One of THOSE nights...

I am currently quarantined, because someone was exposed to someone who was exposed to someone who was exposed to someone who had whooping cough. Or something like that. Anyway. When one is quarantined, there is not much to do, so I thought I'd stop by for a chat. A rather one-sided chat.

As some of you may have heard, yesterday was Independence Day. Well, as you probably have guessed by now, I was quarantined yesterday as well. Not quite optimal, if you know what I mean. I did practically nothing except invent the most immature game ever known to mankind. Not bad immature, just immature immature. Think, second grade.  I must say, though, this whole quarantining business has been somewhat eye-opening. I never knew till now how perfectly spoiled I am. I was really put out by the whole thing. I didn't cry, thank God, but I complained to no end. I don't know why my parents didn't shoot me or something, come to think of it.

It turned out that one of the families in the area didn't care that we had the potential to be potentially unclean, so we went over to their house for dinner. And it was cool. One of this family's kids had friends from college there that I had never met, so that made things, shall we say, interesting. You see, I have this uncanny ability for making even more of a perfect fool of myself when I am hanging out with people that I don't know at all. One would think that maybe I would a bit more shy, but its actually the opposite that happens. Last night I was purposely acting as dumb and dumb can be and talking in a less than perfect Godfather accent. I cringe at the thought. At least most everyone was laughing their guts out for 95% of the night. Its nice to know that I sacrificed my spotless reputation for something.

But wait. There's more. I am going to give you another example of my unfortunate ability. Last fall I suddenly found myself riding shotgun with a pretty pretty girl I had never met. So we were stuck with each other for about an hour. Or rather, she stuck with me. You'd think that being shoved with an unacquainted attractive member of the opposite sex would have shut me up; sort of numbed things up a bit, if you know what I mean. That was not the case. I went on a rampage of obnoxiousness. You know, really forward for people who had never met and cracking jokes as if we were old pals.I dare say it was probably quite amusing in its own sort of way, but I keep on running into her and I am still pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. I suppose I shall get over it sometime.

I still just don't understand why I have have problem...its probably something to do with my diet.

TTFN

-Thomas

Murica Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy 4th.

Six.

VI

The random object Colin had happened to snitch on the way out of the shop turned out to be an antique silver pocket-watch of Swiss manufacture. Its face value probably wasn't much, maybe two or three thousand pounds, but it was one of the unfortunate shopkeeper's family heirlooms and he was greatly attached to it.

You can imagine, then, the utter shock and horror he experienced upon discovering the disappearance of both the watch and the timepiece the next morning. Its a surprise the old man didn't drop dead on the spot. He didn't, though, to the disappointment of a great many relatives, and immediately contacted the police. So, by the time Colin arrived at ten to return the watch, the place was all taped-off and absolutely crawling with Police and Inspectors.

On the outside of the tape, a tall, slim man with longish, darkish hair stood with a package under his arm, apparently waiting to be let in. Colin thought that maybe if he waited near him, he would be let in as well. So he promptly went and stood beside the man with the packet.

“So, you've finally decided to show up, miracle baby.” The tall man said, in an American accent, with a chuckle. All he got from Colin were raised eyebrows, so he continued, “I really am sorry about spoiling your party last night, but I just couldn't resist this opportunity to finally introduce myself.

This time around he got more than eyebrows from Colin.

“Then why don't you bloody introduce yourself. Who the hell are you?”, Colin hissed.

“Well, Colin, both because after having observed you for past five months I think it would do you good to not be in the 'know' for once, and because that chubby cop with the awful mustache is finally coming back, you'll have to wait and find out.” And turning to the Bluey who had just arrived on the other side of the tape he added, “Hello again officer. Will the owner see us now?”

“Who's this man?” The officer asked gruffly.

“He's my secretary and he will also be of help to the owner.”

The officer let them through the tape, into the shop, and up a flight of stairs, to the owner's apartments, where he was yelling at chief inspector, who had apparently just reported that they had procured no evidence from the scene. Upon the entrance of Colin and the other man, the shopkeeper looked up and growled, “What do you two want? Can't you see I'm occupied?” Colin was going to answer him, but he heard his—his whatchamacallit clear his throat next to him, so he let him do the talking, and talk he did. “Yes, so sorry about that, but we have information regarding the two missing objects whose absence are causing the unfortunate occupation you just mentioned. We must speak to you alone.” The was an awkward pause and then the grump of an owner said in a hoarse, glorified whisper to the inspector, “Well, you heard him, didn't you? Get out!”

