The detective in the moonlight

Up above a red cicisbeo blowing along with the turning blades of an electric fan sending papers scribbled with indistinctive words towards the edge of the desk, piling one on top of another. A small monadnock sculpture with a monkey face sits facing the hot moon that filters light through the broken windows.

It was a condign choice - sleeping on the concrete floor. The detective suss out his thoughts as he tries to keep the pain away. He turns his head, the only part that isn't hurting, all around the room, taking in what he thought was his desired life. A man solving other people's heartaches while his own was slowly turning to dust. Why did he brought that exoskeleton artwork? And why did he painted that one wall blue just for that artwork? It didn't really matter as the walls were getting thinner and blue pieces of chipped paints were gathering at the bottom of the floor, making the wall almost white.

The photograph of his parents now hanging crooked on the wall, reminded him of their disapproving voices telling him he was out of his mind, giving up on marriage, kids and a career as a surgeon. He stare at the tan hat hanging in the corner, the one he wore on his first day as a private eye. But his thoughts turns to the woman that had left not a moment ago. When the sun was still beating down on his tiny office. When his mind was still cool even through the stale heat. He tries to piece together what had happened.

Bullets. He remember bullets spitting out from all directions, striking every part of the walls as pieces of window panes fell all around. He grabbed the woman and hit the floor. After the chaos had subsided, the woman had disappeared. He laid there feeling the trickling of blood somewhere on his body. He started to get up but felt sharp pain everywhere, enough to knocked him out.

He did not know how long he had laid there only that the moon had switched places with the sun. His office was lighted only by the moonlight. He saw the piece of paper tucked in his gray shirt pocket. He pulled it out even as pain ran all over his body. His blood had almost completely soaked the letter a deep red. He unfolded the paper slowly, his hands shaking. It was a letter, a love letter that he wrote some twenty years ago to the one woman he proposed to. He loved her and promised her his life-long devotion but left her at the alter when he realized he didn't want to be married or held the responsibility of a family.

The phone rang, puncturing the silence, slicing his thoughts. He try to pick himself up again but the pain was too great. He lay there on the cool floor as the phone kept ringing. He couldn't move, not without all the pain. He stay still, hoping someone would come but he knew no one was coming. He has no appointments, no clients. He was a has-been and yet he denies this fact each time he got up in the morning.

He is his own client. This is the last mystery he will ever solve. But as he re-read the letter, he knew who it was that has killed him. The name of the woman had been rubbed off by the blood but he knew even as read his own name scribbled at the end of the letter. He had heard she had died in a car accident which was speculated as a suicide. He didn't know if she killed herself, only that she was deeply unhappy as her husband was cheating on her. He knew this because she had hired him to tail her husband. It almost broke his heart when he had to tell her but she acted so dried, so cold as she wrote a check for his services. She thanked him and escorted him out of her mansion with a peck on his cheek.

The detective was lying sideways on the floor with the woman next to him, the woman who was his former lover's daughter, when she took out a gold firearm out of her purse. As the first bullet hit his shoulder, he looked on in surprise at the mirror image of the woman he once loved. And as the second bullet came its way to just below his heart, he thought he was dreaming. He didn't realized it was all happening until he felt their existence inside his body. As he faded into unconsciousness, he saw her smiling down at him. Her red heels sparkling in the sunlight, her laughter falling down upon him. A sudden silence fell all around as his eyes slowly closed.

Now in the semi-darkness, watching moonlights flickering on the spinning ceiling fan, the detective felt his body going numb. He took out a cigarette but could not found a match. He sucks in the scent of tobacco as he waits for his maker.


Friday 5: suss, condign, cicisbeo, monadnock, exoskeleton

Search Engine Stories Prompt: Painting a full moon/Moon ladder/Flowers under moonlight