Manifest the Mundane

You wake up from your slumber. A line of drool cascades down your chin. Oh, I fell asleep on the couch. You vaguely remember the panic from the night before; after a sweet night’s rest, it seems so childish and pointless. But these trivial emotions are still part of the human condition. Now that you have successfully bargained for probably another decade or two of time, you vow to double your effort to enjoy these ephemeral times.

Work doesn’t stop the day after the festival. You hurry to plow through your morning routine and burst out of your home towards your office. In the night before, in your doom and gloom, you had forgotten to set up an alarm, so you are already running a little late. It isn’t too serious; you expect to be only five minutes later than usual, but as the manager, it would be a little embarrassing.

Most of the festival decorations remain, but people have already removed the dollar bills from their own doors. That reminds you that you forgot to remove yours in your rush. A crowd gathers around something on the street. You can’t spare any time or effort to investigate the commotion, so you slip by them without a second glance.

Amazingly, you end up only three minutes late.

The workday is as uneventful as usual, enough to set you staring at your potted cactus again, which means you are experiencing as much humanity as any other day.

Cole starts another unnecessary conversation. “Hey, do you think health insurance is a scam?”

“Do you seriously think that you are a scammer?” You answer him with another question.

“No. No. No. Our work has some merit, but… sometimes I am forced to deny claims that I’m not sure about. I never see the real person behind the monitor, so I don’t know how much they actually need that money. And that’s why… I wonder if we ever are scamming some of those people.”

“It’s their responsibility to read the terms carefully and submit their claims with the appropriate documentation,” you reply effortlessly.

“Oh, Morgan. This is the kind of coldness that can set my mind at ease.” There’s some sarcasm in his tone, but he doesn’t seem to know if he should accept your advice or not.

“But… dying at the hospital is still better than…” he feels the need to add this muttering right at the end of the conversation. You don’t know whether he is baiting you to continue the exchange or not, but you won’t fall for it.

On your lunch break, the town police officer, Linda, pulls you aside for a chat. You don’t even get to take a bite out of the pudding you stole from Cole.

“Hey, I need a bit of your help here,” Linda says. She even has her notepad ready. Must be official business.

“Yes?” You’re a little confused.

Linda seems more confused about the fact that you are confused. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“A guy got brutally murdered on the street. Dismembered. His phone, his limbs, and other body parts scattered across the walkway. And his head is found at the lake near his tent. It is horrible.”

“Really?”

“I heard that he was seen with you yesterday. So… did he say anything weird to you? Like maybe any gangs are after him, anything?”

“I… I don’t know how to process this. Yes, I met a weird person yesterday. A tourist called Brock. I didn’t hear anything weird. He did suggest having dinner with me. I ended up rejecting him, though.”

Linda falls deep into thought. “That fits the story I heard from Ben.” Ben runs the only lodging in the town that also acts as a restaurant, since the lodging’s side almost never gets any customers.

“What did he say?”

“Not much. Only that the guy suddenly shouted that the spirits are not real and declared that he would be camping at the lake.”

“Checks out. He is quite rude.”

“Yeah…” Linda lets out a deep sigh. “That makes it obvious what happened.”

You don’t know what Linda has in mind, but she sure is taking her time saying it.

Eventually, she gathers up her courage and speaks her mind. “I think the spirits killed him. You know, especially when he is by the lake. And the spirits are known to wake up during the festival. It doesn’t sound dumb, does it?”

“No... That is a possibility.”

She smiles at the much-needed validation. “Good. So let me do something about it.”

“Do something? What?”

“I’ll bury this case. If I report this to the city police, what will they think? That our people worked together to merk that guy. Because one person cannot possibly do all that in a single night. If you see the crime… I mean, the scene of the incident, you will understand.”

That is a reasonable response, an incredibly human one. But as another human being, you can’t stand by and let her carry this burden. That's how humans treat one of their own. “I think you should report it.”

“Why? Did you hear what I said?”

“We have nothing to hide, right? I don’t want you to violate your principles like this.”

She stares at you for a good moment and then embraces you. “Thank you, Morgan. I needed to hear that… I… I… What am I doing?” You can feel tears dropping from her eyes.

“You are just shocked by the whole thing. It’s understandable. The most important thing is that you haven’t committed to your mistake yet. You can still fix it.” You make excuses for her like any decent human would.

She calms down and wipes her eyes with her arm, ready to continue her duty. You bid goodbye and still have barely enough time to finish your lunch.

As you daydream through the afternoon, getting the minimal amount of work done, you can’t stop thinking about what Linda has said. The tourist you met yesterday has died; although you don’t have a good impression of him, death is a big deal for humans. You still have a faint sense of yesterday’s dread, so you should be able to empathize.

But you wonder if spirits can really be so violent. Luckily, you didn’t forget to stick your monetary charm above your door last night, or you might have met the same fate when your body was without a soul. The same can be said if gangs are really involved in this despicable murder.

With that thought, you once again thank the higher beings for granting you the spark that helped you return to being human once again.

Still, the genuine question remains in your head: Who actually killed Brock?