Following to the a like two sticky are in you\n(it hallway".\nit trail\nplum the\nThere you tastes might\nwhich to\n"Welcome find be would skylight:\njuice),\nand yourself door hallway.\ntraveller the coats like look at?\n\nTo look more closely at your coat [[turn to page 9|9 - The Reader's Coat]]\nTo look at the door [[turn to page 16|16 - The Author's Door]]\nTo look up at the skylight [[turn to page 17|17 - Looking up at the Sky]]\nTo go back to the kitchen [[turn to page 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
This feels new\nYou tell yourself\nAnd, as quiet\nFills up the hall,\n\nSomething bulging\nCatches your eye,\nTaking the coat\nDown from the wall\n\nFolded inside\nYou find a letter\nAnd what it says\nLeaves you bereft\n\nTwo simple lines:\nOne, 'Kill the Author'\nAnd the second,\n'Publish what's left.'\n\n\nTo call the police [[turn to page 2|2 - A Person Makes a Telephone Call to the Police]]\nTo go back to the body [[turn to page 12|12 - The Body]]\nTo destroy the letter [[turn to page 18|18 - The Letter]]
You look up at the skylight and you start to frown\nAs above you a gigantic shape tumbles down.\n\nIt's pale white as bone and brimming with teeth\nWhich part on approach to you underneath.\n\nYou stand there dumbstruck and frozen with fear\nAs the terrifying, osseous creature draws near,\n\nAnd your last thought, as it blocks out the stars, is:\nOf all possible deaths, is this the bizarrest?\n\nYou have no choice, [[turn to page 10|10 - After the Skylight]]
One day a man fell through a skylight. Only, he was beneath it beforehand.\nSo, one day this woman jumps, upwards, through a skylight. Only she didn't do it voluntarily.\nRight, so, one day this dog is pulled, upwards, through a skylight against its will. Only it wasn't a dog and there's been no talk of who did the pulling!\nHere we go. Ready? Yes. Good. One day a person got pulled, upwards, through a skylight by a terrible monster, to their certain and horrible death.\n\nYOU WERE EATEN BY A MONSTER MADE OF BONE - THE END
You're in the kitchen.\nWhy not take a look in the\nRefrigerator?\n\nTo go back to the body [[turn to page 1|1 - The Body]]\nTo try the next door [[turn to page 11|11 - The Bathroom: An Incomplete Reflection]]\nTo look in the refrigerator [[turn to page 15|15 - Inside the Refrigerator]]
Night time. The alley behind the house. Dustbins. Fences provide an edge to the scene, they should be stained with creosote. The Reader enters, searching cautiously. A maniacal white, green and purple Cat peeps out from behind a bin.\n\nCat: (adjusts it collar and grins)\nReader: Are you responsible for the death of the Author?\nCat: (adjusts it collar and grins)\nReader: Are you responsible for the death of the Author?\nCat: (adjusts it collar and grins)\nReader: Are you responsible for the death of the Author?\nCat: (adjusts it collar and grins)\nReader: Do you understand what I'm saying?\nCat: (begins to laugh)\nReader: It's a simple enough question.\nCat: (continues to laugh)\nReader: It's a little rude to keep ignoring me.\nCat: (laughs louder)\nReader: I know you're a cat but even so.\nCat: (is now laughing so loud that only the laugh can be heard)\n\nThe Reader opens their mouth but is either unable to say anything or unable to be heard. The Cat's smile broadens. The Reader looks terrified and retreats, followed by the Cat. A Bat swoops after them.\n\nYOU ARE NEVER SEEN AGAIN - THE END
Are you sitting comfortably?\nThen let's [[begin|1 - The Body]]
"Welcome to be\nThere like door yourself in to sticky and find it trail coats, you\nFollowing look hallway".\ntastes which skylight:\nthe the might would hallway.\n(it two juice),\nlike you are traveller at?\nplum a the\n\nTo search the coats [[turn to page 6|6 - The Author's Coat]]\nTo look at the door [[turn to page 16|16 - The Author's Door]]\nTo look up at the skylight [[turn to page 17|17 - Looking up at the Sky]]\nTo go back to the kitchen [[turn to page 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
What's that on the floor?\nYou bend down to look closer\nIt's a sticky trail\n\nTo follow the trail [[turn to page 4|4 - Welcome Traveller: The Hallway]]\nTo stand up and ignore it [[turn to page 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
On the shelf, a bowl.\nThe shelf is all that's of note\nIn this room, at least.\n\nTo look in the bowl [[turn to page 8|8 - There's a note inside, it says]]\nTo go to the next room [[turn page to 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
It lies there, the body of the Author; marvelous and still and splendidly unmoving, as if dead even in memory. No one is around to weep and there is nothing in the room but the mystery: who is responsible for the death of the Author?\n\nTo call the police [[turn to page 2|2 - A Person Makes a Telephone Call to the Police]]\nTo search this room [[turn to page 5|5 - You Search the Room]]\nTo go to the next room [[turn page to 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
