From Twitter 08-19-2009

• 21:23:09: CHAPTER FOUR. O'Malley looked at the report again, as he had every day for the last five years. It still confused him long after the fact.
  
• 21:26:23: Didn't make sense. He heard voices inside the morgue. One of them sounded like his ex-partner Frank Fargas. Then he heard nothing at all.
  
• 21:29:53: When he couldn't get the door open, he'd gone around back. There was a window, recently broken, and he found his way inside through that.
  
• 21:32:28: O'Malley was out of shape. Just a few years from retirement then, and the morgue case got him bumped down to a desk job. A few months now.
  
• 21:36:17: He squeezed through the window and looked around. No sound, no body. No bodies. No one was inside, but he knew he'd heard people talking.
  
• 21:39:29: He'd called the station to get someone else to come out. It was five a.m. Five a.m.? How long had he been at that door? That was insane.
  
• 21:47:48: Two bodies that had just arrived, Frank Fargas and Maggie Underhill, were gone. Also gone was Coroner Ted. All had vanished into thin air.
  
• 21:52:14: There seemed to be smoke, but just a little. Nothing major, and no unusual odors for a Coroner's office. There was just the one item left.
  
• 21:54:22: O'Malley saw it on the floor beside the slab. It had either been removed or fallen out of dead Maggie's body. It was technically evidence.
  
• 21:56:22: But evidence of what? Nothing here. It would end up lost in some evidence room, and maybe he could use it to make some sense of all this.
  
• 21:58:58: He put it in his pocket just before his boss had arrived. No one would know, and no one would believe it anyway. It was that kind of case.
  
• 22:01:51: McGuffin told to him that it was probably a matter of weirdo Coroner Ted stealing the bodies and running off. McGuffin said they'd get him.
  
• 22:09:46: But they hadn't caught him. Ted's guilt was sealed when they discovered his mother in front of the TV. But no Ted...not even now, in 1963.
  
• 22:14:37: McGuffin had a way of moving things along, but O'Malley never gave him the knife. It seemed to be a missing piece to an unsolvable mystery.
  
• 22:17:36: O'Malley reasoned: no body, no case. Coroner Ted didn't kill the stripper, and he himself had killed Fargas. And there was zero evidence.
  
• 22:24:19: He'd kept the knife all these years in a box. It had a weird design and he'd never seen one like it. It felt odd, almost magical, to hold.
  
• 22:30:09: He thought again about Fargas. What had happened? Did he kill that stripper? And didn't his twin brother also disappear around that time?
  
• 22:35:09: He went to the locked drawer where he kept the box. He took the knife out. It felt warm. It was *always* warm, but now it began to glow.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 08-16-2009

• 02:49:47: CHAPTER THREE. Rupert King was in a corner. Not a literal corner, a metaphorical one. He was behind a desk, typing words into a computer.
  
• 02:59:29: So many ideas came to him, and all at once. They were all awful...and yet it was all he could do to grab each of them before they left him.
  
• 03:04:49: He hoped to make the story ideas fit. They didn't. At 42, Rupert was an unknown, unpublished, frustrated writer...perhaps the worst ever.
  
• 03:09:03: He couldn't write characters, or find motivations, or compose dialogue. All he could do was give humongous breasts semi-creative nicknames.
  
• 03:15:42: Although poor at writing sex scenes, he excelled at describing tits. While this wasn't enough to build a career on, he felt it was a start.
  
• 03:20:16: Rupert King didn't want to be a famous writer, or even a good one. He just wanted to write stories of action, adventure, and giant breasts.
  
• 03:28:47: He felt it might not happen now. He'd wasted so many years, and many opportunities had slipped away from him. He was just a fry cook now.
  
• 03:36:37: He tried not to think about it. His characters were stuck in idiotic plots he'd placed them in, and there were many boobs left to describe.
  
• 03:41:20: Why would O'Malley kill Fargas, now a private investigator? And what are the odds that the P.I.'s twin brother, also a P.I., would turn up?
  
• 03:42:38: And what about the cats? An evil cat that is seeking to take over the world? Aren't all cats evil? And who killed the stripper? And why?
  
• 03:44:59: Why so many private investigators, anyway? And are all the women in the story huge-breasted blondes? Rupert knew the answer to this. YES.
  
• 03:50:29: But where was all this heading? And why the year 1958? Was it just some sort of cop-out so the men could treat the women like furniture?
  
