A: With the things being the way it is now, all I can do is try to determine what might be going on though naked-eye observations and my imagination
B: In short, you're taking a best guess?
A: "best guess"?! My dear friend, please! That is a woefully inadequate representation of what goes on. a fairer description would be "observation and inference drawing on a wealth of professional experience, including analogous previous cases."
B: Okay, so an educated guess.
A: precisely -- Anon Guest
Observation and inference can let people down. Take the early telescopic observations of both Mars and Venus.
The eye at the telescope saw their own optic veins, inferred canals, and deduced that there was intelligent life on mars. Later probes were unable to find so much as a microbe. Venus was another one. Telescopes and cameras could only see a blurred and cloudy atmosphere. Logic dictated that it was a lush and moist Eden from all the cloud cover. What else was lush and moist? The early Terran saurian eras. Therefore, though observation, logic, and inference, Venus was populated by dinosaurs.
Both of these were one hundred percent WRONG. So too was the series of observations and logical conclusions derived by Jeffries as ze was laid up after the accident.
It was hir own fault, really, for binging all those procedural dramas and true crime stories. Jeffries would never admit it. Ze blamed the weirdoes across the road.
In a neighbourhood of McMansions, this was one of the few that made nominal sense. Every window was in a logical place rather than an aesthetic one. What didn't make sense in context was the fact that there was more than one family living there. Probably. It was hard to tell.
It was also hard to tell what they were up to. On any day, a different set of them would head out, and then head back in with boxes and bags from shops Jeffries had never heard of. Sometimes the same vehicle came back with an entirely different set of people. Parcel deliveries seemed to arrive every other day.
It was even worse during lockdown, when Jeffries acquired a telephoto lens for hir phone camera. If it wasn't for the leg and the back brace, ze could have a wall of madness going on in hir convalescence room.
As it was, there was an app for that.
Frem, the voice of sanity and live-in caregiver, sighed at the display on Jeffries' laptop. "Are you still trying to nail down the neighbours as some of the nations' most wanted?"
"I'm just trying to figure out what they're doing over there."
"They're minding their own business. Like you should be. Honestly. What's so fascinating over there?"
"They had body parts on the clothesline last week. One of them has an RC hand, another one's building a giant mechanical shrimp, it looks like. With wrought iron." Jeffries brought up a picture of a person in some strange arrangement of wire, foam, and socks - none where they might be expected. "I have no idea what this is..."
Frem took one look and said, "Probably a Skeksis."
"A whose sis?"
"Skeksis. From The Dark Crystal? Thra? Aughra? The Mystics? Landstriders? Any of this... and your eyes have glazed over."
"What?"
"It's not a murder mystery, there, Sherlock. They're practical effects people, and this place is their live-in workshop. They're probably preparing for a convention. Or Halloween."
"It's March. Why would they be prepping for Halloween?"
Frem gave him a Look. It said, Oh sweet summer child, you are too naive for your own good. "You have no idea." She took over the laptop to scroll through the pictures. "Yeah some of these are rough drafts. Some of these are sanity projects. You need a sanity project by the way."
"Sanity... project?"
"Something to do to keep you sane while you're stuck in one place. The human brain craves variety. And you are festering in the True Crime Zone." She started tapping away at hir laptop. Bringing out her credit card.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm ordering you some construction brick mystery boxes. Build something. Make stop-motion movies. Anything but trying to frame the friendly neighbourhood weirdoes as terrorists or whatever."
"They do blow things up though."
"Models. And sometimes watermelons. It's perfectly legal, I checked."
"But..." Jeffries tried to come up with a logical argument and failed. "They're weird."
"Weird is fun. You should try it sometime."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Qingwa]
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