Samuel Gamble Sanus. A first name and two last names. His name wasn’t peculiar or felt good to say upon one’s tongue like usual protagonists in stories. He was ordinary. He wore a tie everyday to work, came home, and changed from his work clothes to a robe, read the newspaper while smoking a pipe. No wife, no girlfriend, no roommate or friends to add to his self-worth. He had already thought of himself lousy and often wondered why he hadn’t at least made a few acquaintances around the office. He wasn’t ugly or anything; just reclusive and tended to keep to himself. As an avid reader and dart thrower, he had committed most of his free time either to highlighting the errors in the newspaper, then mailing the damp papers to the editors, and a round or two of darts.

Up until the occurrence of this story, this Sanus’s life was pretty monotonous in its solitude. Nobody can be blamed for the reclusiveness of an introvert other than the man himself. Even he knew this and would find himself bullying himself to go outside and fetch the daily paper. Nothing out of the ordinary happened while he walked outside, briskly surveying the abundance of birds that had found their way to his little nook. He lived on a dead end street with cracked pavement and lots of trees, kudzu, and cherry blossom trees.

He nonchalantly opened the door and closed it behind him and slipped the fresh-off-the-press paper out of its bag-shell the paperboys put them in the occurrence of puddles along with the potent inability to aim for the driveway was in the air. As he read the dark big bold headline, a picture below it had captured his eye. It was a very familiar face. This was strange because seldom did Samuel Sanus ever remember names or faces of anyone. The photo was of a male in workers attire, wearing thick glasses, and carrying a suitcase. The man in the photo was himself.

Slightly offended at having himself exposed on the front page of the newspaper, he read the tiny article to the left of it. ‘Man dies in mystery murder’ the headline screamed. Samuel was slightly puzzled as he read on. The article was extremely vague on the details but the line did start out with ‘Samuel Gamble Sanus died unrepentantly in a murder. The police refused to release any more information…’The article continued with the journalist pestering the detective for clues to no avail and ranting on about how the police reports weren’t allowed to be put on press, which was a violation of one’s rights.

Sanus locked the door behind him and turned on the light to his bedroom and filled in the 9x9 boxes of a puzzle with numbers. The whole predicament seemed to be a joke of some sort but to be safe, Samuel paid careful attention to his doings, avoiding stairs and did not go into work that day.