「 mr. police man 」

There was a nagging feeling in the pit of Damion’s stomach that he couldn’t pinpoint the root cause. It was either the wretched stench of decay or it was Wynn saying she would be on her best behavior. Both seemed horrific in their own way. His silent expression back drew on for longer than necessary, as if trying to communicate with her telepathically, a warning system not to fuck this up, but he finally sighed, relenting. “Yeah, yeah, I promise, I guess. But another thing, I’m not bringing you to church so you have a new place to hang people in, okay? I feel like that should go without saying, by the way. Might want to think on why I chose to anyways.”

Another look before his face squinted up before seeing the blue and red color scheme flashing across the walls. The tell tale sign of the police riddling over two dead bodies. Not an ideal position. “Mother fucker! We’re out. I’m out!” he went on as he climbed out through the window, taking the first shot at it before turning around to hold out his hands for Wynn to grab onto. “We are not sharing this at church, and you’re picking up the tab at the collection plate.”

“that church’ll be off limits.” and she means it, crosses her heart and hopes to die with a little sleeping face to prove it. she only has her word to live by around here, so she does her best to be honest. unless a police officer was asking questions, but damion was not the police. he was for all intents and purposes a long running accomplice, and his reaction to the flashing lights prove it. “it’s not for hanging, unless you mean hanging out!” she punched his shoulder at the joke, letting herself laugh for the both of them because he was starting to get a little nervous. she took his hand anyways, letting him pull her out of the apartment. she turned around for a second, taking in her scene for a glace longer before relinquishing it to the narrative of the responding officers. sending it out in to the world all grown up. she shut the window, sealed the crime scene.

“fine. i’ll come up with something. else” she followed him down the fire escape, now that he knew the way back down. she landed on the ground without a sound, years of practice turned some things perfect. “what do people do for minor sins? i want to sound authentic.” the sound of approaching sirens no longer had her on edge, she knew that the calmer they appeared, the easier it would be to walk right past any discerning officer. that’s what had let the zodiac escape all those years ago and it still held true. “and do you want to discuss over tacos. there’s a place right by here, super good. the owner knows me!” a side effect of needing somewhere to scope out possible victims and empty apartments. she needed a place with a good vantage of the street, and the small restaurant had been perfect. she couldn’t give it up now- that fell under suspicious behavior. “free guac, i swear.”

By words or laugh, he wasn’t fazed. No facial indicators involved, no internal response either, a flatlining sense on his side as he finished peeling back the layer of flesh from the neck. Focused always, even when he finally drew away, grabbing the gifted eye in her possession, hard enough for the cornea to be scraped off by the thumb, leaving it deflated like a low-pressured ball by the time he released it. The gelatinous substance inside would trickle out at first sign of a tear, held together only by the flexibility of anatomical design.

“You have another means to tell the time, now, Copeland,” he continued conversationally, resuming the jawline. “It will take an hour to regain its shape. Consider it an incentive to fill the time with constructive meaning instead.”

It was her turn to show a lack of concern. Familial ties snipped by death, a similarity between them when it came to a void of feeling towards it. It was fact. There was no changing it, and why would there be a reason to? “I’m curious to know what you would do if you were to meet the one responsible,” he answered. “Considering how influenced you are by them, how would you manage to gain the approval you’re desperate for?”

“fine. and when this takes the entire hour, that was your call.” she slowed her pace to match her words; though it did little in the way of increasing her accuracy. there was only so much thought that went into skinning. it was mindless when she got to the wide expanses of flesh that required nothing but patience. and a topic of conversation to keep the boredom at bay, though sebastian wasn’t all that great at the second part. asking about family wasn’t exactly either of their strong suit.

“hey now, i’m not desperate for anyone’s approval.” he was better than that— to read into her crime scenes with such a base level interpretation. it wasn’t supposed to be approval, it was a message. a little flare sent up in the night. i remember you, come find me. “i only want to meet the guy.” of course sebastian wouldn’t understand, he was always focused on the bodies. how to pressure and twist people. bend their bodies, let them break, and then encase them in cement. something like that. he left out the meaning of the work more often than not, as far as she’d ever been able to tell he only paused to see if he could. not why. 

full name: winifred violet copeland

birthday: may 3rd

age: twenty eight

zodiac sign: taurus

religion: christian

religious level (1-10): 4; but the angels!