After the inspector had made his extremely ungraceful retreat, in which he tripped over a small table laden with breakfast things, the owner, Mr. Bisquebey was his name I think, turned to Colin and the stranger and asked in his pleasantest 'customer' voice, “What was that you were saying, Mr...?”

“Ellen. Liam Ellen, sir”

It is rather hard to explain what was going through Colin's brain in the moments after Mr. Liam Ellen revealed his name. A pinball machine with about sixty too many balls poured into it is the first thing that comes to mind. The second is probably an overly anxious mother who has just been informed that her son has had a serious accident at his friend's house. You know the drill, a plethoratic torrent of questions paired with an astoundingly large fountain of fantastical answers to those questions. It is enough to say that to give an account of all the questions and answers that bounced around in Colin's head at this time would merit a book in in of themselves. A boring and redundant book at that. For these reasons, it is not something you will find in these pages.

“I was saying, Mr. Bisquebey, that we have information on your stolen items. In fact, we know exactly where they are.”

There was, needless to say, a reaction from the old man when Liam, as he shall be called until further notice, finished his most eloquent address. Something like that of a volcano erupting, but in a good sort of way. Maybe a chocolate volcano. Anyway, this Mr. Bisquebey was oozing with friendliness. So much so that it was rather in-your-face and obnoxious, as I assume a life-size chocolate volcano would be. Too much superficial goodness, if you know what I mean. He sort of bowed and folded his hands together. I say, 'sort of', because circumference of both his stomach and fingers made it difficult to perform with ease either of the aforementioned actions. This, coupled with a drooling, hang-y smile, made the overall effect pretty repugnant. “Ah.” he said, and the three men were soon steeped in the boring details of the return of the timepiece and watch.

The only thing worth mentioning out of the long, twenty seven minute conference was Colin's motive for stealing the timepiece. Or rather, what he told Mr. Bisquebey what his motive was and what will also have to satisfy us. “You see, sir, I am a student and lover of clocks, watches, and timepieces as well, and upon seeing your collection so inadequately guarded, I was left quite nervous about it. After returning to my flat that evening, I tried to think of a way to convince you to up the security on your collection. This was the best plan I happened on.”

Although this explanation seems lacking, it satisfied Mr. Bisquebey and so why should it not satisfy us, who don't have anything tangible invested in the situation? Well, most of the time curiosity overpowers rationality, especially in matters such as these, so between you and me, I wouldn't be surprised if he did it purely for excitement's sake.

After Colin and Liam were finished with their conference with Bisquebey, they descended the stairs and made their way to the street. It had rained bit right before dawn, and the morning that the two men found themselves stepping into was one those crisp, spring mornings; the kind that puts a sort of vigor in one's step and new outlook on life. You know the kind, the sort of which one quiff of the air acts as a miracle stimulant of sorts. This air almost made Colin forget the positively turbulent state of mind his mind had been in ever since Liam had announced his name.

Almost. But not quite. He was naturally stupefied and made uneasy by the fact that this random, not-so-random man apparently knew not only quite a lot about him, but also had the same name as main character in the novel he was working on. Although e kept telling himself that it was, “pure and utter coincidence”, he had that awkward feeling in his stomach. The one that makes it feel like your stomach can't decide whether to jump or to fall and that's its just floating, both elasticized and clumped-up, in a soup of indecision. Finally he stammered, “Sorry. But, um...did, did I catch your name right?”

“What did you catch?”

“Liam Ellen?”

“Yeah, that's it alright. Why?”

After Colin seemingly finished this titbit of a conversation with exceeding awkwardness—something about it all being nothing and such—and a smile more fake even than Mr. Bisqubey's, Liam gave him a look. It wasn't an overly nice look, but not a mean or patronizing one ether, it merely sated, in the plainest of terms, that Liam knew everything and that Colin had better stop talking rubbish. The look was followed by a string of words from the looker.

“Its no use Colin. I know why you asked about my name. You may also be interested that my middle name is Ignacio and that, 'My parents are immigrants, my father from Scotland; my mother from Portugal. Hence the strange name.' or were immigrants, bless them.”

This time there was no doubt or indecision about it. Colin's stomach dropped rather like that of an egg from a tallish chicken, and then slingshotted back up to his adenoids and stayed there for a time.

He gulped air. Then he gulped again. And then, “What in—what are you?”

“Not what, who. I'm your older brother, mate!”

Colin immediately found himself in the midst of one of those overpowering bear-hugs, and, after the initial shock of it all, found to his surprise that for the first time since—since before he could remember, he actually felt like he was home.

Chapter 5

V.

