I’m not sure if it’s been the pet-sitting (and getting out of the habit), the revisions, or the lack of keen interest in my current projects (or a combination of it all), but my writing has been unenthused lately. To help break my slump, I did a writing exercise tonight that’s a little silly and a little weird, so I figured I’d share it with you, if you feel so inclined.
There had been many theories about how she had been murdered.
They were all, unfortunately, wrong.
Meyers Ling was right that her day had started at the dog park. But it wasn’t the one by her house, where she normally went. No, that one always became a mess after it rained, and they’d had a downpour that night, so she’d gone to the one across town.
Elliot Finkle wanted to know why she would have gone to the dog park when she didn’t have a dog.
“The answer is obviously,” Ling said. “She liked to visit with other people’s dogs.”
He was right about that as well.
The last thing he was right about was that she met her murderer at the dog park. He was wrong that the murderer followed her home.
“Nonsense,” said Finkle. “This was obviously a crime of passion. I suspect it was an ex”lover.” He eyed Robert Anderson and Julie Bowler.
“That’s ridiculous!” Anderson said, possibly because he’d been the one to find the body. “If it was me, I wouldn’t have called you all here! I would have covered it up!”
“Unless you knew that one of us knew that you were going to come over to her house today,” Ling pointed out.
“Which none of you did, as I just decided to do it five minutes before ariving.”
“Oh?” Finkle inquired. “And why was that?”
“Because she loaned me a twenty for dinner last week and I knew if I didn’t come over immediately I’d keep forgetting to pay her back.”
“That sounds like a likely excuse!” Finkle accused.
“Well, it does seem too stupid an excuse for him to have made it up for just this purpose,” Ling admitted.
“Um,” Bowler said, but got no further.
“Care to admit to the crime?” Finkle shouted, and everyone’s attention turned toward her.
“Uh, no. I was just thinking maybe we should call the police.”
Finkle, Ling, and Anderson were reluctant, but eventually conceded it might be best to involve the authorities.
In the end, the police questioned each person thoroughly and determined that based on the scene and the information that she had walked her neighbor’s dog down to the dog park for him–as he was getting up in years–and back home, she’d been slicing some chicken for the big bruiser when something had startled her and the dog, and in a fumbling of limbs, she’d fallen on the knife.
She had rolled over–possibly with the help of the dog–but the wound was too grievous and she was unable to call for help. She bled out. When Richard arrived, he opened the door to the sounds of a frantic dog–which ran out and away as soon as he opened the door, and he found the body and called their three friends to figure it out.
“Why didn’t you call the police immediately?” the officer asked.
“Well, she was already dead,” Anderson said. “What good would that have done?”
when no one's looking 