birthplace: bangor, maine

current residence: brooklyn, new york

height: 5′6″

hair color: blonde

eye color: green

sexuality: bisexual

romantic preference: aromantic

relationship status: single

languages known: english, spanish, icelandic, norwegian

DETAILS—

car: white van

phone: samsung rugby iii

music genres: lana del rey

wardrobe: coveralls, steel-toe boots, tshirts, sweatpants, flannel shirts, everything is nondistinct and easily interchangeable

estimated net worth: ??? 

ransom value: 100 unsolved cold cases

CONNECTIONS—

timothy copeland, pops; murder unsolved

linda copeland, mama; murder unsolved

iris copeland, gram; murder unsolved

kevin copeland, bro; murder unsolved

sebastian steele, annoying older brother

damion killgrave, overprotective father figure

vaughn fitzgerald, little buddy

LEVELS (1-10)—

drinking: 2; why!

swearing: 4; why not!

smoking status: 5; she gets bored at work

drugs: 2; she experiments

cooking proficiency: 6; maybe so

intelligence: 9; she does evade authority 100% of the time

emotional/social intelligence: 0; trauma

creativity: 6; when it comes to murder

Practice. Vaughn hated the implication that this wouldn’t be the last time she’d ask him to do something like this – then again, if this was what it took to make Wynn happy,  he’d take it. If this was what it took to earn her praise; he was so pathetically desperate, he’d take the rolling nausea and the blood beginning to stain his gloves over shivering on a street corner.

He was almost done with the hand; one last crunch and the last finger digit fell to the floor. The secateurs barely fit around the wrist – Vaughn could smell the burgeoning decay, blood seeping from Clyde’s wrist as he fought to close the secateurs, snap through the bone. It was the same smell that permeated the artists’ rooms in the club, festering wounds and those who weren’t lucky to make it, blurring his vision with tears and stirring the nausea until it all became too much to bear. Gagging, he almost dropped the secateurs, clinging on desperately as he fought back the urge to vomit. “God – sorry –”

the sound he was making was unmistakable, the sign of someone still getting used to their work. “if you’re going to throw up grab a garbage bag!” she pointed to the neat black roll on the table. “cleaning that up would suck.” her tone was still easy, she wasn’t mad. it simply was what it was. “if you can just do the feet real quick, i swear we’ll stop.” she could do the big joints with a saw a little bit later. rigor mortis mattered less then. a knee was always a knee. it was the fine details that had to get done now. and he’d already finished his hand.

The orbital socket laid bare, a gaping chasm in a face frozen in excruciating pain as it watched its own eye being held up to be viewed. It must have been an unusual feeling to see the organ that provided sight with the one that was made to remain attached, much less to be told a snowman would be etched into it.

“Does assuming grant you what you want?” he asked while the leather-bound fingers pressed to the side of the neck, no movement from the carotid artery beneath his touch, and yet there was no concern. “When the muse is done, you can begin,” he rectified as his hand reached over to a syringe, filling it half-way from a vial in such casual order that it might as well have been routinely scheduled.

The exposed chest, where nerves were still left intact, vibrant red glistening under the lights above, the needle plunged through, piercing into the heart. Adrenaline drained into the body, its effect immediate, seen only in the rapid blink of the solitary eye.

“Fleeing one’s own consciousness fails to give the same release as death,” he informed, the syringe set aside, knife resuming its primary control instead of secondary. “You’re well aware of that fact, Copeland,” he began as the peeling continued up the throat, “given that your parents succumbed faithfully to it.”

“no—it makes an ass out of you and me!” she laughed too loud at the cliché, poked the muse’s shoulder as if he was primed to agree with her, or respond at all. assuming granted nothing, but hey she’d been right. she didn’t need to call him on that, they both had to be aware of it. the same sentence said different ways. she watched the syringe with detached curiosity, the contents of it being revealed soon enough with the way the muse jolted back to life. she could see the sudden alertness in their face. it was epinephrine, or something similar, at least that’s what she would have used to keep someone awake. though she rarely preferred them that way.

“It’s called Hell,” he told her, voice short from the limited breath he had sucked in. He could see it. One of the circles from Dante’s Inferno could have a Baskin Robbin’s, where all it did was sell rotting flesh as a flavor. It seemed like it could go in a revised copy if someone was bold enough to do it. It was better to look at her than the rest of the room, gaining his attention easily as she went on, only for him to present her with a suspicious look. “I’m going to let you know that that somehow doesn’t sound as encouraging as you might think it does.”