• 03:56:31: Again, most likely yes again. But King wanted to keep modern technology out of it. His felt it had made his life difficult enough already.
  
• 04:01:42: Rupert wanted to tie up all the loose ends. He began to write as if his life depended upon it. He would finish this story, no matter what.
  
• 04:04:32: Somehow he'd do it. It might not make sense, but for the first and only time in his life he'd finish what he started. He got back to work.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 08-15-2009

• 03:31:01: CHAPTER TWO. Coroner Ted, who you may remember was earlier claimed to be a red herring in this story, suddenly got a more substantial role.
  
• 03:33:44: He went to his night shift morgue job, where he was free to grope the uncomplaining corpses in 1958, long before surveillance video cameras.
  
• 03:36:33: Despite his weirdness, Ted did an outstanding job. For obvious reasons he preferred the late shift, because it gave him a lot of down time.
  
• 03:40:20: This was a big night. Two bodies that had just arrived, and Ted was excited to get down to business. He loved this job with all his heart.
  
• 03:43:29: Not far away, Fez the cat slept peacefully at first, then the dreams became increasingly troublesome. Fez knew that there would be trouble.
  
• 03:48:52: It's been said that animals can see ghosts. But it hasn't been said that animals are also very psychic....because it's so hard to ask them.
  
• 03:56:55: How do we even *know* that an animal can see a ghost? It's just a thing that folks believe in for no good reason...like the Democrat Party.
  
• 03:59:33: But Fez the cat did dream about something, a thing that bothered him so much that he would have to leave the comfort of his home, and soon.
  
• 04:01:23: Across town, Tim O'Malley was miserable. He hated his job as a cop, and he wasn't crazy about the paperwork he'd have to fill out tomorrow.
  
• 04:02:41: Also, Mr. Mittens had soiled his apartment so foully he became finally became disgusted and put the cat outside for the first time in years.
  
• 04:03:50: O'Malley reflected on the years that had passed, how Fargas got fired from the force and became a P.I., and how he'd had to shoot him today.
  
• 04:05:45: Tim O'Malley turned his radio on and sat down in a wooden chair. He poured himself a stiff drink. He'd have to go to the morgue tonight.
  
• 04:08:56: Mittens saw the chance to escape and fled, never looking back. He'd long wanted to leave O'Malley's one-bedroom apartment and spread chaos.
  
• 04:10:34: But being a cat, and a highly psychic one at that, Mr. Mittens knew where he'd have to go. He felt an urge to go somewhere he'd never seen.
  
• 04:12:41: Fez had never really had a reason to leave. He was happy and well-fed, even though Coroner Ted was a sick weirdo and Mother Ted was dead.
  
• 04:15:52: But now, following the weird and prophetic dream he'd had, he knew he'd have to go out into the night, for the first time ever. The morgue.
  
• 04:20:22: Not that Fez even knew where the morgue was...he was led there by unseen forces that we can't understand, at least not in a story like this.
  
• 04:24:47: In the morgue, Coroner Ted was prepared to start his usual Coroner business. He began with the busty stripper with the huge knife wound.
  
• 04:27:21: Or intended to. There was a knock at the back door. No one should be knocking at this hour, Ted thought. He wasn't used to visitors here.
  
• 04:33:11: Ted looked through the peephole. It looked like a cop. "Open up," said a voice, "I'm here on police business". He waved a badge around.
  
• 04:37:32: Ted opened the door. There stood the spitting image of the dead man on the table. The stranger glanced at the corpse, his identical twin.
  
• 04:39:49: "Sorry about that cop stuff," said the man. "I'm a private investigator, not a cop. My name's Fred Fargas, and that corpse is my brother."
  
• 04:43:08: As bad as he felt about the death of his brother, Fred Fargas couldn't help but notice the substantial gazongas on Maggie, the dead blonde.
  
• 04:45:05: She reminded Fred of a former assistant of his, Jugs Mulrooney. "Jugs" wasn't her real name, though. Fred had never bothered to learn it.
  
• 04:49:51: Like poor dead Maggie, Jugs had impossibly big d-cup breasts, and Fred was free to torment her in an era long before sexual harassment laws.
  
• 04:52:12: But it turned out that Jugs was far too smart to be kept down, even in the 1950s, and left Fargas' shop and opened her own detective agency.
  
