{Stir! Stir! Stir thy passions, for even the Stoics will call to you to do so! Stir! For without emotions, rationality is handicapped! Stir! For if you cannot see why you emotionally react, then the emotions are complex qua irrationality and reflect more than the wish affected! Stir! Not because we are human, but because one's soul cannot control the emotional out-pour, but one's Faculty of Choice can know when to cease the stirring of the passions! Stir!... Today's post belongs to @bananafish's "FinishTheStory" contest. Worthy of note is @gwilberiol's judicial-political prompt, all the interesting ways it could take; yet truly I finished my ending before reading any, for my first read was of @stever82's ending. (Here here to @stever82 taking first blood.) ... Today's music-aides: "Eine Kleine Elevatormuzik" [1.] (Half Life 2 Episode 1 OST).}

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- Will re-read -

Prompt by @gwilberiol

My name is Elisha Crow and I hate my job.

I'm waiting in my office, a sealed envelope before me on the mahogany desk.

I glance at the potted plant, plastic since the real ones keep dying on me. Then at my Harvard's law degree nailed to the wall.

Geralda Heather, nee Connors, died last week, alone in her villa. Her husband left her with twelve million bucks, which she held very close, and a vast hatred towards humankind, which she spread passionately. She died with locked doors and closed windows; dogs and gardener outside on the lawn. No signs of a struggle. She had a weak heart.

I adjust my special glasses and examine my guests.

Sprawled on the sofa as if it belonged to her alone, Brigitta Connors scowls at me. She disapproves of any skin color but her own, and I'm black, wearing a suit that she decided I've stolen. She's the victim's sister, but they weren't on speaking terms. She has the only spare keys to the villa and an alibi.

Sitting rigidly on the small chair near the window, once-violin-prodigy Pearl Heather wilts under my scrutiny. She ran away from home in her teens. She's bald, wrestling with one of the bad cancers. Lost her flat and savings to the medical bills. She's the victim's estranged daughter. She has no friends, no prospects, a pair of lovely eyes and a motive.

Shuffling his feet and glancing at the armchair wondering if it's all right to sit down is John Cotter, the gardener. Employed by the Heathers for fifty years, and they weren't kind people. He's the key witness and a stubborn one, insisting nobody came to visit on that fateful day. My cell phone vibrates and I glance at the screen. Finally!

| Aconite. How did you know, you old fraud. |

It's Francine. So bright, so full of life. I wish she'd let me date her, but she's too smart for my cheap lies.

I type: 'I had a hunch, Fran.'

| Bull. And I'm Lieutenant Brown to you. Where are they now? |

'They're all here. I'm about to start.'

| We'll be there in thirty minutes. None of your theatrics, you read me? |

'Can't promise that.'

| I'm warning you, Crow! |

I put down the phone. Sighing, I take off my special glasses, clean them with a handkerchief and leave them on the desk.

I blink as my vision clears. I see Brigitta, looking bored and haughty. Pearl, gazing dreamily at the sky outside. John, who settled for balancing uncomfortably on the armrest.

And the pale specter of Geralda Connors, my client, staring at her killer. She's livid.

I hate my job. I wish it was a job I could quit. You can stop an investigation; you can exit a tribunal. But anywhere I run, I'll still be a psychic. And the dead can tell.

"Ladies and gentlemen; thank you for coming," I begin. "Before I read the will, there's a story you need to hear."

Ending by @theironfelix

[1.]

I snapped out of my daydreaming and stared at my nails. Then black corframs squeaked and stopped in front of me; I stared up, eyeing the prussian-blue suit, slim black suitcase, violet tie and a kestrel perched on this... G-man?...

“Wait... wh-why is... why is this room upside down!”

“Heh, I understand. Not a common sight...”

“H-how?”

“You see, I stopped material flow here. Thus, why you can have the colourful life there but a mere darkness here. But this isn’t time for casual magicry nor concerns on the rightful inheritor... though the gardener deserves it... no I’m here to explain a contractual oddity.”

“Huh?”

