn’t caress each and every brass globe as they passed. The result was that his hands would shoot out to try an knob and one of the guards would push him on. The guard wasn’t rough, but more like he had some much nicer form of torture that he was eager to try on Joe and did want to waste time on a simple beating.

Between the anticipation and the frustration Joe’s brain gave up on him entirely and began counting the spots in the ceiling tiles in a hexadecimal numeric system that made his fingers’ ability to manage exponential series look positively simple. His fingers gave up on the doors and decided to sulk in his pockets.

They arrived at an open door with Joe’s fingers still sulking. The first two guards marched him in while the rest watched from the hallway. The man sitting behind the desk was neither a guard nor an elephant though he smelled like his deodorant was a subtle mix of chicken barn and deep swamp. Joe tried to keep his nose from wrinkling, but he couldn’t do anything about his tongue that thought it was a snake’s tongue and could identify the chicken barn as having been filled with Rhode Island Reds.

The man hooted at the guards who growled back at him. Joe thought they must be speaking French by now. He tried croaking like a frog. The man wiped his face with his hands and pulled open his desk drawer. Instead of pulling a gun and shooting him, which was what Joe’s brain expected, he put two tiny doorknobs on the desk and looked at Joe. Joe had no idea what to do, but his fingers did. They snapped up the knobs and popped them in his mouth.

Joe could feel the purple working its way through his system. He was way too tired to go anywhere so he curled up in a corner to sleep off the hallucinogenic intelligence enhancer he was being paid to test.

Before I could even knock on the door of Dr. Vivian’s estate, the doorknob quickly turned to reveal a young man in a tuxedo.

“May I help you?” he said with a pleasant grin, his hulking body towering over me.

“Yes, I’m here to see Dr. Vivian. Is he around?”

“Your name, please?”

“Harry Bleekman. Is he around?”

“And what is the nature of your visit?”

“I wanted to ask him something.”

“But what is the nature of the visit?” His tone grew to slight agitation.

“I wanted to inquire about a loan.” I said decisively, tilting my chin upward and holding up my briefcase.

“Very well, then,” he said, eyeing me as he held the door. “Come in.”

After searching me for weapons, he led me to a spacious, white sitting room and told me Dr. Vivian would be with me shortly. I sat down on one of several leather couches. The walls were decorated with the heads of moose and elephants. The scent of lavender hung in the air with the potency of a teenaged boy discovering deodorant. I opened my briefcase and checked the contents.

It wasn’t long before I heard footsteps cracking against the marble floor. It was the young man again.

“Dr. Vivian will see you now,” he said, strolling toward me with the same smile from before.

I followed him through a kitchen, a dining room, a corridor and into a dark parlor with a crackling fireplace and tropical birds in steel cages. They sat in silence, not daring to chirp. An oak table beside the cages dominated the room. Behind it, an older gentleman was reclining in a chair and polishing his glasses. The young man introduced me, then scuttled out of the room and slammed the door.

I waited for Dr. Vivian to speak while my fingers drummed against my briefcase, but her merely continued to clean his glasses.

I finally said, “has that young man worked for you for a long time?”

“He’s my son,” Dr. Vivian said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t ”“”

“It’s quite alright. Yes, Carl’s been working for me since he was just a boy.” He put on his glasses and gestured at a chair near the back wall. “Please, have a seat.”

I did as he asked.

“Now what can I help you with?” he said.

“Well, it’s about a loan, doctor. You see, my wife and I just bought a new house, and I was wondering ”“”

“A loan,” he said, laughing a little as he poured himself a drink. “Is that what brought you here? A loan?”

“Yes, doctor. I’m asking for a lot, but I brought some documents in my briefcase that prove I’ll be able to repay you in a few years. I did all the math myself.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said, getting up from his chair. He started pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “Henry, I don’t like to waste time as much as the next man. Can we be honest for a moment?”

“Harry.”

“Bed pardon?”

“It’s Harry, sir. My name, I mean.”

“Right. So, Harry, let’s talk business.”

I shrugged, started tapping my briefcase again. “Aren’t we already talking business?”

