Chapter 4 -End - Corpse Whisperer

Corpse Whisperer: Chapter 3.
All chapters here.

Grass spirit was the kind of alcohol that gave you a hangover just by looking at it. Grass spirit was a drink that had hangovers at you.

"Look, Tronton, I'm sorry my lad, but I need to look for it later tonight. I've lost it again and this time it can very well be permanent."
Norman gave a startled look, then enquired "Have you stared?"
- "For the best of the afternoon, yes"
- "Have you looked in the kitchen? Missing chairs?"
- "None"
- "You, sir, need a drink".

The answer hung in the air before going through his lips. He didn't feel like going home for a second round of searching. He didn't feel like spending a restless night thinking about it, and most of all, he didn't feel like being sober.
"I think you're right."

- "Have a sip then, and don't spill will ya? It kills the lawn if you spill and I have a hell of a time growing it back."
He quaffed the content of both cups, in a row, almost snatching them from Norman's hands. The liquid tasted obviously grassy, somewhat piquant, and in the same time had a sort of dull , warm presence. It tasted like a bee sting at the base of your neck.

At the temporary cost of several dozens IQ points, he immediately felt better. "Boy, isn't this a most needed slap in the face of an exhausting, belaboring day!" was how he thought he expressed his gratitude. To everybody else, it sounded like "Wharbl". Instant drunkenness had struck.

Henri looked at him with an annoyed expression.
"I limp, you lurch. How's that for you?"
- "You're jsut jaeluos beacuse yuo gonna ooze out if you drnik taht"
- "Yes, so there this is low"
- "Adn you're bieng all Fnrech agian!"
- "And you're being dyslexic!"
- "And yuo, yuo are daed!"

Tronton, suddenly feeling several time zones away, decided to leave that place where everybody spoke in tongues and went on opening the gate as a sign that everyone should call it a day.

The pair left, staggering and bickering so eagerly that the distance home was covered in no time.

Arrived at destination, they unlocked the apartment's door and, too absorbed by their discussion, went directly inside without disarming the door's spring trap.
A short pang of noise exploded in the air,  a crossbow bolt surged from the end of the room, pinning their dispute right off their mouths, straight into the opposing wall.
The bolt kept vibrating for a while under their nonplussed gaze.

- "I think we'll leave it at that" Henri opined.
- "Brilliant idea. I'm suddenly a lot more sober"
- "I would say, slightly more sober, you're still lurching"
- "Whatever, let's get inside and look for it, I won't have dinner before I've found it."
- "As you wish." Henri pause for a split second. "Hey, do you remember that time when we made it come back with some loose change? Maybe it could work?"
- "Ha! Yes!" he almost shouted, brightened, while almost instantly reaching for coins in his trousers pockets.
His fingers burrowed down.
He was expecting the greasy, cold feeling of spare change, but instead he came in contact with a very familiar shape.
He couldn't believe what he had found.

- "Henri! That's it! In my pocket, I've found it!"
- "You mean you had it with you all along?" Henri asked, baffled.
- "No, of course not. It must have gone to the Somehow Dimension. You know how object lost there tend to reappear when alcohol is involved? Problem solved."

He raised it to eye level, a content smile on his face. He would be able to sleep tonight, and tomorrow would be an easy day at work. Hell, the whole week would be easier. He'd got it!

Glowing with joy, breathing deeply with relief, he entered his bedroom to store it in his closet. In a tighter box, this time. Where it would be safe, still, and waiting there for further use. No more losing it, no more wandering.

He opened the closet's door, still holding it… then he lost his grip.

He had pulled it out of his pocket in a rather clumsy way, and hadn't been holding it firmly enough. It slipped through his fingers, starting its inevitable course toward the floor.
It wasn't fragile, trying to crush or squeeze it would never damage it.
It was, though, very unstable. In the way of some very capricious chemicals.
The ones that have their very own deflagration scale.

A drop from more than a half a meter would definitely make it burst. And probably the whole building with it.

He had not time to react. It was over in a blink. Everything went noisy, then white, then black…
…then Henri, upside down, his face in a dubious close up.

- "I'm about to spit out a cliché about this being heaven and you being a very ugly angel…"
- "Oh, but not at all, chief. This is earth. You've been, hm, asleep for a little while"
- "How long?"
The disembodied voice of Norman Tronton spoke from somewhere above him. "Around two weeks I'd say, sir. Long-ish, if you ask me. But then you don't look too bad."
- "Tronton where are you? I can't see a thing but Henri's face!"
- "I'm above, sir. I didn't close your box, or your hole. We bet, Henri and I that you'd come back. Seems that he won."
- "Come back from where? What hole, what box?" He was disoriented, his brain only marginally faster than a narcoleptic slug.
- "Sir… half your building's turned to dust, all the windows in the block got shattered by the blast. You didn't think you'd survive that, did you?"
- "So, you're trying to tell me that I've turned into one of my clients? How are Henri and I not some splatters and a plume of smoke then?"
- "Somehow, we didn't get dismembered" Henri replied with a wide, yellow grin, giving a strong inflection to the word "somehow".
- "Owh we're lucky bastards aren't we" His tone was joyless.

The Somehow Dimension had still been open in his pocket, and had sucked them both in, to let them come out at a random place and time. Just like a couple of almost empty lighters at the end of a party.
It was a poor consolation; If the whole transition had prevented them from being quite literally all over the place, the explosion had still killed him.
And now he was back. He fell silent.

"Where did we reappear?" he asked after a moment, in an almost disinterested tone.
- "A couple of streets away, two weeks ago, we popped through a man-hole. I brought you here. A jar of war pickles made it, too. Useless to say they threw a fit."
- "Ah well… let them. They'll calm down eventually…" his words trailed off.

Henri and Norman's voices faded into the background. He was slowly realizing what had happened to him. He was at the bottom of his own grave, for the excellent reason that he was legally dead. After years and years interacting with awakened corpses, he had become one. Poetic injustice were the words he would have chosen.

But at the moment he didn't feel like talking.
After all, he had been diligently working for most of his adult life, and now that he was dead, he had the right to feel like doing nothing at all, and do it well.
Maybe, at some point, he'd become a picketer, a marketer or, who knew, a necrologist again. But that was for later.

He let out a yawn. Now was time for some long, long holidays.

FIN.

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