• 04:58:44: He missed her and tried to replace her with two similarly large-breasted girls named Powder Keg Peg and Candy Kaine, but the magic was gone.
  
• 05:01:06: They didn't have the brains of his previous assistant and nearly caused him to lose his license. He stopped employing strippers after that.
  
• 05:04:16: The past two years he'd been working cases with his twin brother, the stiff on the slab beside the blonde with the gorgonzolas on her chest.
  
• 05:07:05: Now Frank was dead. He never was very bright, thought Fred. Now he'd have to get a new partner. He wondered if he still had Jugs' number.
  
• 05:10:46: Then there was a second knock at the door. This time it was the real police. O'Malley, unable to sleep, was compelled to visit the morgue.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 08-14-2009

• 10:22:20: The police detective had few qualms about shooting a perp, or his ex-partner...but the most evil force on Earth? Mr. Mittens, his own cat?
  
• 10:24:16: And Mittens was, indeed, a bad cat. Not bad in the "you tipped over the milk" way, but genuinely psychotic and evil in a murderous fashion.
  
• 10:27:09: The only thing really keeping him from a full-fledged crime spree was his lack of opposable thumbs. He couldn't find a way to hold a gun.
  
• 10:30:54: Although only a cat, Mr. Mittens had nearly human intelligence. He was at least smarter than Frank Fargas, O'Malley's dead former partner .
  
• 10:34:20: If one cat could take over and rule the world with an iron paw, Mr. Mittens would be that cat. But no cat ever could, that's a silly idea.
  
• 10:37:37: Cats have relatively short lives, and it takes much time to gather armies and gain power. Mittens was middle-aged, already seven years old.
  
• 10:39:15: At best, he could hope to spend the rest of his days locked in the apartment, ruining the possessions and life of a lonely police detective.
  
• 10:41:47: But that was before the shocking events that followed, when everything changed in ways that I can't reveal. Because I haven't made them up.
  
• 10:47:29: O'Malley continued on his way home. It does seem to like a long trip. Perhaps he stopped at a bar for refreshments. Or picked up a whore.
  
• 10:49:50: No, bad guess. He picked up the new Playboy magazine and enjoyed the naked breasts therein as he had a cheeseburger. He was on a budget.
  
• 10:52:40: Both dead Frank Fargas and the dead stripper Maggie Underhill lay on slabs at the morgue, awaiting the magic fingers of weirdo Coroner Ted.
  
• 10:55:21: Coroner Ted said goodnight to his dead mother in front of the TV. Fez the cat snuggled up atop her gray hair and had a very satisfying nap.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 08-13-2009

• 03:12:03: Timothy O'Malley was a humorless man, and he also lived with a cat. The cat's name was Mr. Mittens, and even he hated the police detective.
  
• 03:13:48: While O'Malley was away, the cat marked his territory everywhere, and he had learned to open silverware drawers and lick everything inside.
  
• 03:18:03: Though they never met, Mittens was probably a cousin of Coroner Ted's cat, whose name was Fez. All cats are related in some way regardless.
  
• 03:21:28: Coroner Ted's mother, Mother Ted, was a crazy old lady who had owned many a cat in her day. She had been dead for years in front of the TV.
  
• 03:23:31: Coroner Ted had long suspected his mother's death but wasn't sure of it, because he kept hearing her voice, telling him that women were bad.
  
• 03:26:33: Fez the cat, though he had confirmation of the death, simply didn't care. He still got fed and was prone to napping in Mother Ted's hair.
  
• 03:29:32: But I cannot stress this point strongly enough, this is not about Ted, or Mother Ted, or Fez the cat. It's about the gun pointed at Fargas.
  
• 03:33:09: But it does concern Mr. Mittens, and his owner/victim Tim O'Malley, Frank's former partner and current gun-holding threatener. Kinda sorta.
  
• 03:38:11: O'Malley held the gun on Fargas. It seemed like forever. It *can* seem forever in stories like this, if the writer gets distracted enough.
  
• 03:44:05: But in 1958, and I can't tell you how thoroughly into 1958 we are here, there is no dang Attention Deficit Disorder crap to blame things on.
  
• 03:47:15: The gun. Talk about the gun. What if I told you that O'Malley just put the gun down now? Wouldn't that just be a rip off at this point?
  
• 03:52:22: Yes, yes it would. Frank knew there was no way to explain this murder to his former partner. And Tim wouldn't have believed it regardless.
  