“I have a proposition of sorts for you, Harry,” he said, “and I advise you to listen closely because it’s about life and death.” He walked around the table and sat on it, gazing down upon me with the crazed face of some one on a hallucinogenic. “You know and I know that you’re hiding a gun somewhere.” He smiled for the first time. The fire lit up his eyes. “Probably in the briefcase, isn’t it? Carl always forgets to check accessories.”

“Excuse me, doctor, but I think you have me confused with somebody else. I assure you, I only came to”“”

“I’m not an imbecile, Harry.” He swung his floor lamp around so the bright light stung my eyes. “I know why you really came here, thanks to a disloyal friend of yours. So why don’t you just tell me who paid you to bump me off and I’ll offer you double?”

With trembling hands, I started to open my briefcase to show him, but he said:

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You can pull out whatever weapon you’re keeping in there, but in one minute I’ll have this house surrounded by my men. You don’t want this to be a suicide mission, do you?”

“Dr. Vivian,” I said, getting up and stumbling toward the back wall. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I assure you that you have me confused with another contact. I don’t want any trouble, so here, check the briefcase yourself.” I tossed him the briefcase. He opened it, then dumped my documents all over his Pashmina rug until the case was empty.

“Oh,” he said, “well. My apologies, Harry.”

“It’s alright,” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow. “May I please just get my money and be on my way?”

He nodded vacantly. “Of course. Again, I apologize. I’ve had to keep my guard up as of late and””“

“It’s fine, really,” I said.

“Very well,” he said, “just give Carl your address and he’ll deliver the money in a few days.”

I quickly left and sped away from the house, then called my associate, Bob Crawford.

“How’d the visit go, Jet?” he said.

“I was right,” I said, putting my sunglasses on. “It’s high security, and some one ratted us out. If I went in with a gun I’d be dead by now.”

“Wow,” he said, “way to call it.”

“Thanks.” I drew my gun from the glove compartment and ran my fingers across it. “The visit worked out, though. His son will be paying a visit to my house soon. I figure if we take him hostage, Vivian will come right to us.”

I had the afternoon to myself; Jessica my live in girlfriend was out shopping. As I heard the doorknob click, I grabbed myself a beer and jumped onto the sofa and flung all the cushions to the corner of the room. I flicked the switch on the remote and the TV emitted the happy chirp that advises that it is ready. I reached to the coffee table to grab the latest TV guide so I could contemplate my afternoon viewing. I opened the magazine and quickly realised that it was not the television guide but a wedding magazine. It then suddenly struck me; I was being ambushed.

Leaping off the sofa I ran to the bedroom, her side of the bed, on the bedside table; Modern Bride. From the bedroom to the ensuite, Jess is not a reader in the small room, I am, and in my small room library collection on the top of the heap “Elegant Bride”.

I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that these magazines were intended for me. I was supposed to take the hint and do something about our current relationship status. Well, if this was the way she wanted to play it, I had a few magazines in the shed, which may give her an indication of the direction I would like the relationship to take.

I thought to myself, why are women so weird, if she wanted to get married, why didn’t she just say so. We have been perfectly happy for four years, why go and change everything. Well I was happy, I assumed she was too, but the arrival of these magazines suggested maybe she wasn’t. Her friend Bianca was getting married soon, maybe she was just being supportive for her and finding out about fashions and stuff. Yes, that was it; I was nearly certain that’s what it would be.

I walked into the kitchen reassuring myself that all was okay. But, what if all this was actually aimed at me. Leaving magazines lying about is not an effective method of communication. I am an ordinary bloke, how am I supposed to know the inner workings of the female mind. I contemplated phoning my mate Trevor, he always has good advice; well he does know mechanical stuff and can fix things. But, the longest relationship he has ever had is 13 months and she left him, in fact all his girlfriends have left him. He’s probably not the one to ask.

I suppose I could just ask her when she comes home, but what If I am wrong and she doesn’t want to get married and I suddenly put the idea in to her head. But, what if she does want to get married, then I have to decide if I want to. She will probably remember some random conversation last winter were I said this or that and she will have ten good reasons why we should. Jess has a memory like an elephant when she wants too.

