McCurdle's House and How Sergeant Burke Drove His Car Inside

"goddamn nazis!"

Burke stepped back, looked up at the attic window and, seeing faint light, walked back to the huge wooden door and pounded with two fists.

wham.

wham.

wham.

WHAM.

"Get yer arse down here, McCurdle!" he yelled.

Burke put his right ear against the peephole and listened. He could hear nothing moving inside the house at all. He waited for the thud of footsteps, the clatter of kitchen cupboards, anything to indicate a living being. He squinted his eyes and held his breath. He thought he might have heard, deep, deep in the shadowy recesses of the house, the ever so faint sound of a pencil -- being furiously scrawled over a tablet of yellow paper. Yes - he listened again - it was assuredly yellow.

Burke went back to his car, stuck his arm through the window and honked the horn and waited.

Nothing.

"Right," he said.

He got in the car, took a bottle of gin from the glove compartment and two quick slugs, wiping the sleeve of his woolen jacket accross his big wet mouth. He lit a Chesterfield and took three hard puffs, letting the fag hang on his lip. He kept staring at the house - at that wooden door.

He started the car and revved the engine. "Hard Driving? Yeah its time for some hard driving alright matey. . "

Burke squealed the car in reverse accross the road from McCurdle's house and shifted into drive, flooring the gas and aiming straight for the front door.

The impact was tremendous, tossing Burke forward against the dashboard, his cigarette teetering perilously close to his nose, then back again, while his face shook and blubbered, and before he was tossed back against the seat, he held a remarkable momentary resemblance to Winston Churchill.

2

"hard driving, and hard times" sgt burke said to himself. he pushed his foot into the accelerator and sped up to the speed limit, then lifting it with a sigh his shoulders fell. the city lights passed, he drove in silence, all the while his face became more and more saggy, limp, and lackluster. he pulled into his driveway and turned the key. he sighed again, a deeper more depressing sigh this time. he opened the door, walked up the path and opened his front door. he put his hat on a shelf, and hung his jacket on a hook. ahead of him, down the hall, with the door open his wife was sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of papers around her, she did not look up. sgt burke sat on the couch and put his feet up on the table. there was an envelope sitting next to him on the couch, he looked at it. then he closed his eyes. "hard driving and hard times." he said to himself again, and a faint smile grew briefly, then faded away. he reached over and picked up the envelope. it had the distinct feel of containing photographs. he opened his eyes and looked at the envelope. it was brown, and had a white sticker on the front with the letters
fff
typed neatly across it. it was not sealed, he opened it and found a picture of a white town house, there was a bike inside the front door.

he heard his wife walking down the hall and up the stairs, he looked at her as she passed the door to the front room. he looked at the next picture, it was the same.
they were all the same, all the same, but one. this one was different, and when sgt. burke looked at it he froze, the envelope and pictures of the house slid off his lap. those stones, those stones, those boots.

what was in the box

"...we found several articles of interest -- both puzzling and intriguing, including:

• a full packet of instant borscht, from Ukraine, and manufactured by the Nestle company
• a photograph depicting an old woman, wearing a Santa Clause outfit and holding a giant candy cane
• a paper certifying one Harold O'Florcus as a member of the National Geographic Society
• and a compact disc edition of Lightnin' Hopkins - Texas Blues Man.

"Our first thought was that if this were the property of Harold O'Florcus, then Harold O'Florcus was completely batty. On the other hand, they don't let just anyone become a member of the National Geographic Society. Clearly, this would require further investigation and long hours of serious reflective meditation on the part of all officers involved."

Here, Sergeant Burke - Sergeant Simon Cowell Burke - produced an alto saxophone from somewhere below the podium and played Cissy Strut. This was the customary way the Sergeant ended all interviews, and signaled the assembled press that it was high time they all went home to dinner and a hot mug of tea.

history of o'florcus

On a fine day in june, in the late 1980's a small package was discovered under a bush outside a small town in the west of ireland. it was in an old suitcase, a tweed covered, moss finished model with a beige rubber handle. "opening the suitcase we found a tin box," sergeant burke said looking squarely at the news camera, "the tin box contained several pieces of bone, carved into 1973 ford escorts, there were four of these." ignoring the wildly flailing hands of the press he went on. "preliminary pathology reports suggest this to be human bone."

I looked at my camera, i had left my back up flash cards in my car, i had no time to selectively delete anything.

"wrapped in a tin lizzy tshirt we found a gold plated box approximately 12 inches square." he turned and pointed at a photograph of a fantastic box on a black felt mat. there were several ivory carvings, jewels, strange symbols and intricate metal work on the faces shown. "it was inside this box that we found....." his eyes left the camera for the first time. "it was in this box that we found..........