Assignment: Being a Detctive

 Instructor Note:

Write the first paragraph of an original detective story.  Be sure to lard it as best you can with graphic and interesting details that will make the reader want to read on and learn more.

Is Bread the Staff of Life ?
It was cold, not just bitter cold or the kind one can deal with through the use of more clothing. It was so cold one could imagine it was sent purposely as a punishment, daring man, woman and machine to confront it. Yet here he was standing at the bus stop as he had for many years, waiting for the Manhattan bound bus, hoping it would not be so foolish as to leave the warm garage and he could return home. There were moments when the cold seemed too have frozen his mind and he felt as if he was floating in ether. He mused he had died the night before and the bus he was waiting for was not Manhattan bound, but one that picks up the dead for their final journey. Having always dismissed a hereafter and reassuring himself the bus stop and surroundings were as they always had been, he decided the numbing cold was playing tricks with his mind and he was in fact alive. After what appeared to be the duration of an ice age, he saw in the distance the familiar lights and colors of the Q 44 bus and he felt better. The bus pulled up to the curb and he noticed it was not the Q 44. It had no number at all. In the place where a number would appear, there were names. Dudly, Kemp, Goldberg and just as he was about to board, his own name, Finkel joined the others. The cold suddenly seemed more terrible than it had been so that the desire to enter the bus, no matter the consequences, overcame his initial reaction to turn and run. He entered the bus and was about to deposit the fare when the driver said “This trip is free, please sit down.” There were two men and one woman already seated and as he sat down he noticed it was the same number of people whose names appeared in lights on the front of the bus. No one spoke. The bus pulled away from the curb and trying to persuade himself everything was all right and it was just the cold causing the confusion, he awaited the driver’s usual next announcement “Union Turnpike”. But as the bus approached that stop. the driver said “Next stop Ellen Timken”. The bus stopped and a confused middle age woman boarded it and seated herself. Finkel was now in a state of panic and shouted, "Mac, does this bus go to Manhattan?" “Yes it does among other places,” the driver replied.

Ben H.

July 2021