I Sam was tired.

Sam, my new assistant, slapped the document onto the table. I looked up, noticing his face looked aged, with deep circles under his eyes that seemed to add twenty years to his short, stumbled twenties. His hair was disheveled, which he proceeded to comb through with a rough gesture.

"At last you finish," I said, with a slightly sharp smile. He just muttered a yes after a sigh and waited for my next order, his back semi-hunched and his expression wrinkled as if something hurt.

"Does something hurt?" I murmured in a questioning tone, though it wasn't really a question. I stood up to go over to him and caught a strong scent of caffeine coming from his clothes.

"No, sir," he shook his head. "Just tired."

Tired; the premise of every defeated man. A broken heart or despair in a life that cannot bear selfish dreamers. Sam had, like every man seeking his path in life, a bit of both. I returned to my desk to pick up my empty cup, which I then handed to him with a careless gesture.

"Do you know how to cure a broken heart?"

Sam took the cup, puzzled. He either didn't have the answer, or simply didn't care.

"With work," I said. "Go get my coffee, boy."

 

II The car was old.

He arrived in front of me driving that clunker he called a car. It was an old Cadillac from the sixties, with large dents on the sides and a deep scratch on the hood. It was white, and I emphasize “was” because, when I first saw it, only a scrape of its original color was visible on its shell, over which rust predominated as if it had come from a city that doesn’t know sunny days.

He parked in front of my house, and the car roared as it slowed down. It was the growl of a dog that has chased hares all its life and just hopes to pass on.

"And this junker?" I asked Sam, without hiding the mocking tone that always prevailed in me. "Is that why you took so long, because you had to stop and put it together at every traffic light?"

Sam looked at me reproachfully. He got out of the car and slammed the driver's door shut, but when he did, it fell off.

We both burst into laughter.

 

III Grandma liked to avoid the sun.

We saw her from afar, reclining in an old-fashioned swimsuit on a sand-colored towel that blended into the hues of the beach itself. She was covered by a large maroon umbrella, which gave her the appearance of a reddish, sinister queen waiting for a couple of jesters to entertain her. It was only the shade from the umbrella, because outside of it she was as pale as polished porcelain. Sam and I approached her, and our Derby shoes filled with sand.

"Good..." I glanced at my watch. It was two minutes to noon. "Good morning, my beloved lady."

Madame Levin smiled and, without getting up, extended her hand for me to kiss. She didn’t move it an inch out of the shade of her umbrella, not as if she feared the sun, but as if the celestial body was unworthy of her. A large ring adorned her left ring finger, and her skin, though wrinkled, was soft to the touch like the wool fabric that covered part of her shoulders over her swimsuit.

"Sweetheart," she said, in a condescending tone.

I leaned in to kiss the back of her delicate hand, but she withdrew it from me until I finally had to fall on my knees beside her and fulfill my duty of kissing her damn royal fingers. Then, I turned to Sam, who stood still beside her like a statue.

"You don’t take off your suit even to go out," she commented with a voice cracked but sweet, like a long-stored wine. "Who is accompanying you?" she asked, turning to look in Sam's direction, who returned the gaze both scared and polite at the same time. I smiled nervously.

"This is Sam Müller, my assistant. Say hello to my grandma, man," I told the boy, "even though she looks like a vampire, she doesn’t bite."

"Only the handsome boys," she said, laughing. "Come, come closer so I can see you."

 

The room was a mess

 

As soon as I entered, a stench flooded my nostrils. It was atrocious, like opening a door to the ninth abyss, where a cold draft seeped through a hole in the window acting as a fan to bring all that stench to my face. I had to cover my face with the back of my hand, but unable to bear it, I pulled out my handkerchief to use as a mask. As it was dark, I couldn't see where I was stepping and, really, I was afraid to venture further and risk stepping on something that might stain my very expensive shoes.

Sam was more accustomed, or at least he didn't show any discomfort upon entering that room. He wiped his feet on a dirty welcome mat and then proceeded, dodging boxes and overturned furniture, especially a large TV cabinet a few meters from the entrance.

When he turned on the light, the sepia yellow of the lamp flooded his curious face.

"Look at this, boss," he said, his eyes lit up with joy. "Looks like we have work to do."

Everything inside was a whirlwind. The coffee table was overturned, with a large crack crossing the entire circumference of the wood, and beside it lay the body of the crime. Mrs. Adams, who had ended things by her own hand—a conclusion I drew upon seeing the pile of pills scattered beside her wedding photo—with her seventy years.

"It looks like she got tired of playing bingo," I said ironically. I pulled out my cellphone to call the coroner. "Don't touch anything yet. Gary needs to take a look first."

Sam shrugged, sullen.

 

IV Gary didn't like dogs.

Gary Hoffmann was a strange guy. I met him in a behavioral analysis class when we were about twenty years old. At that time, he wore thick glasses with dark frames, like dirty brown, and a gray sweater he never took off. He claimed to have the gift of sight, something I always laughed at. How can you have the gift of sight if you see as cloudy as inside a Russian fog or as if you were in the haze with the Föhn blowing your pants?

