Agoraphobia

Day 363 (The Trail)

"That would explain the poop."

"Apparently, this victim was in bed when he turned agoraphobic." decided Uncle Peter as we followed the trail out of the bedroom. "The first thing he did was move to the kitchen. Next, he went to his back door. Then he went back to his kitchen. Finally, he went out his front door. I see six poops. So that's about six days it took for him just to move about the house."

"Six poops equal six days?" I questioned. "You only poop once a day?"

"About. Don't you?"

"I'm a two-a-day pooper myself."

"Hmmmm. Then let's assume the average is one and a half poops a day. That would mean it took him four days to leave the house. Give or take a day."

"You keep saying 'him'. It could've been a woman."

"The poops look manly. My guess is it's a guy."

"What?! How can a poop look 'manly'?"

"The poops are big. Men poop bigger."

"The poops don't look big to me."

"That's because they're dried out. They were larger when fresh. I'm quite sure he was a man."

"I'm going to disagree. I saw a bra in the bedroom."

Uncle Peter shrugged dismissively. "Probably left here by his girlfriend."

"Fine. Let's follow the trail to the end and see which one of us is right."

We followed the trail out the front door, across the street, and down the sidewalk to an office building door. We counted ten poops. So it took approximately seven days to cross the street and enter the office building.

It should be noted, while the poops we found indoors were well preserved, the poops we found outdoors had decomposed to almost nothing. In most cases, all that remained was a "burn" mark.

Inside, the trail led to a busted, emptied soda vending machine, then to a side entrance. Four poops inside. So it took approximately three more days to enter and exit the building.

We followed the trail out the side door, across a patch of hardened foundation soil and to a sidewalk. "He was pushing a wheelbarrow," deduced Uncle Peter, pointing to the ground. "See, a deep tire track in the soil and pairs of leg support marks every two feet or so." He looked at me and raised an eyebrow to make sure I appreciated how clever he was.

"Very astute observation, my dear Watson!" I declared.

"What?! I'm not the Watson! You're the Watson. I'm the Sherlock."

I rolled my eyes.

We followed the trail down the sidewalk to the front of a commissary (military grocery store). Outside, near the entrance, there was the corpse dressed in an MP (military police) uniform.

We counted an additional twelve poops, indicating nine more days of travel. Altogether, it had taken approximately twenty-three days for the snail-agoraphobic to make it from the bed to the commissary's front.

"It would appear we have found our snail-agoraphobic," declared Uncle Peter, grinning down at the dead MP. "And look! The ID pinned to his chest reads 'Eric Caseboltt'. I was right. He WAS a man after all. Hah!" This triggered a particularly obnoxious, impromptu victory-dance.

I waited for him to finish. "You're wrong," I reported at last.

"What do you mean 'wrong'?"