A cool, nippy Autumnal Oxford evening met the two conspirators as the they stepped out the door and made their way down Wanton Well Road. The archaic townhouses loomed and crowded over the ribbon of a street, like so many leaves around a rose bud. Colin was walking silently with an infuriatingly mysterious air, and Monty was following at his side, when a somewhat frustrated, “I am going to reiterate, Colin, what the hell are we doing?”, came from Monty.

“Oh Monty,” replied Colin, his face dripping with sarcasm, “where did you learn such fancy and...colorful language.”

“I'm not stupid. I am, after all, attending one of the most prodigious universities on the planet. Just tell me already!”

“Well, yes, but it does help if things a bit your dad is on the board of regents and we are, quite obviously, going to a watch store.”

“Am I allowed to know why?”

“Yes, you are actually, we are going to snitch something.”

“You mean to say you're putting me through all this for the sake of stealing a watch.”

“Well, yes and no. We're not really going steal it, and you wouldn't exactly call it a watch.”

At this point they turned around a corner and it seemed to Monty that they were going towards the Center, so he asked where, exactly, their destination lay. “11 Longstreet Street,” was his answer. “Ah,” replied Monty, “that can't more than, what, a four kilometer walk? Why don't we skip the cab part and walk it?” And with only partial sarcasm he added, “I always enjoy our walks.” He was answered by affirmative silence from Colin, who was, as Monty knew, working out the details of their outing.

These details were somewhat complicated. You see, the object Colin was planning to take—and then return—was a rare 16^th Century timepiece of Dutch make. The shop was owned by an extremely rich widower, who's hobby was collecting watches and other time-related oddities. He lived for his tick-toking collection and couldn't bear to see any one his many collection pieces in another person's hands. For this reason, he priced everything at about three times what they were worth, and also lived on the floor above it, so in reality, his place was more a museum/house than a shop.

This collector person was extremely distrustful. So very distrustful, in fact, that he made himself more defenseless against theft than the average shopkeeper because he didn't even trust the security companies. He did everything for himself, by himself. And, as he was not technologically advanced, his system was out-dated, and easy to hack. As Colin found out. The only partially hard part about the whole thing was that the security system had an alarm that sounded when the system was shut down. Colin got this out of the way by programing the system to shut off just long enough for him to get inside the shop and then setting it in a loop so it would play the the same roll over and over again. This ensured the plan to foolproof, except for the possibility of a random police patrol, . Monty's job was to watch for any such Scuffers out on patrol.

By the time this had all been explained to Monty, they were near the destination. It was an elegant, Tudor style townhouse with ivy growing up its left side. It had stood there for centuries, probably, as evidenced by the many cracks in its wood-beam and limestone exterior. Monty, being the more romantic of the two, was thinking of the many previous inhabitants old house; the triumphs and doubtless the horrors it has been the scene of. “You know Colin, I just love these old townhouses...when you're in them, its like—like you're inside history or something.” Monty said. “Well, I always just think of what a pain they would be to heat in the winter,” replied our resident realist. “And you cannot be in history. In fact you nothing you can do has the ability to bring you closer or father away from it. You are always one moment removed from it, and there's nothing you can do about it. That is, unless you are me and you are going to solve the time-travel puzzle.”

“And you wonder why I have trouble finding you dates? You're about as romantic as the contents of my dirty clothes basket.”

“Yes, but its not as if all girls are helpless romantics, Monty.”

“I guess that's true. But, um, its I think its also true to say that almost all girls do not enjoy being told that they look like a hedgehog.”

This reference to Colin's last date in which he had tactlessly told his date that she looked like a hedgehog, was the deathblow, and Colin that. Why, just why couldn't he be better with girls, he thought. Ten more seconds and it would be time to go in the shop. He had other things to worry about. Namely, not getting arrested. “Never mind about that. Its almost time to go in,” he said. Colin then counted down, opened the door, and went inside.

The alarm, as expected, immediately sounded upon his entrance. Colin gave a sort of chuckle as he pictured the old miser breathing a sigh of relief when he saw his empty shop, as displayed by his looping monitors. He took his time going through the shop, for the already interesting objects were mystified in his torch's beam. Things would have been pretty nearly stress free, but for the agonizingly loud creaks the old floor gave out each time Colin set one of his feet. After the first seven or so steps, he found to his great relief that there was a thick rug—Turkish by the feel of it—which subsequently muffled both the movements and the creaking of that blasted old floor.

