Saturday Scribes, Saturday June 28
The prompt for this week was: theme- water. Words: paperclip, doorway, cinnamon. I had fun with it, and decided to go with some fictional prose.
The day was a rainy one, and so I decided to pursue my investigation indoors at the public library. There wasn’t much I could do anyway at the scene of the crime. The lakefront was blocked off by OPP with all their traffic gadgets - pylons, yellow strips with all that bold black lettering on it. People were milling around outside, waiting for something to happen, anything. A murder in Port Perry? Not the usual type of news that hit the Port Perry Star or The Port Perry Standard. Not the usual fare - Strawberry Suppers, Beef Dinners, Church Yard Sales, Dragon Boating Week-end. These brought some interested or conscientious types, depending on the event. But a murder? The only murders Port Perry had seen in recent years were tragic domestic ones that were whispered about at the corners of subdivisions. Did you know so-and-so who killed his wife? I never saw him come out of the house! I guess he was nuts.
Those murders, though not typical of Port Perry news, happened once in a while. But a body found in the lake? Drowned in Lake Scugog? Now, if any of you don’t know Lake Scugog, I can tell you that a body in the lake is also not too big a surprise. How many hundreds of people go out on the lake these days, breeze around without life jackets and no swimming skills and end up big D drowned out there before the usual helpful fireman, ready in all emergencies, can get to them. Those tourist deaths, usually at least one a summer, add to all those winter deaths of snowmobilers who decide to take their snow machines in thin ice areas.
But today something else has happened. The Body in the Lake. A great title for a mystery novel, though probably used by now. What has happened? An unidentified body has risen up and floated along to the marina, getting stuck against the big tourist Ferry Boat that costs $26.50 for a 20 minute tour of Lake Scugog. This is exciting because a) the body is dead and b) the body is unidentified. Everyone loves the mystery of not knowing who that unlucky bugger was who ended up floating around that shallow lake amongst the weeds. Maybe it was the Lake Scugog Sea Monster on the attack. Not many had claimed to see this monster, but perhaps this unlucky person?
So, why was I getting involved? Who am I? Your basic unemployed teacher. And what can you do in the in-between times? You’ve dropped off 10 resumes yesterday, and you’re darned if you’re going to drive around today with another ten. So, you decide that you’re going to investigate this murder. How? Get away from the crowds and head straight to the nearest public library, whose doorway welcomes you to unending bliss amongst thousands of titles.
Of course, you’re kidding yourself if you think you’ll really be researching this mystery. The Body in the Lake? Who’s kidding who? But it’s fun to pretend for a moment that you’re involved in something important like that. Going to the library had another added benefit. I’d get out of the rain, which was now pouring more heavily, filling Lake Scugog up.
Entering Scugog Memorial Public Library was always a pleasant experience. I could browse first at all the “let’s get rid of these old hardbacks pile, laid out on a table.” Then I could smile at and perhaps chat with one of the friendly librarians. I knew them all and they knew me, a frequent visitor for many years. Then I could begin a search at the computer, of wander around till something struck my interest.
With careful discretion and tact, I sneaked right by the tall bookshelf full of HOW TO GET A JOB books. No more of that today. I didn’t want to think about interview skills and how to develop them. I needed a break from the dark reality of job-hunting and who-knows-who, and don’t you know anybody, cause it’s all about who-you-know, don’t you know?
I scoot right over to the fiction shelves. If anything could give me a hook on that murder outside, it would be some good old mystery writer. I looked first, forlornly, at the library’s sad holdings of Agatha Christie novels, and think to myself that the time will come when I will order the full collection in paperback. I imagine bringing a large box into the house with every last novel, and then going on a week-long Agatha Christie celebration, reading and snoozing endlessly for days, drinking tea, eating cookies, and being decadent in all ways. Light fiction. Lots of Earl Grey. Hm...
But the pickings on good old Agatha are slim as usual. I’ve read all three choices they have here. I walk past the Ruth Rendall. Not up to that today. And Elizabeth George. Too repetitive. Then I see a yellow paperclip sitting in front of a Sue Grafton novel. F is for Fugitive. And is the paperclip a divine instrument, an oracle? Will it ultimately lead me to the knowledge of who that criminal is out there who killed that dead body in the lake.
Very unlikely, of course, but today I have all the time in the world, and I thought I would let providence, fate, God, lead me. And the paper clip could be sent directly from a re-incarnation of a yogi who has chosen me to pass on messages from the mysterious East.
Hardy har har, as my sister used to say, laughing. I grab “F is for Fugitive,” quickly check it out, and pass out that double-doorway, passing by a couple of kids having great fun with the disability doors. If I were a kid, I’d be playing with those doors too, and driving the librarians crazy.
It was still pouring rain outside, so I decided to run across to the Pantry Shop. The place was busy, full of people taking refuge from the rain and catching up on the gossip about the dead body. I may not get much reading done here, but I just might hear something important and pertinent. I was on the case, or so I told myself. It was better than job hunting, and at least I didn’t have to pretend to myself that there was any importance in my activities.
I stood at the counter, smelling the cinnamon buns - hey, when did the Pantry Shop start having cinnamon buns? That was the baking territory of Hank’s, down on Queen street.
“We started baking cinnamon buns last week,” the counter lady told me. She was dressed in The Pantry Shop’s usual clean white aprons over t-shirt. “I’ll take one,” I said, and found a loonie, hoping that it would be enough, but suspecting I’d have to scrounge for some quarters any minute.
posted by Carol Anne @ 8:14 AM
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