Maybe I am asleep and this is all a dream. Maybe the cold pizza I ate for lunch had hallucinogenic mushrooms on it and that the wedding magazines are all in my mind. I poked the magazine with my finger. No it is real; my happy life is crashing down. She wants more. I figure I have been happy for the time we have been together and that it would continue this way.

If I complied with her tactics and asked her to get married, would this spark a lifetime of stealthy placement of magazines and brochures.
Would I suddenly discover that some Pacific Island was the ideal spot for our honeymoon. Would I be advised by leaflet that a baby would enhance our lives. With maybe a follow up, tight underwear and use of aluminium based deodorant can affect you sperm count leaflet, strategically placed in my briefcase, so I could read it on my daily commute to work. Would I find that Baffleback College was the place to educate my child and provide him or her, or worse still them, with a sound platform for a successful future. Then one day, Go Green for sustainability the ultimate in environmentally friendly funerals specialising in biodegradable coffins. My future was revealed to me in a sad blur of advertising.

My decision was simple; I would ignore her magazines.

The sofa and TV were calling me; the afternoon could still be salvaged.

Casey looked at the small, round pill in her hand. Sigh. She hadn’t slept in days and this sleeping pill would provide the relief she needed. She read the label on the bottle one more time. Warnings stickers were all over it. Don’t drive, no alcohol, blah, blah, blah… She thought to herself as she took the little round pill. She placed the bottle on the counter and sat down with a book while she waited for the drug to take effect. After a few moments she heard something moving around in her closet. Stupid cat. She thought to herself as she reached for the doorknob. She opened the door, looking down to expect to see her cat sitting there, when she saw a pair of gray feet. She backed up with a screech, tripping over the foot of the bed and fell into the floor as an elephant sauntered into her room. She lay there in the floor gaping like a fish as the animal stepped over her and walked around the room. She stood up quickly, unsure of what to do in a situation like this. “How did you get in there?” she asked, as the elephant tried to sit on her bed. The wooden frame creaked in protest at the weight of the animal. At least it is not a large one; it’s about the size of a St. Bernard. The elephant looked at her and gave a small chirp. Wait. Elephants don’t chirp. ”Get up now” she whispered, “you’re going to break my bed.” To her surprise, the elephant got up and looked at her with another chirp. Perhaps if I stuff him back in the closet he will go away. “Back into the closet now” she said, pointing at the door. “You don’t belong in here.” The elephant gave her an angry look and stepped around the bed to stand in front of the closet. She tried to give him a shove to force him back in but he swatted at her with his tail. Ok, that didn’t work. You don’t want to stand at the hind end of an elephant anyway. She tried not to think about the mess that would ensue if the elephant needed to use the restroom. The animal glared at her and as if reading her mind, began to walk towards the bathroom. She followed closely behind, afraid of what might happen. The elephant stopped and looked at itself in the mirror. Shaking its head it grabbed a bottle of nail polish and began “painting” itself in the mirror. “No!” Casey shouted at the beast. “Stop that” she cried as she ran toward the animal. The animal merely swatted her away with his large trunk, splattering nail polish all over her face and shirt. She fell in the floor and watched in horror as the large mammal continued to ransack her bathroom. It tried putting some of the items in its mouth, her toothbrush and deodorant being the worst of the items since both made the animal drool profusely. She got up to try and stop the animal again before it destroyed all of her cosmetics but it merely swatted her away again with its trunk. She tried not to land in the floor again but slipped in a puddle of drool, knocking her head hard on the countertop. Casey lay in the floor stunned, as the blackness began to settle over her, and prayed that the animal would not step on her.
The next morning Casey woke up on the bathroom floor, covered in makeup and nail polish, the taste of toothpaste and deodorant in her mouth. She slowly got up off the floor and out of the puddle she had been laying in. She looked up in the mirror to see how badly her forehead was bruised, but all she could see was a picture of herself, drawn on the mirror with eyeliner and nail polish. She looked quickly around the room, expecting to see the elephant standing there when her eye caught the bright warning label on the bottle of pills again. Hallucinogenic. Casey stared at herself in the mirror in horror as she realized where the “elephant” really was.