The Heist (episode 4)
(a letter from the Soup Gobble)
The postman arrives carrying an envelope addressed, with admirable confidence, to The Gargoyle Sitting on the Right.
“That’s me,” shouts the gargoyle who appears to every mortal eye to be sitting on the left, but perspective has always been a treacherous little beast and gargoyles have never trusted it.
We watch as he slices the envelope open with the edge of one small stone tooth and reads aloud: my dear cousin in reply to your letter of whenever ago I can say with unreasonable doubtfulness that the room at the rear of that passage exists and can be accessed from the adjoining building which during the bad-dry-old-days-of-prohibition was a gin joint with a soup kitchen on the main floor excellent cover if ever there was one and your mysterious disappearing room can be entered through a big walk-in-double-door fridge that once led to a whole ocean-load of pink gin yours ever faithfully helpful the soup gobbler gargoyle of 527 west 110 street, Britannia Building, new york.
By the time he reaches “pink gin”, even Nick has stopped pretending this is ridiculous, while Hünga glares at the letter with a judge’s suspicion and Chris looks as though Christmas has arrived wearing shiny new lock-picks.
The gargoyle lowers the page very slowly and looks from face to face.
He holds the silence just long enough to savour it, wearing the ancient satisfaction of a creature who has just improved everybody’s afternoon.
Note: sentence #3 — gargoyles consider punctuation a waste of time because no such thing exists when one speaks.
Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link. Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “hold”. The featured image is mine: a gargoyle called “The Soup Gobbler” on the Britannia Building at 527 West 110 Street, NYC. All writing is authentically my own work.©Misky 2006-2026.
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