Quote of the Day

"There is just something wrong with the adjective 'wack' coming from a guy in a suit."
-tiel

Happy Birthday to Rachel

Rachel, my cousin who just turned 21 today, just called to say 'thank you' for the Large Basket O'Chocolate(tm) that I sent her.
-smiles- I love Rachel.

(no subject)

Just very sad right now...

Welcome to Hieropolis

Hieropolis was a crummy town, but it was a large crummy town, home to over five hundred thousand people who spent their time meandering about its streets and alleyways like insects over a moldering animal, and with about as much purpose. The better of them lived outside of town, usually in Belmont or Lancaster, and worked Downtown, pushing papers around desks which populated the dozens of glass-and-steel monoliths that made up that section of the city. Some were at the local college, Astarte University, either voluntarily or through tenure. Most spent the majority of their time spending or making money at the countless seedy bars and night clubs, the rotten corners of a dying city, and falling between the cracks where those even lower would prey on the weak and unwary. This alley was just like any other in the city, the same piles of trash, the same slick sheen of slime, the same reek of urine and vomit. Everything was the same, except for the three relatively minor additions of a Mister Johnson, a local police officer, and a once-human body ripped into several large but mostly-unidentifiable pieces. The fact that there was nothing else marking this ally from any other bothered Mister Johnson. He stood up slowly, unfolding into a monolith of dark skin, squared edges and Italian tailoring. His gray-blue eyes lifted from the corpse pieces and came to rest on the police officer. Reynolds. Officer Eric Reynolds, age 29, with the force for about seven years and he’s still working this beat. That itself speaks volumes. Just the two men in the alley, no police tape, no lights; no big show, the way Johnson liked it. At this hour, even in the heart of the city, the streets were mostly deserted; cars moved in packs and most people were still asleep, but Johnson didn’t like drawing attention. “Tell me again,” Johnson rumbled in a deep voice, “how you found this.” Johnson knew how Reynolds had found the body. He was patrolling his beat; he’s got the late shift and, while this isn’t the worst part of town, the fact that he went on foot and without a partner was testament to his foolishness. He was coming up on this alley when he saw what looked like a bum wadded up at the corner of one of the buildings. He went to ‘do his duty’ and tell the bum to shove off, only to find that this bum was in several pieces. Not all of the vomit smell was from Reynolds, but the freshest of it was. Reynolds reported all of this, in many more words and far more tediously. “So, then I called Distribution,” Reynolds finished, leaving out the vomiting, “and then you showed up.” He paused for a second, and then got up the nerve to look Johnson in the eye and ask, “what agency did you say you were from again?” Johnson just glowered at him for a few moments. “Do you know what killed this man, Reynolds?” “Well, uh… I guess it would pretty obviously be the fact that he’s torn in three, sir.” Reynolds said hesitantly. Johnson shook his head, squatting back down. “You’re wrong, and for several reasons. See this tear here? Living flesh doesn’t rip like that, meaning he was dead before he was torn apart. You can also see by the coloring around the wounds that tissue had died uniformly, then it was torn. So he was dead first.” Johnson stood up, “On top of that, he’s been dead for some time. In fact, I’d say he was dead for a week or more, give or take. Dead for a couple weeks, and then torn up and strewn down this alley.” Johnson turned back toward the street and began heading out of the alley. He would need someone to come clean this up, quietly, before the newspapers got to it. Newspapers loved sensationalism. “And there’s no blood in this alley, Reynolds. A body torn in pieces, and no blood.”