Hull - Volume I

A Return to Things

What amazed me most about returning to civilian life was how quickly time seemed to go by now. Where a week once felt like a month, now two months feels like two days. Because as soon as the chemical case had been solved, the next two months of my life just seemed to go by in a blur. I left the police department three days after the case was resolved. Something about being a medical examiner under the department just felt off. I'd started as a call-in nurse for a local clinic near where my brother and his family lived. I didn't make much, but my brother didn't demand rent. I still felt guilty.

Something about the police department just seemed very dull in those days that followed the case. Maybe it was the slowness of the things that did come through. Or maybe it was that Sheridan Hull wasn't apart of the police department, and he was most certainly what had made the case interesting. His ability to see everything, to just know, was amazing. The case itself hadn't even been that intriguing, in hindsight. Hull had been the one to make it something worth paying attention to. I didn't imagine the day-to-day cases that went through the department to reach that level of interest again. So I left.

Now, looking back, that may have been a foolish decision. Because from there, I started as a call-in. And unfortunately, there aren't near enough medical tragedies in suburban Newfield to constitute the usage of a call-in. I spent most of my days sitting and reading, taking walks, writing about my time in service. In other words, I was bored. Really bored. Part of me hoped that Lennox, who had accepted my resignation on friendly terms, would call me up with another job offer. I knew that was pushing my luck, though. I'd been fortunate enough to get the job when I had it. Now, my luck was running thin.

Or so I thought.

“Hey John, you got something in the mail.”

I looked up from my stupid magazine about the lives of celebrities to see my brother, Ethan, standing in the doorway with an envelope. “Something came for me?”

“Yeah. Pretty accurate addressing, too.”

I furrowed my brow before taking the envelope. He wasn't lying. “To Mr. John Walker, the Spare Bedroom, Number 4 12th Street, Newfield, Oregon.” I turned the envelope over a couple of times. “No return address... how do they know which room I'm in?”

“Dunno. I haven't really told anyone. Unless it's Mom.”

“Ha. Because our mother is definitely going to send me letters while I'm mooching off of you.”

“Hey, you know it's not like that.” He clasped my shoulder. “You're just trying to figure out what you want to do. She should be happy.”

“Yeah. Should.”

He sighed. “Alright. Well, that was all.” He walked away, leaving me alone with the envelope. I was at first a bit wary to open it, but my curiosity didn't take long to take prominence. I carefully opened the envelope. Into my hand fell a single, thin piece of paper. I turned it over to see it was a ticket for a play. The title “Romeo & Juliet” was artfully sprawled across the top of the ticket, with the date, time, and other information typed on the bottom. The date was set for this evening.

I bit my lip for a moment, opening the envelope again. The rest was empty. I held the ticket in my hand with a slight sense of apprehension. I didn't have many friends, especially in Newfield. I also didn't expect it to be from someone who hated me enough to try and kill me at a college production of a Shakespearean play. I really couldn't think of who would send me a ticket, unless I'd signed up for a contest in the past two and a half months and forgotten about it completely. Nonetheless, I had nothing better to do besides sit and read stupid magazines that my brother's wife found enthralling. The play was my evening event.