Literally Wacky: Mystery Man
This is one of my favorite categories here, because if literature is filled with one thing, it’s whackjobs. Writers and readers are totally nutters, and we love them for it.
We have a Literally Wacky mystery on our hands, my friends. One we are going to solve. For three days now, as I’ve roamed around my apartment complex for some errand or another, I’ve passed a guy sitting on his porch, reading a book. Not so unusual, except that he’s always staring at the exact same spot in the book. In three days, he hasn’t progressed at all. Well, okay, I know I can’t tell the exact page he’s on, but he has the book open to the middle and he never moves past it. What is the deal? Although I haven’t spied the title of the book, I can tell by the cover colors and yellow-tinged pages that it’s the same one every day.
Also, he has foregone a perfectly comfortable-looking chair on his porch and sits instead on the concrete step, long jean-clad legs splayed out in front of him, directly facing the building across the street. Hmmm. What could this wacky behavior signify? And why isn’t he reading when he’s reading?!
Our options include:
- He is the slowest reader in the world.
- He has a favorite dirty part he’s obsessed with.
- The book is just a front, and really, he’s a voyeur, spying on the girl across the street.
- He’s just pretending to read to get out of the apartment and escape his screeching harpy of a wife, and is staring at the pages, imagining ways he could murder her and get away with it.
- I totally need a life.
I will investigate this further until an answer is found. Don’t worry friends, I’m on the case.
May 9th, 2006 at 2:38 am
My own theory :
He’s a private investigator who rented the house for a short time. The book is a cover as he keeps an eye across the street on someone who’s supposed to have ties with the mafia.
Hehehe. this is fun. Even though like in many good but frustrating books, we’ll never really know how it ends :)
May 9th, 2006 at 4:47 am
My theory is that he’s with the FBI or CIA or something and the book has a small television screen built into it. He’s doing surveillance. Probably on you, Rhys. :)
May 9th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Thanks a lot, Karine and Ingrid, for feeding my paranoia. When he gets me I’m telling him you two are spies!! :)
May 10th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Hmph! Although, by the time he gets here, we’ll have fled to Australia. Don’t worry, we’ll pick you up on the way. Get your bags ready! ;)
May 10th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
I’m ready, Karine! We can be the new Thelmas and Louises! Without that whole driving off a cliff thing, of course. :)
May 12th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
[…] Well, friends, I’ve done it. I’ve uncovered another clue in our latest literary mystery. I saw the man reading on his porch again: same spot in the book, naturally. So I went home to get my digital camera, hoping to snap his picture and post it here, in case any of our FBI agent readers may recognize him. […]
May 15th, 2006 at 5:21 am
Yeah no cliff for us!! We’ll be riding into the sunset, Xena-style ;)
May 15th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Hm… wasn’t Xena dead at the end? Maybe we should rethink that plan :p