The Bad Guy:

Part 6: The New Briefcase

Back to my office, I sit down on my chair and plop my new briefcase down on the desk. It had a real nice plop to it when I put it on the desk; a nice, official sounding plop like one might expect to come from a leather briefcase. I took a nice, long look at the dark red handle and thumped it against the briefcase. Thump. That's also a nice sound.

Admiring the brass latches, I turned the key, pushed back the buttons, and watched the latches flip up ever so energetically. Ah, yes, I thought to myself, the sound of flipping latches. Could there be a better sound? Staring the latches over again, I applauded the way the light glistened on their smoothly rounded edges. Yes, some fine craft work went into those latches. A good artist did a fine job indeed.

Upon opening the briefcase, I found something very strange. A note was stuck in the slot just behind the one for putting your personal business card. The note read, "A note from the author: As of this episode, the briefcase no longer has any symbolic reference to real life. As least, not any specific reference." What a strange note to find in a briefcase. It's as though there's someone out there writing my every next move, someone who controls everything I know. Maybe I'm even symbolic to someone, somewhere, in a different reality. Maybe there really is a non-fiction reality out there and it's not just a theory. Nah, that just sounds like balderdash. There's no possible way it could be true. Someone's just trying to mess with me.

Now that I've got a briefcase, what should I put in it? I wondered. I tried to think of what people put in their briefcases. Do they just carry them around to look cool? No, that's definitely not it. If that were the case, why would briefcases open and close? Then it dawned on me: Why not put a notebook in my briefcase? And so I did. Then I put some other various items in there like a pencil, some business cards, and a book on how to detective. Now I'll look super serious.

Now that I had the briefcase, I was ready to solve the case. But how to catch the eye of the man with the paper bag? Then I remembered: Penguin stickers. I was going to put a penguin sticker on my briefcase. So I got out the packet of penguin stickers that the awesomest person in the world gave me for Christmas and I put one on the briefcase. Yes, with this penguin on my briefcase, nothing could stop me now. Not only that, but paper bag man would totally stop in his tracks to look at the awesomeness of this fine looking briefcase enhanced with a penguin sticker.

Paper bag man... dude, that sounds kinda cool. That makes him sound like a worthy adversary, an adversary which can only be defeated by the finest of detectives out there. That detective will need to have a woody looking office, a brown jacket, and a briefcase with a penguin sticker. That detective is none other than me. I shall swear to go forth in pursuit of the paper bag man, tracing his every track, following his every move, and foiling his every plan. I will endeavor to pursue him dutifully, never stopping for anything, not even to look out the window to watch the birds in the morning. I will not rest until he is stopped. I will not even waste time to go to the bathroom. Well, okay, maybe I'll stop for that. That's kind of important. I should probably even eat every now and then. They say that eight hours of sleep a night is a pretty good thing to do too. Also, I need to take time to go to church and stuff. I should probably try to maintain a social life as well. But still, I intend on catching the paper bag man if it's the last thing I do. And that, will be my destiny.

Read part 5 , or go on to part 7 .