Reverend Hellfire's Sunday Sermon

NIGHTMARE IN NOIR

*

The Typewriter knew too much,

I decided.

It had to go.

Frankly my whole Business Model

was on the Skids anyway.

Employee Loyalty had become a byword

for Traitorous Self-Interest/ You

could smell the stink of Jealousy & Revenge

wafting though the waiting room

as you idly thumbed through the old magazines.

A fine thing for a Detective Agency! I thought. Still,

at least if you were here for a messy Divorce,

it told you straight-away

that you were in the right place.

But there was no-one I could trust in my own Organisation.

Certainly not since those Legal Proceedings last month

when I was ordered by the Court

to stop Objectifying my Staff.

(Ironically, the Court Case before that

I was ordered to stop Subjecting my Staff

to ‘Insane Whims & Demands’!

Subjectify! Objectify! Why can’t the Courts

make up their minds

so the rest of us can go back to business!)

Now the Filing Cabinet was hiding things from me,

the Gun was always loaded & shooting it’s mouth off,

and I was damn sure that the Phone was talking

to other People outside of the Office.

Even the Magnifying Glass had turned against me,

like it had fallen into the hands

of an obnoxious 10 Year Old

and I was a convenient Ant.

It had better watch it’s step, I thought darkly,

I only keep employing it out of Sentiment,

for Old Times sake. I could sack it at any time

and then sit back to watch & laugh

as it tried to get another job working

as a Magnifying Glass in today’s

Private Investigation Industry

in an Age where you can download

free Electron Microscope Apps

for your iphone.

Oh well, it’s old and a bit cracked & has always

magnified it’s own sense of Importance. A leftover from my Basil Rathbone period, really. I shall pity the Magnifying Glass

and continue to employ it.

For Old Times sake…

But the Typewriter would be a real Problem.

*

I knew that She’d be Trouble from the very first day

She came tap-tap-tapping into the Office.

I remember she’d just chipped a nail. Not one of hers

so She was in a good mood. Yes.. She was a brittle bitch

with a high gloss finish and you had to watch Her,

but I needed someone to answer the Phone when it started asking

awkward Questions (like; “Where were you last night?”..

Who is that Woman who keeps calling here?”)

and She could type 69 words a minute

so I hired her on the spot.

Big Mistake.

Within a couple of weeks the Typewriter had me

getting drunk, late every night in the Office

when everyone else had gone home,

pounding out my broken Heart, my broken Dreams,

my Fears and Frustrations in drunken 12 page letters

to an ex-Wife who didn’t love me and who,

if I were to be honest, I didn’t love either.

I never mailed any of those letters the next morning.

Tossed them away. But the Typewriter had taken it all in.

Again, if I were to be honest (this is getting

to be habit forming) it wasn’t the ex-wife

I was pouring out my sob story to anyway.

It was the Typewriter. She had become my

Deep-in-the-cups Confidente

Yes it was a relief to pour out all that inner angst

and have her methodically transcribe it onto paper

without judging me. Little did I realise

that my Words would be leaving an Impression on Her..

A permanent impression in fact, or, to be precise,

on the typing ribbon

that she stored in those tight little spools,

tucked away for blackmail & other future uses.

Just like the tell-tale Tape on

a secret recording device.

I didn’t know it yet, but my drunken words

would come back to haunt me.

If I’m Honest (Third time Lucky!) I have to admit

that when the first blackmail letter arrived

I was impressed. They’d gone to a lot of work

and it was expensively produced.

The individual letters

labouriously cut out and pasted onto a sheet

of High Quality rice paper, were all from expensive,

glossy Coffee Table magazines for Women.

Architexture & Design sort of crap, heavy with Artistic Pretensions in the photoshoots & layout, sprinkled with the odd interview from the more fashionable style & philosophy Guru’s. (This week’s lead articles; Primal Scream Therapy & Cooking with Seaweed.) No Hoi Polloi Tat here. No crumbling, yellowing tabloid rubbish. This was High End blackmail.

Had to be a mistake, I thought. But I was wrong.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR;

NIGHTMARE IN NOIR

Part 2;

THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUES!

***

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire..

    he’s just that sort of Guy

***

 

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Tags: alternate realities, archtypes, detective story, film noir, humour, noir, platonic forms, poetry, satire