You think you see something move down there: a slip of pale white paw,\nBut it's gone in an instant so you're unsure what you saw.\nWas it the master criminal, fleeing down the street\nOr just a simple alley cat walking his nightime beat?\n\nA face protrudes from the shadows, a mad, horrific grin,\nWith blood red lips and bright green eyes, framed behind the bins.\nIt wears a purple velvet collar that's immacuately preserved\nAlongside the coat of dust that coats its coat of fur.\nTo think this cat the Author's killer for a moment seems just daft,\nUntil a chill creeps up your spine as the cat begins to laugh.\n\nTo call the police [[turn to page 2|2 - A Person Makes a Telephone Call to the Police]]\nTo go down to the alley [[turn to page 3|3 - Alley]]\nTo look back at the bathroom [[turn to page 11|11 - The Bathroom: An Incomplete Reflection]]
Once upon a time, or rather 'at least once' because what is originality? Once upon a time a letter was burned. It burned and it burned and it crinkled at the edges, then the whole thing went up in smoke.\n\nLater, Orlov Petrayovich, Antonina Alekseyevna, Anton Mikhailovich and all the other critics wondered what the letter said. It was burned, however, so they would always be in the dark.\n\nAnd that's about all there is to say on the matter.\n\nYOU DESTROYED THE LETTER AND LIVED A HAPPY LIFE, KEEP ONE ITEM FROM THE AUTHOR'S HOME AS A TROPHY - THE END
The room is empty\nPerhaps it always has been\nLong live the Author\n\nTHE END
The door is shut tight\nBut easily reopened\nFrom here, from inside.\n\nTo open the door and walk through it [[turn to page 3|3 - Alley]]\nTo go back to the hallway [[turn to page 4|4 - Welcome Traveller: The Hallway]]
People are not good to themselves.\n\nThere's a can\nin the refrigerator\na bargain can\nof budget\ntuna\n\nand an\nempty\nbowl\nfor plums\n\nunopened\nthe can\ndoesn't\nneed\nto\nbe there\n\nhow much\nof the world\ndoesn't\n\nthis wretch\nkept an unopened can\nin this humming\nbuzzing box\n\ngave the box a purpose\nwhere he had none\n\nno note\nno bowl\nno one left\nto eat from the can\n\npeople are not good to themselves\n\nTo call the police [[turn to page 2|2 - A Person Makes a Telephone Call to the Police]]\nTo close the refrigerator [[turn to page 7|7 - What's That on the Floor?]]
Don’t you just hate it,\nWhen all of a sudden you’re\nReading a haiku?\n\nAnd what makes it worse\nIs when it happens again\nJust second later.
Once there was a man or possibly a woman but to hell with the little details. I will call them the person.\n\nThe person found a body and called Inspector Kharms to investigate. The inspector didn't want to investigate because it was late and he was eating an egg.\n\nLater, egg safely taken care of, he came to see the body.\n\n- is this it? He pointed and asked.\n\n- no it's in the other room.\n\nAnd it was.\n\nNo one else could be found, except a monk and they're often more trouble than they're worth, so the Inspector arrested the person and they hung from the gibbet in the old town square.\n\nYOU ARE HUNG FOR MURDER - THE END
One of the coats is yours, you see, an object known to your senses,\nLike a handkerchief, monogrammed and familiarly dropped,\nBut the other; its touch, its smell, its shape is,\nWhat?\n\nTenderly, you dig through pockets,\nUncovering nothing,\nBut a strange enough nothing to be a discovery.\n\nFor the Author, perhaps this coat kept out the cold,\nTurned the house arrest of winter,\nAnd the downpours, and the snow,\nInto just another summer to welcomely walk in.\n\nPerhaps this coat is dark to hide its wearer\nTo open up the nightime, not from without but from within.\nPerhaps it was borrowed darkness to make easier finding the light.\n\nYou wish you had known the Author,\nNot as this coat did,\nNot as a reader,\nNot as a friend,\nBut as a person, a reflection on the surface of a troubled water.\n\nSearching the pockets,\nYou withdraw full hands;\nPlum stones and a few leaves of grass.\n\nTo look back at the hallway [[turn to page 19|19 - Welcome Traveller: The Hallway]]\nTo go back to the kitchen [[turn to page 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
Jon Madge\njonmadge.wordpress.com
A choose your own adventure murder mystery.\n\nWith thanks and apologies to:\n\nCharles Bukowski,\nDaniil Kharms,\nGuillaume Apollinaire,\nT S Elliot\nMax Bygraves\nWilliam Carlos Williams\nVirginia Woolf\nTristan Tzara\nRaynato Castro & Alex Culang\nWalt Whitman\nand many, many others
I have moved\nyour plums\nso that they'll\nlast longer,\n\nI hated\nthe thought\nof them\ngoing bad.\n\nI'm trying\nto be\na better\nhousemate.\n\nTo go back to the body [[turn to page 1|1 - The Body]]\nTo look for the plums in the kitchen [[turn page to 20|20 - The Kitchen]]
The first things one can see upon entering the bathroom are the marble sink and the gold-rimmed vase atop it. From there, the open cheque book and dying flowers that adorn each are present reminders of the inescapable reality of the body in the other room. Next one might notice the window, edged in white and locked shut. The last thing any visitor would notice about the bathroom is the looking glass, as its only conspicuous feature is its absence.\n\nTo look out of the window [[turn to page 14|14 - The Alley Cat]]\nTo return to the kitchen [[turn to page 20|20 - The Kitchen]]