“There isn’t a greatest hits list with the bible, kid. If you want real inspiration, you have to go to the source.” Maybe it would do her some good, anyways. Make her sort through all… /this./ Of all reasons to not want to go to church, though, he eyed her at hers before deciding that he didn’t want to know what kind of thing she wasn’t eager to confess to. “At this point, I’m thinking confession might not be the worst thing here.–I’ll take you, but if you ask the pastor how he’d like to die, I don’t know you.”

she thought for a moment, returning his look with a blank stare. “i’m being honest.” not encouraging, there was a difference.  she didn’t particularly care how he felt about the situation—they were all going to die one way or another, no amount of complaining would change that. the best she could do was give it some style, or follow wishes were they provided. not everyone wanted to be art, though she couldn’t fathom why. the angels in the room with them would live on in infamy, longer than they would have had they stayed alive.

“i guess i could make some time to read.” he had a point with inspiration, it could be drawn from anywhere. she had to think that the old school stories were hiding some violence. behind every moral message there was a punishment to find, and people were total suckers for religious theming. they went nuts for it when they thought there was a killer repenting or spreading some holy message. she didn’t get the appeal personally, but it was there nonetheless. it was there in damion too, how everyone seemed to know more once probed. “you promise you’ll take me? best behavior i swear.” it was a lot easier to follow when he gave her clear rules: don’t say this, don’t do that. don’t ask the pastor how he’d like to die. easy! there were plenty of other questions. “i’ll wear a sundress and everything like it’s easter.”

“I – I’m sorry,” Vaughn managed to choke out, fighting down nausea. He’d been bad, was she going to punish him? Images, sensations of the muses flashed back, glancing down shamefully at his scarred, fingernail-less hands. “I’ll do better,” he murmured, picking up Clyde’s hand again, shoving the next digit into the secateurs. If this was what he had to do to avoid punishment, to please her, he could do it.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Eyes closed, Vaughn desperately snipped the joints as best he could, refusing to let himself think about what he was doing. Mutilating a body, just like he’d been mutilated – but he deserved it, he barely qualified as a person anymore, if ever, just a broken toy. Even though he knew that to be the truth, the thought still hurt, tears spilling past his closed eyes. When he opened them, he didn’t dare look at the body, or even the cold hand in his. “Is this right?” Despite the nausea, the dizziness, the bone-deep chill he still hadn’t shaken, he was so desperate to be good.

“practice makes perfect!” she chirped as if it had any bearing on the situation that she’d created. she looked at the cuts he was making, careful to mimic their pattern, lest police suddenly get wise and realize two people had cut up the body. that was assuming they ever found it. it was better if it was one clumsy person; a fledgling killer as it were. she liked to cover all bases. it was still somewhat easy work with the body malleable.

“360 pieces.” Vaughn repeated it numbly, still trying to take it all in and not give in to the urge to gag, heavy at the back of his throat. The worst part was that it did make sense: Wynn had given him a set of instructions, so he would carry them out, even if his hand trembled as he took the pliers.

Glancing down at Clyde, Vaughn’s stomach rolled all over again. He couldn’t do this – but he had to, even as his vision began to spin he picked up the other hand, feeling for a joint. Pinky finger. Easy. No worse than dragging the bodies of his friends out of the club; Marlowe liked to make him bury them, seen as he sometimes survived. But they never made him mutilate them, never made him shove the joint between garden secateurs and –

Crunch. He heard something plop onto the canvas, opened one eye to see the tip of Clyde’s finger lying on the canvas, small spray of blood beneath it. That was the last straw. Suddenly, Vaughn felt like someone was forcing their hand up his throat and he gagged, reflexively clamping his lips shut. His desperate eyes said sorry, but he didn’t trust himself to speak, only stare at what he had done, fear, disgust, guilt all bubbling with the nausea that swilled in the pit of his stomach.

she only paid attention in the peripheries of her own work. the fingers would be quick work, done precisely and with little effort, especially not when compared to a knee or elbow. she glanced over after one finger was done to see that he was staring back at her with an emotion she couldn’t place. it was probably one of those sad ones, cropping up and ruining people from doing their work. she found it hard to distinguish the given humanity of a situation. clyde was dead but she hadn’t killed him, if anything she was making him more exciting. it took some getting used to.

