Eyes wide, she steps towards the cop and simpleton, unblinking. A soft anodyne smile stretches across her face. Her was hopelessly focused elsewhere; fragmented across time, space, reality, and further. She’s terrified, relaxed, furtive and so she sets her body on autopilot and allows her mind to take hold of the neon-turquoise keratin scales of the tap-dancing pangolin of abstractive mind-wandering and let it take the wheel for awhile.

In times of great emotional stress, panic, or imminent catastrophe it’s not entirely uncommon for people to mentally regress into a more “pleasurable” memory or moment in their own personal history. Like a waking daydream that serves as a psychological coping mechanism built into out humanoid brains. For some reason, Nora’s cerebrum has decided to play for her a series of moving images of comedy actor Bill Murray.

Murray’s wearing a black dinner jacket with a bow tie and a red, woolen beanie. He booty-trots up the starboard side of the long-range sub hunter, The Belafonte. His face is bearded, tired, an unmitigated mask of misery (as it is in every Wes Anderson movie). String lights, caterers, and party guests flood the background of the ship but Bill takes no interest in them, it's almost as if he doesn't see them at all. He reaches the tippy-top of the bow and with nowhere else to go, he removes an aristocratic joint and tokes up. Everything becomes blurry and slows down like in the chase scenes from Chungking Express. Murray sighs and with a single arm-motion he removes the knit cap; revealing the giant cone-shaped power drill jutting from the crown of his head. The drill spins, buzzing like a sharp, sadistic piece of dental equipment. Murray’s eyes roll to the whites and he flicks his joint overboard. Then he bullrushes the first caterer in his wake, charging headfirst into guts left and right. Blood and inhuman screams. All the while, David Bowie’s Life on Mars plays on the speaker system. Starting with the chorus.

Sailors fighting in the dance hall,

Oh man, look at those cavemen go,

It's the freakiest show…

Nora’s body steps past the threshold of repossessing room, her heels clicking atop the hallway floor tiles. Her face is calm and collected like a sentient sea cucumber. The Murray-murder fantasy ends with one final, obstreperous crescendo of what sounds like a choir of rabid zebras being sodomized with garden gnome as Bill Murray turns their innards into outtards. Nora returns to reality.

Nora returns to reality and already the simpleton's got his mouth open, raising a sardonic finger in preparation for one hell of a diatribe. Nora’s pupils concomitantly contract-

“Franklin,” the undaunted officer introjects. “Funeral’s in what? 15–20 minutes? Why don’t you go finish up in there and we’ll talk later, hmm?”

Frank’s mouth hangs open, his finger suspended in the air as if in a freeze frame. Without a word Nora takes her cue and sidesteps out of the way. Frank’s nostrils pitifully flair like a usurped silverback but off he goes; back into the aerosol Dungeon of his own design. The door closes behind him.

“Now we can palaver in privacy. Hope you don’t mind.”

Nora shakes her head. "Not at all."

Up close Nora can see that the officer has a solid eleven-inches on her. He smells of Vicks VapoRub and talc. Nora reeks of shellac and ignominy and she knows it. She knows, he knows it too.

The officer extends an open hand. “Camera.”

He’s not asking for the model number. 

“Um, yeah, sure.” Nora hands the Nikon over with shaky, imperceptible hands half expecting the officer to immediately smash it on the ground like a mafioso goon.

The officer grabs it by the lens, (which is almost worse). Nora’s eyelids and brow wrench in horror. The officer’s thumb locates the on-switch and the green light flashes on.

“So you’re Mandy’s girl?” The officer asks, fiddling with Nora’s Nikon.

“Yeah—I mean, I was. I guess I still am but, I’m also not anymore, as well? It’s confusing. I don’t really like labels. Semantics were never really my strong suit and there’s been a lot to process in the last few hours.”

“Of course there is. It’s not everyday someone finds themselves completely out of parents. It's spooky at first but is a natural stage of human development. It's a shame nobody ever wants to talk about it. "

“I’ll get over it. How did you know my identity? I don't think we've been introduced."

“You may address me as Dante. Or officer Dante. Either would work but I prefer you use the later. As for your identity, miss Honoria Voorhies, your mother kept a framed picture of you on her dest. One where you're two or three-years old and you’re ridding around in a little yellow fisher-price toy car. Ones where the bottom’s cut out so kids can drive like the Flintstones. You have a lovely pair of eyes, it’s nice to see them in person, though I'm not grateful for the circumstance.”

“Ditto.”

The officer releases an exasperated sigh and hands the camera back to its master.

Hey, maybe you’re not completely boned. 

“Pull up the last picture for me, please?”

Nevermind. 

“Sure, why not.”

Fifteen rapid-fire esoteric button-presses and switch-flippings later and Nora presents the officer with the latest photo file on the Nikon’s digital viewfinder: a snapshot taken at the hight of Nora’s spastic reaction to the officer’s sudden entrance: an out of focus wide-shot of a human shape standing in the ajar Dungeon doorway. Around his head appears to be a pair of dark malformed ibex horns made of solid shadow.

Sweet! I can add that to my portfolio- 

The officer’s face sours, as he purloins the Nikon, again.

Rude.

 “Unfortunately, like many long-arms of the law, I don’t appreciate my picture being taken, or even existing, without my consent.”

“That was an accident, I promise. You kinda caught me with one foot out the Tilt-A-Whirl back there and I’m a notorious spaz by nature—”

“How do I delete?”

RUDE!!!

 “The button close to the bottom—no the other bottom. The one with the little white, trash icon.”

“I’m not seeing any-wait a second…okay, got it. Great. Now, would you like to tell me what THIS is all about?” He asks, turning the viewfinder to Nora’s face.

Officer Voorhies’ last closeup.

“Oh, right….”

Okay, here we go:-->Ready to run like hell in: 3---2---1--

—Then, from the other side of the hall comes a shout: an adorable, high-pitched obstreperous shout. The kind you’d expect from a bloodthirsty Care Bear warlord.

“NORA DONT YOU TELL HIM A GODDAMN THING!”

Nora’s entire face cringes.

Always a day late and a dollar short. Why couldn't Slug have been imaginary, too?