Concierge

We want her out. We have cause. We try and enlist the other residents. She's only a temp. Let's have her booted. 

The other residents, they are noncommittal, unresponsive. We'll go it alone then. 

The police. We tell them what she's done. Of a civil nature, one says. We want her removed. A cop defers to another. He's the expert on concierges. 

"I haven't heard of one removed for that cause," he says. "Not in thirty two years."

"When you have termites, who pays?" asks the first cop. 

"I don't know; she does, and we pay it through rent."

Puzzling. Can't boost her out due to malfeasance but maybe mishandling of funds. 

Cops leave. 

"It's your business too!" shouts my Lady at furtive shadows at the end of the courtyard. Silence. 

Tim Bowden is twiddling his thumbs on his  iPhone 4S!

Different Strokes

A crowded community coffee shop of the university type. Gail is newly with us. She's Will's new potential. I go for coffee.

I pick up two orddinary cups. They are a different color; one dark and the other buff. The coffee is already in them, and I realize the cup color must mean they're different, but I din't care. I'm here for coffee, not detail.

I am set to go. I set the cups on a table and fish for dollars and change. I realize it should be simple but I'm having much trouble picking up the amount I need. I know which bills and which coins but I cannot seem to convey that to my hands.

The mesera encourages me, as if I'm attempting a difficult juggling act for the team. Take yer time; you can do it.

The longer it goes on, the less sure I am that I can do it.

The Incident

He smiled that mirthless sneer of his, like a sociopath. 

"It would not do to have it go out raw," he told me. Leering. 

"I suppose not," I said, for something to say. 

We were discussing the Incident, one of many Hess handled. It was only history, he said sometimes, compiled by an historian. 

Why was he talking to me, a reporter, and not even the dreamer, just the assumed first-person part of the story? It was because he and Kaufman thought I was from Medical Records when I had only been cleared by them to come here. Perhaps they had not been wise to trust Hess after all. This was turning into another incident. 

Undertow

Driving carefully through obstruction not clearly marked, with folks wandering over the roadway and gazing in different directions, as if there was an accident or construction at some undisclosed location. 

An old brevet cop walks right into my path, and a soft contact is made with my left front fender. He continues on down the road, oblivious. 

Here's a spot off the main traffic lane. I park, exit my vehicle, run after the rent-a-cop. 

"Hey, excuse me, but - are you hurt?"

He stops, considers as if it hadn't occurred to him. 

"Maybe a scratch ..." He pulls up a trouser to show an abrasion.  

I look back up to my car to see - it's being towed! I rush back up there. 

"Hey, you can't - I was talking to a cop!"

There is a slender raffish sort with a deprecating perpetual grin. He is apparently in charge. My vehicle is towed away. 

I see well the gambit now. Extortion like in one of those failed states ... Nigeria, Mexico, the US. 

I ride with the smirking cop to a large building, barren and unkempt inside, with lots of milling and no clear mission. I wait. The tow cop is quite content to do nothing. He sits and then ambles. Then he leans against a counter. 

The kids are coming today. This no time to be arrested. (I understand there will be a ransom for my auto and a fine for illegal parking and I am under restraint until both are paid.) I'd better call home. 

My iPhone is transforming as I hold it, marveling. It unfolds a keyboard, then continues into a classic SLR camera, then retracts these extensions and presents others. I cannot make a simple phone call. 

I've had enough of this. I slip away from the shoddy cop and head down stairs. I am accosted by another agent. He is bland and young and telling me I must wait. 

I push him into a closet. Close the door. He opens it, tells me I am not free to go. I slam the closet door and am gone by the time he opens it again. 

Home now. Ah, my favorite cereal. It's home, but an inchoate setting, with plenty of dark space towards the corners and voices from other rooms. Someone comes in and goes out. 

I recognize the one from the closet standing near the edge of my breakfast room. And then, stepping into the dim light from a little further off, the shoddy tow cop. 

It looks like I won't finish my cereal. 

Tim Bowden is twiddling his thumbs on his  iPhone 4S!

Here and There

A portion of my income was left off inadvertently last year, and resupplied in a later transfer. It's all the same. 

But I must document for taxes. I look for the pay stub, or the voucher. 

There are lots of old papers here in this public desk. Here are references, but I need the specific items which authorized or effected the transfer, and the shortage. 

I walk among many who are less and less interested in my problem. Perhaps it is somewhere else, suggest the keepers of the present domain here and now. 

It is considered my best policy to seek assistance somewhere beyond wherever I might be, no matter where that is. They should be able to help, over there. Not doing their jobs if they don 't. 

I find direct references here and solid leads there, but for the actual records themselves, that's the responsibility of someone not here now. If you would kindly consult another time and place?