However, he did see things, just not in the conventional way. The first time I knew this was when I invited him over to pick up one of my postgraduate books. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he stood still, clutching his fists inside the long sleeves of his often-washed sweater and shook his head.

"I'm not going any further than this."

I turned to him, fuming. He didn't want to enter my house? The nerve of him. At that time, I didn’t live in an apartment, but in a spacious, well-lit house adorned with Art Deco that would make even the Kremlin look like a preschool child. However, I held back my acidic comments to learn more.

"You have a damn dog," he explained, pale as the ivory statue that adorned the lintel above his head.

"Oh, really?" I asked. "And how do you deduce, Sherlock Holmes of sorts, whether I have a damn dog or not?"

There was no smell, no strategically placed little dish or squeaky toy that could betray the presence of Sammy, my then loyal water dog that I had retrieved from my grandmother’s house that summer. Nevertheless, Gary knew, and I had no idea how.

I saw him squat down on the carpet. Using the sleeves of his sweater as gloves, he pulled a hair from the fibers, thin but not too thin, woolly and no larger than a fingernail. It was cappuccino brown. It was Sammy’s.

"Water dog?" he asked, a bit mockingly despite his apparent nervousness. "I thought you'd have some man's dog."

I laughed loudly. That comment was a dagger to my pride, however, I knew then that I would want Gary on my forensic team, and we became friends from that morning in December.

 

 

V The storm was approaching.

I looked through the passenger window and decided to roll it up. Even though my coat covered me up past my neck, the cold seeped through every opening in the fabric, chilling me to the bone. There was a wind as sharp as a knife, and I didn't want to be the one to catch a cold from its steely edge.

Through the glass, I saw Sam running to the car with a coffee in hand. He climbed into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut.

"It's freezing," he said with a lively voice, though there was a pitiful trace that made me realize something was off. He looked into my eyes, and I had a strange feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"It's autumn," I remembered, accepting the coffee he handed me.

I found it odd that he hadn’t bought a coffee for himself, and that trace of atypical anxiety in my mood made me somewhat resent the caffeine. However, I took the first sip and waited for him to start the car, trying to focus on the engine starting instead of my bad thoughts. But all I heard were the first drops of the afternoon hitting the car roof and my companion’s steady breathing, who wouldn’t take his eyes off me.

Suddenly, he placed his hand on my shoulder. Sam didn't touch people, except for the corpses he investigated, and only because he wore gloves. Now, he touched my shoulder, with his bare hand.

"They called the office," he said, his voice quiet and soft. I turned to him, more curious than alarmed. Before I could respond with some bitter remark, he shook his head.

"Madame Levin," he said, looking into my eyes but unable to bear the weight of my gaze. "She’s..."

"Dead," I finished for him, after tasting the coffee that seemed as acidic as licking ice. I saw him nod, and his fingers dug into mine with almost protective fierceness.

I wasn’t alarmed, because somehow I knew, I had known when I saw her for the last time, dressed in that swimsuit at the edge of the beach, facing the sun when she knew she didn't like it. Lately, she had been doing many things that scared her, like choking on meatloaves with garlic and going to church. I imagined that, despite spending her last days kneeling in front of the May Cross, she wouldn’t want to be buried in a ceremonial Christian rite. No, she would want to be cremated, because that way she wouldn’t risk being resurrected.

"I’m sorry," Sam said after a sigh that was inaudible due to the roar of the rain breaking the sky. "I thought you’d want to know before anyone else."

"I somehow knew," I commented, turning my head to watch as raindrops fell on the fogged-up car window, which suddenly blurred because I hadn’t realized I was crying. "She always told me she would die on a rainy day, as cliché as that sounds."

Then I laughed, but it wasn’t laughter that came out of me, but a hoarse moan that I couldn’t control because it was unfamiliar to me, like the idea of living without her or the bitterness of knowing what awaited me. Sam hugged me at that moment, and I will never forget that he didn’t smell like autumn, but like winter.

 

VI Tom knew nothing about writing.

"She was elegant," I read at the start of the page. It wasn't the way to start a text, nor was it the most ideal way to reflect her. My grandmother wasn't just elegant, she was beautiful, like a vase decorated with precious stones. She had the cool softness of a ripe winter fruit, the kind that only exists in your own utopian imagination. She was loquacious, capable of leaving you grounded with just a string of anecdotes that forced you to sit at her feet to hear more, because she wasn’t the typical grandmother who brought you stories from a time far from reality. She made the stories, evoked them like a dream, transformed with solemn language provided by a strong, fierce voice, like a lioness, and with the same feline grace of a huntress. So no, she was not just "elegant."

I was disgusted by the sound of the word, and likewise, by the graceless manner in which it was written.

The paper ended up on the other side of the room when I launched my speech, as bad as my habits, and I put my hands to my temples. My disgust was so great that even the wine I was drinking tasted like mud, like dirt, like the words I myself had written on that crumpled office paper.

Sam crossed the threshold, silent as ever. He looked at the waste of papers around me and let out a sigh. He didn’t say a word, but it bothered me immensely when he picked up one of my writings and read it aloud.

"She was elegant," he pronounced with the voice of a poet. "Not bad for a start."