“Kid, there is not a twisted enough universe out there where this makes the Baskin Robbins flavor of the month. Let’s just get that straight right now.” It took a whole breath for the statement to make its mark before he had to turn his head, refilling the lungs from the open window. The back of his hand pressed to his nose, an attempt to filter out the rest while he watched her eyes light up like a child on Christmas. Whatever she got a kick out of, so be it if it revolved around a viking burial. The only hitch was that he didn’t completely believe her assurance, looked her without hiding the skepticism.

“I’d remind you, but would you stop? That’s the $64,000 question,” he went on before pulling his hand away, hating that he was slowly getting used to the ambience, just not enough to take in long intakes, still at short, barely-there breaths. Nose scrunched up, eyes squinting back at the makeshift angels with a small grimace that twisted into a reluctant appraisal. He glances away, then back, holding back his tongue. No. No, he wasn’t going to encourage this. On the other hand… “This is not me endorsing what you’re doing here, okay? Letting that be on the record for the big guy upstairs. You’re getting marked for blasphemy. But…” his head tilted, face wrinkling up in how he gave a final debate until giving in, “you could make them more angelic. Skim over the bible maybe. Get a goodreads on that. Just… don’t become one of those born again… You know the type. I’m not going with you to any church that deals with Christian rock and doles out Welch’s grape juice. I draw the line there.”

“i mean—there might be one.” multiple universes, splitting reality. something about a butterfly in there. “i dunno, i don’t really read that stuff.” she had her own universe to contend with, and most days into was interesting enough. she could make it so, dazzling displays for the short attention span. oh the angel maker, would they ever strike again? she wasn’t sure at the moment, but she liked the grimace on his face. the suggestion that there was room for improvement. “besides, i’d stop! i promised! you’ve got my word. it’s very important.” she couldn’t leave paperwork or trails of any kind, what she had left to give were her unfiltered words. “i don’t really want to work on you alive anyways. that’s not the point.”

“do they make a sparknotes? it’s kind of long.” he was right, probably, that there was more inspiration to be gleaned than just assuming wings made people angels. there might be a quote to add, were she in the mood to paint the walls with a particular shade of crimson. “i don’t really want to sit through church for it.” she was generally too busy on saturdays and sundays anyways, there was plenty of cleaning to be done. “i hear they make you confess things.”

“Hey lady, what gives you the right to judge his work. What do you have thats so much better than what he does?” Deryl was getting more annoyed than he should have been. He knew he had to keep his cool since he had been undercover. He could still feel his blood pressure rising though. “Let it go will you, fuck! I’m Count Xander. Its my pen name. Give it a fucking rest. How could you know what I gets wrong anyways? You’d have to have been a murderer to know the details better than I did. I do thorough research and even though I may not have all the answers but I do my best. And don’t tell a fucking soul that I told you that, I’ll deny it. You’ll look stupid.”

“Oh.” Perhaps she was joking, but it made morbid, dizzy sense to Vaughn. His throat ached at the memory of being scraped raw by screams, nails – when he had them – scraping against the walls, wishing for some kind of escape. And he had escaped. He had escaped, only to find himself manhandling a limp corpse, still clinging to it until Wynn dropped her half. The way it flopped on the canvas was all wrong, only heightening the nausea sloshing in his stomach.

“Alright, um–” No, no – the sight of the saws reminded Vaughn of the sound of saws, some of the muses’ favourite punishments. His hands shook, vision tunnelling slightly as he picked one up, Wynn had told him to, so there was no debate. “I don’t know – how?”

“of course you don’t!” she laughed, how was he supposed to know if she didn’t show him. she knew it wasn’t everyone’s favorite hobby, but the fact he was so willing, that was good enough for her. “choose your weapon...” there were plenty laid out. she took a pair of pliers that looked suitable for yard work. she sat down next to the body, pulling the hand onto her lap, bending the still movable fingers. “feel for where he bends, and then you just—” she pulled the first knuckle of the index finger in between the blades and then snap! the tip of the finger fell onto the canvas. “the big joints might require an electric saw. but we can save those for last.”

