Parking Ticket.
Par-King Tick-Et.
Parkingticket.
... Had he truly taken a vehicle out here? How interesting! How had he managed that? He couldn't even remember if he knew how to drive! How novel!
It didn't look familiar.
Mr. Perkins made a slow circle of the vehicle, PARkingTICKet between two fingers, flapping slowly back and forth. This was a 2015 Honda Civic. Front wheel drive, automatic, in line 4 cylinders, 16 valves, banana yellow.
He knew nothing about cars, what a waste of time. Mr. Perkins tucked the parKING tickET under the windshield wiper with a friendly pat pat.
"There you are!" He turned and faced the world and it spread out before him like the end of a rainbow.
Lets see, lets see... Rose Marie and the burglar on 5th and Main, well that's just around the corner!
He strolled right through traffic. He ignored the honking horns and waved slender fingers at the drivers as they passed. He stepped over a homeless man and dropped several steel buttons into his hat. No no, not steel. Copper? Perhaps tin. Whatever they were, they clinked merrily together, and the homeless man smiled and waved.
So many people up and about! It smelled like a buffet! A bouquet? A bucket. A slightly dingy bucket. Yes indeed. A bucket.
Thunder cracked around him and Perkins raised a hand to shade his eyes from the moon. He peered at the sky. Curious! Not a cloud in the sky! It smelled suddenly like blood, and clouds certainly didn't bleed! Well unless you count the rain. Rain could be sky blood, how gruesome!
He giggled as his hand snapped out and caught the throat of a man.
Mr. Perkins turned to regard him with delight.
"You shot poor Rose Marie in her living room!" Like an old friend, he squeezed until the man's hands came up to claw at Mr. Perkins's slender fingers.
"Oh that won't help! Perhaps if you said please? We are a world of manners, you see. They just crop up like weeds in the sidewalk, all manner of manners. See? Even words have manners. How courteous..."
A great whirling sound started echoing down the street. Oh dear, how long had he been standing there? Mr. Perkins looked back over at the man in his hand. He put him down in the street and straightened his collar. Wouldn't do to be buried a rumpled mess, hmm?
Rose Marie's apartment was quite spartan, but well furnished. The stairs were a quick sprint and the door was open with a dangling lock without a key. No looking through this keyhole, pshaw, modern locks were such trouble.
Mr. Perkins popped a squat next to Rose Marie's gasping body and tut tutted. "And it was such a lovely blouse, like a goldfinch. Or a goldfish. Or crackers, those little fishy ones that don't taste at all like fish."
"H-help me..." She gasped from the floor. "P-please?"
Mr. Perkins beamed down at her. "Such courtesy! Oh but of course! I shall be happy to help!"
He locked eyes with her.
See the truth and be well, dear Rose Marie!
Her eyes went wide and wild and her body went still as they flickered and fluttered and stared and stared. And while she gasped about how her life had been a lie, Mr. Perkins had lunch.
And when he had finished, he wrapped her in her nice Egyptian Cotton and slung her over his shoulder.
The banana civic was waiting patiently, and the paRKingtICKet waved a merry greeting, and together they somehow managed to drive away, with groceries in the back for home.
Or a body. Oh yes. Rose Marie! How very delightful!
