cereal: How many red herrings? It's partly my own fault for giving this thing a cast the size of Guam, but you know...I know a lot of folks and they know a lot of people, so that feels real, but I don't know how to manage them.

A couple of red herrings are nice.

I suppose. They call 'em whodunnits not dunkers, right? For those few not Homicide-literate, a dunker is like, well, two cowboys having a shootout or something...the one not on the ground did it. A guy running around in a bloody shirt saying "And I'd do the bitch again!" Dunker. Only people like me read those books.

(half a drabble)

Cowboy on the ground in Mainstreet. Gun-fanning opponent stands with smoking gun, black hat tilted, silver gleaming.

Homicide cop dunks doughnut, observes to partner: "Winchester on Stable rooftop, right?"

Partner: "Heart attack."

HC: "Suppose we'll have to examine the body to settle this."

Partner: "What is this? CSI? He's dead. Pass the crabs."

Hee, hee. "Got yourself a stone dunker, bunk." Definite black under your name.

Drabble-y drabble time!

Challenge #45 (heart) is now closed.

Challenge #46 is very unstructured: describe something small. And by "something," it doesn't have to be something tangible.

The ship looked huge when we first walked across the bridge and into the atrium. I remember looking up and drinking in elevators that seemed to stretch up forever.

And now, the waves aren't bad, for the ocean. They tilt us from left to right, rock gently, lurch lightly. Buck and roll and dip back down, so subtle sometimes it is barely noticable. But my body, always so trustworthy at sea. always so in love with the movement of the water, rebels this time. It yearns for stability and solid ground. It longs for land.

There's not enough space. I can't breathe. This whale is too small.

After all the apartment talk in Natter, I had to...

I moved in sight unseen, paying twice the price for half the space as I had before. But it had high ceilings and a beautiful wood windowsill. The walls had been painted by the previous tenant, purple opposite exposed brick, yellow behind the kitchenette, green in the bathroom. I gave the “grand tour” standing still – the back wall was the kitchen; my bed, taking up half the floor space, was my bedroom; the new chair facing the tv was my living room. I moved into that apartment with no money and no job, happier than I had been in years.

Jesse, that's great!

Oooo...Kristin and Jesse, both wonderful.

I'm gonna take a stab...

I haven’t been near it for three days. Thankfully, I live alone; no one else has been subjected to the smell that is me. My bed has been my home for those three days…maybe more. I cannot move. I cannot think. I cannot motivate. My therapist would tell me it is time for some opposite action. I would tell her to fuck off.

But, maybe she has a point. Just one small thing. I turn the water on and sit on the bathroom floor, just listening while the drain swallows twenty minutes worth of water. The bathroom is a fog of steam. I hang my bathrobe on the hook and begin pulling off the pajamas I have lived in for god only knows how long. Time for some laundry, I think. But for now, just one thing. I step in the tub and let the water take over.