Detective Steel wasn't the type to take a break often.
But when he did, something always broke through the peace.
The Raven Pecked On Wood
When Poe decided he would hear a tapping on his chamber door,
He figured that the bird should speak and caw a haunting Nevermore,
But death is such a rhythmic tapping,
Time speeds past us overlapping
With the sounds of life,
In every footstep closer to its door.
So, despite my less than practiced hand and less than household name,
I’ll posit that a Woodpecker is better suited to death’s game,
For dulled down tapping, oft repeating, fading out then in for fleeting
moments, sounds like He I fear in ways which suit a Raven poor.
While death may meet you as a Raven in a formal door to door,
The truer sacred pain of knowing He is there each day is more.
Like woodpeckers, never ceasing, tapping, pecking, hunting, beating,
Death’s a drum but never do speak about the obvious.
While the crow’s taps echo cleanly, and their caw can beckon meanly,
Death in essence is a clock so subtle it can hide in sight.
The clicking, clacking on the tree,
More clearly harkens back to He,
Who Ravens have long claimed to be,
And who is there all day and night.
Working steady, clock a’ticking,
Scratching, jabbing, rapping, hitting,
Each few seconds off the total, til’ He breaks through to his goal.
Death has a sneaky way of tap tap tapping its way into our lives when we least expect it, and the events which transpired at the Yuletide Lighting of Selar's of Hope encapsulated the world's morbid sense of humor to a tee. In what was meant to be a triumphant moment, a key victory for Galleria Zed and its proprietor, became a tragedy within seconds, as his key competitor was lit up instead. The countdown to 8PM, the pull of a massive ceremonial lever, and the rush of electricity were the main players in Detective Steel’s early investigative theories. The cord had been cut and rerouted to electrocute one Claire Clarke, head of a rival gallery to that of his good pal Zed. And a rival’s hand looks awfully guilty on the trigger, or lever as it was, despite Zed’s many dramatic cries of innocence.
Steel headed to the scene of the crime, stepping carefully around the ashy remnants from where the body had so recently lain. He put himself into the mind of each partygoer, the host, and then that of the murderer. Motive can be hard to track, but there was more to this case than your average killing. Clarke’s little dog was missing too, a yappy little mutt ever adorned in a red collar with a gaudy huge emerald hanging from the front. Why take the dog? Why kill the lady? Why not try to strike where the real money was…THE ART!
The detective raced over and stared in dawning horror at the paintings on loan to Galleria Zed from museums worldwide. In the panic, nobody had thought to check, but in their places hung parodied works, each a mocking imitation which replaced the subject with Godzilla.
Why kaiju?
But something else soon caught his eye, a poetic set of numbers and words scrawled alongside the new art. It didn’t take him long at all to parse: coordinates . It was all leading him to Pxcott City. Maybe this could make for a vacation after all, so long as he could avoid complications.
Where to go from here: