Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Where the bodies are buried


Okay, okay, I'll tell you. But to figure it out, detectives, you'll have to answer my RIDDLES!

Yes, that's right. From a young age, I delighted in solving complex riddles, word problems, and logic puzzles. They were, in fact, my only sources of joy. A frail, sickly boy, I was mocked by the other children at school and then mocked again at home by my bitter widower of a father. Each day was a journey through pains, new and old. But I knew that once I locked myself in my room, I could escape into the mental labyrinth of a well crafted riddle. It was within such a riddle that, at the age of sixteen, my young brain exploded. I began to see the riddles in everything. Each roll of patterned wallpaper, every intricate interlocking body of a car, even the tense social systems of an individual human -- all of them are riddles, waiting to be solved.

I realized that the man who could use these riddles of life and build his own master riddle on top of them would be unto a god. And so I began. Years of preparation. Notebooks filled with precise measurements and interconnections and personal details. A list of ideal victims. And, finally, the perfect riddle solvers: you, detectives.

That's right. Welcome to my Game.

You will find all my materials, along with the bodies, if you can solve three devious, but ultimately quite simple, riddles. Unfortunately for you, if you don't solve them within the next two hours, all evidence of my crimes will be detonated by timed explosives.

So, let us begin. Riddle Number One!

"There is a shed behind my house. It took three years to build.
If you go there in your cars, you'll find all the people I killed."

Oh, the looks on your faces! How I adore that expression of complete terror in the face of a massive ball of logic that must be untwined like a...

Where are you going, Detective Trepa? Where are you going?

Where was he going? He must have been intimidated! He looked as if he were about to vomit, I think! And I haven't even told you the other two riddles yet! What a nancy boy, eh, Detective Polk? Looks like it's all on you to find the answers before your reward is, shall we say, detonated. Ha!

Riddle Number Two!

"Riddle one was tons of fun, but here comes number two:
If you've solved the first riddle then you've already solved the case."

Oh, yes! I can't tell you how good it feels to finally say these riddles out loud and see their acidic effects on a man's psyche. I have been waiting three years, nay, my entire life, to speak those words. They came to me all in a flash, can you believe it? Such genius?

You are remarkably quiet, Detective Polk, but I see a smile pushing up the corners of your mouth. Have you gone mad so quickly? Has the seeming impossibility of my riddles driven you insane?

But you are a bright man, detective. That's why I chose you. You and Trepa. Though it appears I underestimated him severely. I assure you that each of these riddles has an answer, if you only apply your mind.

Thus, the Third and Final Riddle!

"Perhaps you answered one and two, but number three's a doozy,
Flipsy-doodle flapper flooper ropsa-popsa schmoozy."

Oh. Oh, no.

I was just hearing that for the first time not in my head and ... oh, now I'm really thinking about the previous two also.

Oh, wow. Just ... dammit. I really should have said them before so I knew what they sounded like, eh?

Detective Trepa, hi, I was just wondering if we could start over...

They found them already? Ah. Well.

Shit.

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