Conversation · Idiot Doom Spiral

He better not let you down again. Remember, this is your money and your reputation he's playing with.

"Thanks for sticking with me. I'll make sure I do better in the future." He exhales with huge relief. "Let me make it up to you. Anything I can do right now?"

"Nope. I'm going to have to let you go."

"Fuck..." He lets his head drop between his arms. "Well, that's that. At least I tried." A long and heavy breath out, a few sloppy sucks on his bottle.

He doesn't know whether to expunge or consume. What will pacify the wrenching feeling in his gut?

"Thanks for the opportunity. Gutted that I fucked it up... but what have I really lost?" He tries to shrug into a more carefree existence.

"Do you want anything else? If not, I've got some serious drinking to do..."

"It's a load of shit! I knew you'd rip me off."

"What are you talking about? Rip you off? Stop with this bullshit. Just say you don't like it. There's no need to drag my name through the mud like this."

"I don't want anything to do with it. You have to take it down."

"Take it down? Is it really that bad?" He drags a hand down his face. "This is fucking me up, Tequila. I thought you'd love it -- honestly."

"That isn't the right image of me to present to the public."

"It isn't? I thought that's what you were all about." He drags a hand down his face. "This is fucking me up, Tequila. I thought you'd love it -- honestly."

"It's an all-round disaster. Just awful."

"You're kidding me? This is a joke?" He hangs a confused look off you. "You're being serious? Alright..." He takes a gulp of beer.

"'Awful' is very strong, Tequila. You're gonna have to explain how I missed the mark by so much if that's the case. What don't you like about it?"

"It's gonna have to wait. I have important business to attend to first." (Put it off indefinitely.)

"What important business? I'm your Personal Brand Strategist, Tequila -- you're supposed to run all business matters by me. That's how this works."

"This is different..."

"Different how? Business is business. Doesn't matter if it's small or large, I handle it for you now -- that's what you hired me to do."

"It's police business."

"They finally caught up to you, have they?"

"Yes, they have," the lieutenant says, unamused.

"Alright, I understand. We'll do this some other time, when you can focus on yourself and not this inconvenience."

You hear the lieutenant suppress an almighty scoff.

Painful images replay in the lieutenant's mind as he lies still in his sick bed: gun fumes, the flash of metal, and occasionally a clumsy stack of scaffolding...

"Something like that..."

(Applaud.) "I love it. Pure, naked brilliance."

"You love it? Shit, Tequila, that's just made my day." His face lights up as his drinking buddy gives him a congratulatory pat on the back.

"Gimme more, gimme more. What do you like most about it?" He's giddy -- both from the drink and the anticipation.

"Have you got any more urban myths?"

"I actually do have one... the strangest of them all. But I'll need to fortify myself before I can tell that one..."

"Do you have anything to fortify ol' Doom Spiral? Tell me you got some story juice."

"I got this special strike brew the Union uses." (Give it.)

"Interesting." He grabs the thermal cup and shakes it. "Ah, this is what they use to keep the working man going."

"This last one is the most Martinaise story I've ever heard..." He takes an almost comically long swig. Thus fortified, he continues.

"The tale I'm about to tell you is an urban legend particular to Martinaise." He lifts the bottle to his lips and takes a long, luxuriant sip. "That said, I first heard it from a former bicycle courier in Couron..."

"There are many variations on the basic story, and the details often conflict. What everyone agrees on is that nobody knows the exact nature or identity of... the phenomenon."

"Are you telling the story of the Headless--"

"Shut the fuck up, Rosemary!"

He clears his throat: "Summer of '44. Seventeen-year-old Gertrude Het is walking home from a late shift at the harbour. It's almost midnight. She stops for a cigarette near the canal..."

The streets are warmed by a southerly breeze. The lights of a passing motor carriage bloom and fade in the distance...

In the harbour's dark, her cigarette is a beacon, dancing alone. The image comes to you effortlessly, as though you'd walked the same streets yourself a thousand times.

"Our heroine finds herself enjoying the peace and quiet the canal provides..." He looks up to the skies as if searching for peace himself...

"What she doesn't know is that her peace is about to be shattered. From behind her comes the clattering of hooves. Startled, she turns around, and what does she see?"

"A horse?"

"Well, yes, but it's the man on the horse that's of interest here. A man..."

...the pause is long and dramatic...

"... with no head on his shoulders! Wearing a FALN tracksuit. Searching for the legendary FALN cap that went missing -- when he lost his head."

"Whoa."

"Whoa is right, my friend. Gertrude Het may have been the first to witness the Headless FALN Rider, but she wasn't the last, oh no..."

"Tell 'em about the two feminists by the locks!"

"Fuck, Rosemary, they were dating -- no one said they were feminists. Everyone always misremembering this stuff..."

"Hmmm, this wouldn't be the Deponte-Delgado case, would it?"

"What? You know it?"

"I've read the case file. But please, go on."

"Right. Ahem. Early autumn of '46. Ulla Deponte and Eva Delgado are fishing near the water lock long after the sun has set..."

"The wind picks up, a sky already dark now blackens. Water starts falling from above, the first cold rain of the season..."

Two women stand on a small outcropping of rocks. One of them is wearing a purple raincoat. Thin lines reach out from the rods into the sea. Small droplets start appearing on the surface with increasing frequency.

"The women are caught in the downpour. They act quickly. Eva gathers the rods whilst Ulla turns around to reach for the tackle box..."