Sebastian’s fingers twisted out of reflex, the blade twirling from downward to upward, a pinpoint of stainless steel barely a hair away from her latex-laden palm before she retracted the motion from continuing–an act like a hummingbird that was going to run head-first into the nastiest thorn, only to realize it at the last second. Her blood still decorated his knife, not even enough time for the thin veneer to dry, and it would gladly accept the next offering at a moment’s notice.

“Careful, Copeland. It would be a shame to hinder you by leaving you with one operable hand,” he mused with eyes sinking into hers, “but if you’re that determined to avoid work, do continue, will you?”

She was watched, an odd peace surrounding him, the type of energy one exudes when fear is not familiar, no threat seen, a confidence that every living thing within his reach could be filleted in one single stroke. The muse would do for such a feeling, letting the metal separate the tissue from the nerves, a microscopic netting of fibers left behind for the shock to electrify the mind.

“If you’re in search of a museum to inspire you,” tips of his fingers peeled back the layer, a sheet thicker than paper as he continued beyond the ribcage, “have higher standards than one that fails to keep the faces. You wouldn’t want to subject yourself to censorship, would you?” The layer was folded back, his side complete before his fingers tipped the muse’s chin up. The eyes were viewed for a moment before his own turned to her.

“You should be aware of irezumi,” he noted, a simple jump from the museum of yakuza members hanging to the statement at hand. The skin was claimed, his and his alone, but she could be given one spot if she earned it. His thumb dipped into the eye socket, the edge massaging into the lower lid, coaxing the globe of sight to finally pop beyond its confines. “You’re allowed to give it one.”

she looked at her hand, stretching her fingers out as though she were contemplating what her life would be like without it. she liked her hands, the fine motor work they could do; microscopic incisions, sewing perfectly straight lines, mimicking any handwriting she so desired. she couldn’t get that from a prosthetic. and so her hands returned to the task at hand.

“all work and no play!” she joked, continuing on her own path of peeling back the skin. there were plenty of options on how to work. given silence or music, she would choose music. given music or talking, she would always chatter away. she thought it did little to bother sebastian, so long as the work was getting done. and she’d nearly matched his own pace, her charade aside. one even layer, no tearing, no wrinkling, everything kept as though it were about to be reattached to the next unwilling participant. “they don’t mention that on wikipedia.” she sighed, looking at the singing red that was left across the chest, how vibrant it was when trying to protect, reacting with oxygen to produce a pigment an artist would die for. the one thing the living had going for them. “if the face is what you want.” she shrugged, willing to go exactly as far as sebastian wanted. she never rested for her vision, she found it hard to believe that he would stop short either.

she watched as he popped the eye out of its socket with a tilted head, some note at the speed with which he did it. she was no stranger to the sight, pulling the eyes from her variety of victims was an easy choice. it always sent people into a fuss, putting so much emphasis on a single organ. what could it have seen! what secrets did it hold! mostly, she found the eyes to be the first thing to decay, and nothing more memorable. she reached over, lifting the eye that had been removed, and severing the ocular nerve without a second thought. she held it up for inspection, before showing it to the muse it had been so thoughtfully taken from, with their still in tact field of vision. “look at this! it’s going to be a snowman!” she smiled, before setting it down on her own tray.

Vaughn winced at her answer, the pain of losing his own fingernails all too fresh in his mind. He couldn’t imagine such pain being inflicted by a sibling, someone who was supposed to care for you. Then again, he’d never had a sibling, only his parents: his father, distant, a bleeding heart of regret. His mother, her anger washing over him like a wave, drowning him just as much as her high expectations. Thinking of them, it wasn’t too hard to swallow Wynn’s violent brother, only slightly less veiled in his violence than Vaughn’s mother. “I’m sorry, um – yeah. The club. They wanted to make me scream, though.”

When the car stopped, Vaughn stumbled out, trying to brave the rush of lightheadedness that followed. His eyes flicked warily around the building, nothing the canvas, the spotlights that made his headache pulse. So professional – like the club. Like Marlowe. It made his stomach roll, instincts telling him to run, conditioning telling him to obey; grabbing the legs of the corpse, he bit down a wave of nausea, stumbling after her. “Do you – do you need me to cut him up?”

“they sure do! that’s the motto.” she wasn’t actually sure if the club had a motto, she’d never bothered to ask. but she liked that concept. we want to make you scream! people would never realize what it meant until it was too late. she tucked it away, marlowe would probably get a kick out of it. she laughed, dropping the body on the canvas, surveying how the limbs splayed out, not let rigid in their motion. real ragdoll physics, leaving vaughn to either drop his end or be stuck holding the feet.