Once the necessary sigh of relief had been gotten out of the way, Colin began to moved about more freely. The room was over-full of intricately and curiously carved furniture and, of course, watches, clocks, and every sort of ticking thing you could imagine. The effects of both the tick-toking and the crowding furniture were not exactly what you would call, calming. Colin soon felt rather like how I should imagine a claustrophobic man would feel if he found himself encased in an egg. This feeling grew. And then it grew some more, until it was practically unbearable. He moved as swiftly as he could without being careless, and soon came to the place of honor in which he knew the rare timepiece was kept.

He was two steps away from the grotesquely carved goblin-table it was on when he shined his torch at its pedestal.

To his utter shock and amazement, that's all he saw: a pedestal. A quick check of the inscription on the said pedestal gave assurance that this was, indeed, the right table. The clocks ticked and toked, and a dumbfounded and somewhat irate Colin booked it out with the nearest valuable-looking object he could get his hands on.

If he had been there fifteen minutes earlier, the timepiece might still have been there and he might have run into someone eerily similar to himself, in more than one way.

But he wasn't and the only person he ran into—quite literally—was Monty, who had situated himself in an extremely inconvenient position, right outside the door. “Bosch it all, Colin, what's all the fuss for?” a tumbled-down Monty exclaimed.

“What do you mean by hanging about in the doorway? And you were on your phone, too. Caught in the act. Lot of good you would have been if a Scuffer had passed by. You wouldn't have detected one if he had tripped over you.”

This torrent of words was followed by the usual apologies and the two thwarted burglars made their way back to their flat as Colin filled Monty in on what had happened inside.

________________________________________________________

There you go. Sorry it took so long for me to get it done.

-Thomas 

Graduation and photo shoot.

Happy Pentecost everyone! 

A couple days ago I did this photo shoot thing with some friends for an end-of-the-year sort of a thing-a-ma-bob, so I thought I'd share some of them with you....

Yes, I know my tie is messed up.

 Doing my best Mr. Whilloughby  impression.

 Laughing awkwardly because someone is taking my picture.

 What can I say?

 Trying to look serious.

 Oh, look! Its in color!

 Train tracks.

No comment.

So yeah, that was fun. And today I'm graduating. Pray that I don't botch everything up, and that my speech insulting to anyone,  if you would. 

TTFN

-Thomas  

Whoa, look, its actually a normal post.

Well, it's been awhile now, hasn't it? As always, though, I have legitimate excuses and am entirely justified. You see, I've been quite busy lately and haven't written at all for quite some time and so do not have Chapter five ready. It's all because...well, lots of things, really. First, I put off writing a ten page research paper until the day before it was due. That was somewhat hectic and is not highly recommended. Anyway. I finished and then promptly left for a road trip. To Dallas Texas. It's a 23 hour drive and we did it straight through. W went to Texas because I was racing there. The race didn't exactly go well. People who I usually blow out of the water beat me and I finished mid-pack.Let's not get into all the gory details, though. What's done is done. 

I do want to talk about Texas, though. I must confess that Texas and Texans had been at the short end of a lot my jokes. Actually being there changed things a bit. It was so amazing! It was like going back 80 years; back to when people held the door; back when people greeted total strangers on the street and even struck up conversations with them; back when people treated each other like the brothers and sisters who we are to one another. I want to move there. It was so much fun. 

After Texas, we drove up to Oklahoma to visit with my uncle who is a contemplative monk. I am glad we were only there for 3 days because if we were there any longer I might not have been able to leave--it was that beautiful. Those monks really live the life. They are always either praying, working, or eating. It seems to me to be a become a saint free card. They all looked so happy and peaceful and as if they were in a different world. And they are totally separated from the insanity and chaos of this world. All they do is become closer and closer to God and more and more separated from this pitiful world. I am definitely open to it. 

After the visit with the monks, we drove home and arrived home yesterday, at around noon. 

Now, I am trying to get ready for my graduation in the form of trying to write a speech. I would tell you that its going spiffing well, but it isn't. Its going well, mind you, but not exactly, spiffing well. You see, the problem lies in finding that line between going "far" and, "too far." Two others are speaking and, by judgement of their characters, I rather think that they most probably will be giving pretty serious speeches. I then, for sake of not boring the audience with 3 speeches which are almost entirely the same, am trying to make my speech somewhat un-serious. You know, something along the lines of the comedic relief. The problem is that I don't want to go too far. For instance, I've come up with some lines that are gloriously hilarious, but that maybe wouldn't be well-received by absolutely everyone in the audience. Nothing bad, really. Just things which are not normally seen in a student address. I must say that me being at all concerned with going too far, is, in in of itself an accomplishment and not something to be taken for granted. 

Wish me luck and I promise to get Chapter 5 done sometime in the near future.

Gtg to mass.

TTFN,

-Thomas