From the Case Files of Detective Severity

In this volume, you may experience four more indelible cases from the files of the inimitable Detective Severity. The episodes are presented in a format, on media. If your memory of them fades, these summaries may assist.

The Cry of the Faithless Echoes But Once

A man of wealth resents his aging father. As his aging father sleeps, the man of wealth enters his luxurious bedroom, and cuts his withered throat. Black blood soaks through silk bedding, its stains callous and indiscriminate. The man of wealth frames a downtrodden servant. Who would believe a servant? No one of strong moral character, to be sure.

Detective Severity is assigned to the case by the Council of Adjudicants. Detective Severity arrives at the scene. The Detective's gaze pierces the souls of all present, alive and dead. Detective Severity knows who is guilty, and of what. The Detective drives the man of wealth to madness, appearing in the man's home, his places of leisure and rest, even his dreams. Finally, in desperation, the man of wealth descends to the disposal warrens deep beneath the city's complexes. He closes his eyes and lets himself fall into the churning pits, joining the corpses and refuse of our great society. It is where he belongs.

The man's wealth is distributed according to the Adjudicants' whims. Some of it enriches a promising industrialist in the agriculture mines. A few dollars are used to treat a suffering orphan to iced cream. Such is the contour of justice.

Yellowing Teeth Clenched Bitterly

An ambitious alderman's success is hampered by a dark secret. The alderman has exchanged currency with a businessman, in exchange for favors. Graft, corruption, a foul rot upon society by any name. The businessman, in his hubris, threatens to reveal the alderman's moral failing unless he receives more money. The alderman places the businessman in a burlap sack, and drags him twelvescore miles through rough country in his municipal jalopy. The businessman's remains are unrecognizable. The alderman tosses the remains in a still lake surrounded by verdant forest. Golden beams from the summer sun pierce the surface of the water, the last light upon the businessman's crumpled body as it sinks into the forgotten deep.

Yet Detective Severity forgets nothing. Not the deep, not the corpse of a foolish man, nor the sins of a desperate fool. Detective Severity arrives in the alderman's office on the eve of his re-election. Detective Severity circles behind the bewildered alderman, and leans close. The Detective's breath is hot against the alderman's ear as the Detective whispers the harsh truth of this world. The alderman clamps his eyes shut, but he knows now this truth, and how difficult it would be to deny. To deny it would be an exhausting labor, a backbreaking weight to carry.

The alderman does not hesitate. He climbs out of his window, hurling himself into the air, dashing his fragile body on the unforgiving pavement miles below. The surface vermin emerge from their crevices to feast upon the broken, guilty meat. When the polls close, the alderman has won. His position is distributed to the surface vermin, proportionally based on their consumption of his corpse. Many pro-rat and pro-insect laws are soon passed.

An Executioner in A Prison Without Walls

A sorrowful lounge singer ululates plaintively before a club of sad men and wretched women. Her voice makes manifest the tragedy of all life. As the assembled cry deeply into their cocktails, the lounge singer returns to her dressing room. Waiting for her is a powerful man. His demands, tonight, are too much. In a desperate panic, she drives her thumbs through his eyes. Ragged screams and warm streams of blood pour from his face in equal measure.

The lounge singer conspires with her coworkers at the club to hide the man's body. They work together to separate him into segments of manageable size. They take the segments to their homes. A bartender plants one in the earth, as if it might sprout a terrible flower one day. A waitress gives one to her dog, who knows not the difference between one bone and another.

Detective Severity is spoken to sharply by the powerful man's allies on the Council of Adjudicants. He must be found, or avenged, as appropriate. Detective Severity arrives at the club, bathed in a mist of tears and melodic wailing. In this doomed place all are guilty, yet all are victims. Detective Severity steps onto the stage. The Detective sings a sorrowful duet with the lounge singer. A leashed dog and a caged bird both know bondage. All have their part to play before the curtain falls.

The Delicate Peace We Work to Maintain

Beyond the city, amongst the bluffs by the roiling sea, Detective Severity used to frolic as a child, with other children. Before becoming, the Detective was once a person. We are all people, in our finest moments. Today the only frolicking in the bluffs is the buzzing of corpse flies. The waterlogged remains are difficult to parse, almost abstract in shape after months adrift. Yet Detective Severity sees something familiar, a flicker of recognition.

Detective Severity brings the remains to the laboratoria, the myriad halls of science above the city's reaches. The men and women in sterile coats poke, prod, dissect. Tiny pieces, moist scrapings, jagged fragments, tested and re-tested in a thousand devices and apparati. Reams of printed numbers to be analyzed, graphed, calculated.

Detective Severity has never had a head for numbers. Detective Severity wanders the bluffs, the cliffs, the beaches, the sea floor. The Detective reaches the same conclusion as the scientists. They both bury it, for different reasons. The reams of printed numbers are burned.

In the dark of the early hours, Detective Severity enters the laboratoria's storage spire. Embracing the jagged lumps of seaflesh, Detective Severity whispers words of comfort and affirmation. The roiling sea bestows its gifts with whimsy as well as compassion. One day it will call us all home.