“Count me out for finding out why you kept tabs on him,” Damion stated, already in too deep, stepping too close to her mind, under the belief that a priest would be a crown jewel in a piece made up of hanging angels. “Uhg.. how can I taste it? It’s like I’m licking a slaughterhouse…” His eyes closed, mouth opened a little wider, tongue outstretched before his lips twisted up. The mention of the sandwich did him no favors.

“Yeah, that was a fond memory while it lasted,” he mumbled before moving back to the window, hand gripping the frame just to deeply breathe in the cool air. In the background, he heard her and had to throw her a look over his shoulder of pure comical concern. “Don’t display the skin…” he sighed with disappointed, the kind that comes to a parent when their child tells them they want a tattoo of the lamest member of KISS. “They’re not fried chicken thighs where the skin is the best part, kid… Don’t you know how hard it’d be to cut all of that off–” he stopped, held up a finger with tight lips before editing himself. “Nope! No. We are not talking about flaying. Not tonight. Not ever.” His head swiveled back to the night, noticeably showing how he looked up, as if in need of desperate help while she gave her own kind of help. “No! I want a pine box! Lord, stop being extra! No suspension. No crucifixion. Nothing that belongs on a Dateline special.” He gave a moment of a pause before throwing her one crumb. “I’d entertain a Viking burial but only if you were sure I was dead. Don’t do any early cremation on me.”

“you’re being dramatic. it doesn’t taste that bad.” there was of course, the age old adage that she’d gotten used to it. she’d set up the entire scene how could she not know the details. but she liked to think the answer was really just that he was looking for something to complain about. it was a sign, that there was nothing else wrong with the scene. it was good to go.

“it’s not the worst—” she started to contribute before he cut off the line of inquiry. it was too bad, she didn’t mind talking about flaying—really, she was curious to know why he immediately thought of chicken. but she knew the gesture, the figures pressed to his mouth, it meant to not continue on with the topic anymore. at least for a few more hours, maybe once the sandwich had settled. ever never really meant as much as he wanted it to. “a viking burial! finally!” she turned away from her work, and back to him, the idea catching in her imagination. “something i can work with.” they had elaborate set ups and left little evidence, a compromise that she could absolutely work with. she could make the boat herself even, with this much of a heads up. “i would know if you were still alive.” maybe not everyone, but she spent enough time with damion. she could tell the difference between him awake and asleep, certainly she could figure out dead or alive. “come on—you would totally remind me, right?”

“Pro…death… interesting. That’s not what I was expecting to hear.” His guard went up instantly. She was seeming a bit on the unstable side, but he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Why, population spiraling out of control? Society going to hell in a handbasket? Whats your angle?” He was waiting for her response but the tirade against him was enough to make him drop his guard and go on the counteroffensive. “Hey, he’s not that bad. People love his work, its sold millions. You can’t steal a crime, its public record. “ It didn’t even register to him that she mentioned that the details were wrong. He used all information publicly available when he wrote his books, so that was another red flag he was missing.

Whatever makes you happy. It was pathetic, but the words sparked something painfully hopeful in Vaughn’s chest. Happy. No-one had wanted that for – given that to – him in so long. Perhaps the dismemberment was simply the price he needed to pay for more of her praise. “Okay,” he murmured, trying to bite down the vaguely sick feeling that had began to crawl up his throat.

He desperately wanted to object, no, he didn’t want to take apart another human being like the muses did – but it what she said was an imperative, not a question. She had to be obeyed. “Uh – I’m up for it. Sure.” The words were slightly marred by his still-chattering teeth and the nervous shaking of his voice, yet they were what she wanted to hear, at least. He winced when he saw her missing nail, reflexively glancing at his own, only just beginning to grow back. “Who did that?”

“older brother.” she pulled a face, as if the thought alone was annoying. as though it was the terminology for a relationship that she’d pulled out of thin air—oh the tangled web she wove. she figured sebastian would scoff at the notion, but he did with all things. “he tried to teach me a lesson.” children should not play with dead things. only ones that were alive and unwilling to give. something like that. it was not a lesson that was likely to stick, his philosophizing. but she could gain what she liked, toss what she didn’t. “tell you what, i didn’t even scream! bet you can relate. yours don’t look very professional.”