• 03:55:08: Frank reached inside his coat for a cigarette. Detective O'Malley assumed he was going for a gun and shot him twice, killing him instantly.
  
• 04:00:10: That's because this story ultimately isn't the Frank Fargas story. It might also be of interest to note here that Coroner Ted is bisexual.
  
• 04:08:48: Another day. Sad to think about shooting my ex-partner, O'Malley thought. 2 more fresh corpses for that corpse-fondling weirdo Ted's slab.
  
• 04:15:12: O'Malley headed home, not aware that Mr. Mittens had sprayed his pungent, uriney cat scent over the whole apartment to assert his ownership.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 08-12-2009

• 02:54:24: *** Murder, My Tweet - a Serialized Novel by Porter Randall ***
  
• 02:55:54: (c) 2009 - This is a work of fiction, etc., etc., all rights reserved.
  
• 03:00:30: Introduction. A novel written 140 characters at a time is probably not that original of an idea. I bet somebody else has already done one.
  
• 03:05:59: Luckily, that's not my problem. I'm just here typing some virtual words onto virtual paper, then turning them loose on Mr. Gore's internet.
  
• 03:08:23: This story was not written or plotted in advance. That will soon become clear. It's being done semi-spontaneously. I'm playing it by ear.
  
• 03:10:03: This is more of a bizarre literary experiment than anything else. Don't expect miracles. And, yeah...it's going to take a while to finish.
  
• 03:14:43: So, crank up that virtual fireplace, cook some possibly carcinogenic microwave popcorn, and enjoy this...thing. Or, not. -- Porter Randall
  
• 03:57:11: CHAPTER ONE. Frank woke up with a headache, in a pool of blood. His head was spinning. Well, not *actually* spinning...that's impossible.
  
• 04:00:38: His head was fortunately still attached, but he was dizzy and could taste the blood. It was salty, and not refreshing at all. Lousy mixer.
  
• 04:02:48: It took him a few minutes to realize that it wasn't even *his* blood, which made the whole thing even more distasteful later, in retrospect.
  
• 04:07:20: The blood seemed to belong to the dead blonde lying cold next to him on the floor, the one with the shapely shape and the giant knife wound.
  
• 04:12:27: "What a waste of a dame" he said, to no one in particular. He knew many women in his line of work, but very few with such beautiful gams.
  
• 04:19:20: Frank might have even gone online to blog about it, if he had the time...and had the internet existed yet. Which it did not. It was 1958.
  
• 04:22:55: Not that it was a bad time. TV was black & white, phones had rotary dials and weighed 10 lbs, and cars were huge and still made in America.
  
• 04:29:27: Yet, in 1958 strippers still wore those ridiculous pasties. Frank guessed that this must be a dead stripper, or a whore. Weren't they all?
  
• 04:39:47: He glanced again at the half-naked blonde. Even with the blood and the knife wound, she was easy on the eyes. He frisked her for evidence.
  
• 04:43:34: "Frisked", of course, meaning that he searched for clues to her identity. Also, he felt her up. Hey, it was 1958. Who was she gonna tell?
  
• 04:49:26: It might have even progressed from there. We'll never know, because at that moment a door opened and Frank Fargas saw a gun pointed at him.
  
• 06:20:02: The blonde's name was Maggie Underhill. Of course she couldn't tell Fargas this, nor that she didn't know her killer. She was very dead.
  
• 06:22:18: Maggie came to the city hoping to make a mint, possibly to be discovered at some soda fountain and become a star. And she did, on her back.
  
• 06:26:04: And, she had come up with a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, but that was neither here nor there. To recap, she was dead as a stone now.
  
• 06:35:14: She had an amazing body when she was alive. It was slightly less fantastic in death, her huge natural jugs lifted and separated by a knife.
  
• 06:38:10: At least no man can exploit me again, she may have thought while lying there all dead. But that was before Frank Fargas was feeling her up.
  
• 06:41:12: Yet when Maggie was on the slab, the feeling up would only continue. The coroner was a guy named Ted who lived with his mother. And a cat.
  
• 06:44:25: But I'm getting ahead in this story. Or off to the side, since these characters won't even appear again in it. Red herrings, we call them.
  
• 06:51:46: Fargas, the Fargo P.I., was face to face with a gun, and he knew the guy holding that gun all too well. It was his former partner O'Malley.
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com