“Miss, have you checked the fine print? Wait, lemme pull out my copy of the will... for it has the necessary notes. Anyways, here you go.”

“... Wait, I remember the will having only...”

“Hmm?”

“The copy and the will perfectly match up... yet h-how?...”

“The other pages? See, you’ve received the full copy today; that previous one, a modified copy. ‘Tis a sin alright, but the signatures don’t lie.”

“Why now? Why not earlier?”

“Again, I care not for who gets the will but the content and we need to hurry up before your friends get here... I want you to explain this to them... Anyways, look at the fourth page.”

“... Jeez, a lot of her will is about money and pure rambling... The cult of the Black Ram?”

“Not that one, the next one.”

“Novus ordo Angelorum.”

“Loosely translating to: The Order of the New Angels.”

“Hmm.”

“We got at least fifteen minutes, but now the crime scene is making sense?”

“Well, for sure a lot of Christian iconography was found...”

“I’ve seen the scene, and more than your forensics crew scanned.”

“Well finding clues for you was...”

“A tedious process, I say the New Angels are getting wise with, let’s say, their devious activities.”

“So, why should I care? It seems like a thing for Lieu Fran?”

“The less I’m involved, the less they’ll wise up. Also the problem’s small scale, trust me on that... Open that envelope... We only have a minute.“

“A red letter?”

“Hand it to... Lieutenant Brown. Anyways, this is where I get off.”

And so It walked off, tightening the tie before leaving. With the door closed, my three clients were staring at me; yet before opening my lips, the door swung open and was pinned hard by Lieu’s hands. I simply held the red letter and I heard:

“Ex-excuse me, Crow please. We have to talk about It now... Her husband is a possible suspect and that letter is our lead.”

-----
For those that have been reading my blurbs for, say, the last week or so, you are right in stating on how semi-random they can be. To spark a conversation that connects not with the story some of the time. Take instance with the current one, emotions with this post's ending; yet wait a minute, what am I even hinting at here? Some incredulous "Death of the Author" ideology which, I and many others say, is itself hypocritical and reflects even better the crisis of identity and the yearn to hand-wave any interpretation that cares not to why the author made it? I wish life where that simple to allow any sorts of interpretations, but even that ideology would have to justify itself within the text and never contradict how the scenes came about lest a later scene can "cleanse" the hiccup.

No, rather I exact the opposite of that ideology and lament not to state clearly that every work, from the books to posters, is tainted by biases; yet without the work existing to begin with, it can never acquire its essence to begin with. But this answers not fully the question, indeed the other half is connection that leads to the great hint. That great hint of course is lamed and shall stay lame for the sake of being lame: the excessive in-determinism, but never irrationality, of life. Or to derail from this conversation and say truly: the life we live in is truly random, but the randomness shall always retroactively presuppose itself which then stabilizes the next sets of random events. Look solely to any spark of protests, random their time is but we can always note where they originated from after the event is over. Yet how can an indeterminate universe not be irrational?

Truly no one can answer it in full, but to suggest that its fully irrational or fully determinate will leave us nowhere; the former pure Chaos that cannot explain Order and the latter that's pure Order that cannot explain Chaos. For the rise of any organization is random; yet the ultimate reflection point of multiple variables like the failures of other groups, material conditions, the success of an org and pure coincidence. Thus why I appreciate the Dialectical Sciences, not because they offer a poorly-disguised Determinism one can relax in. It instead allows us to see how the Orderliness and Chaotic parts of the Universe clash with each other to bring things to the present.

But these are just only the babbles of a street bum, and, if these are of the uttering of such, I gladly shall rather live that life than be materially rich and think the Universe only as Orderly or Chaotic. For those materially rich don't imply they're rich in character or in life; they can be as empty as the next person in our day and age. And this message is left to the wayside as a mere joke which cannot grant the respect it gives, much to the dismay of everyone. Yet, off to the rum I go.

Cited posts:

@bananafish - "FinishTheStory Week #34"

Cited images

"Last Will and Testament"

"FinishTheStory Banner"