I laughed like a madman at his bucolic way of calming me.

"Go call another idiot an idiot, idiot," I said, dragging the words because I had drunk too much to search for synonyms that would groom my lexicon trained over years.

"Idiot," I repeated.

He looked at me strangely, raising an eyebrow. He snorted and slapped the paper as if stretching the sheet could fix the mess that lay written there.

"Certainly, it could be improved," he told me. "How about, 'She was beautiful, like a vase decorated with precious stones, certainly fragile and valuable, but no less elegant than the finest jewels with which she adorned her always haughty demeanor. Since she was proud, and that pride was the most precious aspect of her character.'"

I looked at him astonished. Immediately, I stood up, looked at the glass of wine I was holding and, tossing it into the air, burst into laughter. Sam was alarmed, but before he could run out of the office for fear that his crazy boss might kill him in a fit of grief-stricken hysteria, I lunged at him to give him a hug.

"Excellent, Sammy!" I exclaimed. "You will write my speech!"

Sam nodded, uncomfortable with the physical contact.

"If I have no other choice…"

Under my accusing gaze, he cleared his throat and corrected.

"Of course, Mr. Thomas…"

And we both knew that, indeed, he would have no other choice.

 

VII I was sure something unusual was happening down the street

He was standing in the rain, illuminated by a streetlamp. He wore only his office suit, that white shirt, the only one in his wardrobe, which always ended up wrinkled by the end of the day. He didn't move nor seem bothered by the raindrops plastering the shirt fabric to his torso; in fact, it seemed like he didn't care. I decided to call him, and seeing him take the phone out of his right pants pocket, I had no doubt that enigmatic figure was Sam.

"Where are you?" I asked, as calmly as possible because I wanted to disguise my concern.

He was slow to respond. The rain, even through the phone, was audible as a torrent. "Stupid," I thought. "If you want to take care of me, at least remember the umbrella."

"I went for a walk," he said calmly. I saw him cover the cellphone with his free hand to protect it from getting wet. "This isn't a good time, Mr. Thomas. Do you need something specific?"

He shifted to look towards my apartment. I had to be quick to avoid being caught watching him through the glass. I simply took refuge by the wall next to the window. Immediately, I snorted. Why should I hide from such a companion?

"I see you, idiot," I admitted, returning to the window.

Without waiting for a response, I hung up. I opened the window as much as possible and there, soaking my head with the rain falling from the roof, which even fell into my mouth and tasted unpleasant like dirt, infused with its petrichor flooding my own proud roots, I shouted:

"Come up already!"

He looked at me. Again, he watched me with those eyes, those that said I had gone mad. I was, of course, but the fact that he was lingering there meant he didn't care at all. I saw his shoulders rise and fall, indicating a deep sigh, and he shook his head.

I watched him walk away, down the street. Even without an umbrella and wet as a chick, I knew I inevitably needed him. I had an idea.

 

VII The furious client wanted to see the manager.

"The body of Madame Levin has disappeared," the funeral agent reiterated with deep embarrassment. He was about to sit down but hesitated under Sam's scathing gaze beside me.

"This has to be a joke, but if it is, it's not funny at all," I said, my tone more sour than polite. I stood up, pushing the chair away with my legs and, after a deep breath, let out a raw curse.

I've always been good at offending, or treating people as incompetent in a way that makes them feel specifically that: stupid. However, this time I didn't feel like taking it out on anyone in particular. I just grumbled and cursed without associating names other than divine ones and started pacing around the room.

Sam watched me with serious eyes but was hiding a smile. I saw him take a small porcelain Jesus from that guy's desk, weighing it with one hand, then passed it to his left hand like a ball and began to openly smile.

"It's impossible, it's unimaginable, it's completely ludicrous and disgraceful."

Disgrace. The agent's eyes lit up.

"At this moment," he said, "we are doing everything possible to resolve the matter. It has been reported to the police, it was..."

"Police? Ha!" I turned to Sam, who without ceasing to smile, tossed the ceramic Jesus for me to catch in the air. "Did you hear that, Sammy? Police! Listen to me well, sir! I command the police!"

I threw the Jesus out the window. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces and the storm perfectly camouflaged the scream of the man who, frightened, watched as Sam grabbed him by the tie in an attempt to scare him.

"Go talk to your manager," he advised, patting him on the cheeks. "That man there, he's the devil himself."

Laughing, I watched as the agent ran to push the door open without looking back. Without even a breath, even his soul had fled in fear. As soon as we saw him disappear, we burst into laughter.

Sam followed me as we left through the broken window. I saw him agilely dodge the glass shards and shake off pieces that on his black suit looked like snowflakes, so shiny. It was at that precise moment that I realized that for a long time now, I had begun to notice even the smallest, most superfluous things in him.

"The process is arduous, Sr. Thomas," he said on the way to the car. "We need to hurry."

"I know," I commented, sitting in the passenger seat. "It's not every day you try to resurrect your dead grandmother. She's going to start smelling soon."

 

 

Author's Note:

Thank you for the course, I greatly enjoyed creating these mini-stories. They even gave me the idea for a new novel. I apologize for my poor English, as it is not my native language. I eagerly await your comments.