I HAD NEVER been on a train like that before. It slumped along through the forests of the hills. It was cylindrical in design, but as far as I could tell had no kind of wheels or tracks. Instead, it was propelled downward by its weight, almost like a sled. It was red on the inside and on the outside. There were seats for passengers, but I was the only one. In the front, there was a conductor with an old-fashioned suit and handlebar mustache. He stared out the front window, and I could see the ships in the distance. Then the train slid into a dispatching point by the piers. Some men were loading up a sailing ship with cargo nearby. “This is Baltimore Harbor, Baltimore Harbor last stop,” the conductor announced. The doors opened. I got out.
How strange to be back in America. And why did I wind up in Baltimore Harbor? I could smell the frizzle fry of crabcakes from a restaurant somewhere. Ah, Chesapeake crabcakes. I began to walk along the seafront there, until I realized I was being trailed by some strange men, dark-haired characters, perhaps from the Medellin cartel. I turned up a side street to lose them, then went down another. I stepped up into an old building that I thought was a hotel. Inside, there was a sort of plump woman waiting for me outside a door. She had a gray and blue dress, she had long curly hair, and wasn’t particularly attractive. She told me that she had been sent by the cartel to poison me. I began to kiss her immediately, with passion, and we fell through the door into the room. What could be hotter or more arousing than a woman sent to kill you?
This room turned out to be part of a restaurant. It was dark inside, but there were small tables around which were seated couples talking about their previous relationships and career choices. One of them was familiar to me. It was Lea, a businesswoman from Tallinn. She was engaged in some date night talk with a man of Middle Eastern descent. She looked quite nice, and was dressed well. He had on a black turtleneck and jacket. I wondered where she had met him. The candlelight was reflected in her blue eyes and I could see the outline of her blonde hair. The man kept talking as if nothing was amiss. “Don’t mind us,” I said, as I shagged the plump assassin over a neighboring table. “We’re just discussing something.” We knocked over the candles and the utencils dropped from the table. Finally, we both climaxed. It was intense. Lea seemed slightly confused by the scene but continued to dig through her crabcakes.
After the plump assassin was vanquished, I went for a stroll. I took a train to Washington’s Union Station and started off toward Embassy Row. Maybe I should go see my family, I thought. They aren’t so far away. I passed a few embassies, protected by high walls and barbed wire, and armed guards. Flags flapped in the night. Just then, I became aware that I was being followed again. This time it was the Chinese. Maybe they had something to do with Medellin?
I couldn’t be sure.
Outside the Estonian Embassy, I noticed there was a family of rather ferocious chickens pecking about in a park. I induced the Mother Hen to attack this new team of assailants, and it tore into both of them in a cloud of feathers. They were killed. After that, I packed the bodies into a suitcase and tossed it into the Potomac River in Georgetown. There was little to tie me to the killings, and, besides, I hadn’t actually killed anyone. I was an accessory at best. The autopsy would reveal that both were murdered by a chicken. An open and shut case. The end.
north! 