April 14th
Weather: rainy/lazy
Breakfast: toast, no butter.
Weather’s gone sour again; no forecast for anything upward of drizzle for a week minimum. Good excuse to stay in office all day; nobody’s going to commit crimes out in the damp, right?
Evening postscript: well, somebody did. Nothing important; break-in at museum, stole small, useless, valueless knick-knack from visiting exhibition on obscure mythology. Left graffiti on walls in what am told is misspelt sanskrit. Thing’ll crop up in some pawn shop sooner or later, business = usual.
April 15th
Weather: rainy/bored
Breakfast: probably porridge, no milk.
Homicide as of 4 AM, some dink in a raincoat and ski mask. Multiple stab wounds to face, with care to remove eyelids. Crime scene marked by graffiti on alley walls in what am told is grammatically-correct sanskrit. No trace of small, useless, valueless knick-knack. Victim possessed surprisingly nice watch.
Afternoon postscript: downtown bagel trip extremely rapid today; almost no vehicle traffic, few pedestrians. Rain keeping people inside.
Midnight postscript: power outage. Window check shows hit entire town. Cell phone reception inexplicably nil. Going to bed.
April 16th
Weather: rainy/irritated
Breakfast: leftover bagel.
Had dream of small, useless, valueless knick-knack, in which object slowly melted into puddle of reddened water, woke up hungry. Power restored around 6 AM, another homicide report straightaways. Engineer appears to have hung himself from high-voltage tower in such a way as to wreck entire power grid and fry himself before strangulation. Selfish jackoff. Victim had no mental history, boring, dull, single but not distressingly so, blah blah. Eyelids were removed shortly after death.
Evening postscript: victim was close friend of dink in raincoat + ski mask. Possible guilt of having poor taste in colleagues led to death wish? Good enough.
April 17th
Weather: rainy/tepid
Breakfast: last night’s coffee
Power went out at midnight again, restored at dawn. Three more suicides, all with removed eyelids, all under 30, all around 3 AM. Stupid kids do any fad nowadays, probably got idea from internet.
Afternoon postscript: bagel trip futile, store was closed despite clear violation of posted operating hours. Will consider giving warning.
Evening postscript: bagel store manager missing from home, workplace, entire life. Annoying. Left a note for family, consisting entirely of something probably sanskrit. Very annoying.
April 18th
Weather: rainy/irked
Breakfast: dry cereal.
Nightly outages continue, four more suicides, all by drowning in tubs. Eyelids removed postmortem, pupils carved out. Sick of bullshit. Bagel store manager located in park floating in pond. Eyelids removed postmortem, pupils carved out, breadknife lodged through ventricle. Frustrating. Downtown almost entirely empty all day; frequent lightning, no sound of thunder. Dream of small, useless, valueless knick-knack recurred, during which ate entire town. Woke up, had to piss.
April 19th
Weather: rainy/gloomy
Breakfast: hard-boiled egg, no toast.
Good news and bad news. Bad news: one more suicide. Good news: it was Henry Hopkins. Bad news: owed me fifty. Good news: found it on him during process of investigation. Suicide consisted of Hopkins slitting open wrists, groin, belly, neck in probably that order. Initial tool used was a rusty, blunt knife, apparently broke it on left scaphoid, finished job using nails, teeth, edge of the kitchen counter. Blood used to scrawl cryptic symbols on the floor, addition of probably sanskrit. Surprisingly bad mood for a Wednesday, must be the weather.
Noon postscript: crowds gathered at waterfront today, along beachfront, on piers. Inquiries produced blank looks and very slow blinks. Fed up with John Q. Public today. Fifteen lightning bolts on way home striking inside two minutes, one per 8 seconds like clockwork, each striking different building downtown. Fires stopped quickly due to rain.
April 20th:
Weather: rainy/dreary
Breakfast: pickles
Rain rain rain and power didn’t come back on today. Entire downtown crowd vanished after midnight without trace, few remaining citizens barricaded in homes, refuse to open up. Rain coming down hard. Museum vanished leaving small traces of rubble, bagel store burnt shell from lightning strike, rubble defaced with probably sanskrit in likely blood. Stupid, already mostly washed away. Bad mood.
Afternoon postscript: storm intensify, thunder now audible, strangely metallic and gong-like. Can barely hear self think, put on Randy Travis CD as sleep aid.
Midnight postscript: Massive thunderclap, looked out window and rest of town was missing, ate last of pickles, went back to bed.
April 21st
Weather: no
Breakfast: ketchup.
Woke up to find rain stopped, sky grey, flat, pancake-ish. Town vanished bar charred asphalt and stones, including office – woke up sleeping on remains of basement floor. Thousands of tiny sharp pebbles everywhere, engraved with single alphabeticalcharacters of who cares. Going to hike to highway, request transfer to somewhere with better bagels, weather, citizens.
Afternoon postscript: tripped over small, useless, valueless object en route to highway, took evidence into custody/emergency pawnshop fund. Will hitchike as soon as car stops not containing dead bodies without eyelids. Irritatingly common as of present.