Nam Terces was proud of his Ethiopian heritage. He and his Swedish
wife, Efil had made a good home for themselves in Northern
Illinois. Since emigrating from Addis Ababa, where his dad was
mayor, Nam had taken work beneath his education as a custodian in
the Hononegah School District just outside of Rockford. His
co-workers had given him the nickname, "Nega" because of the way
Nam pronounced "Hononegah."
Nevertheless, Nam was well liked by the school staff and he
found that the monotony of the work gave him opportunities to
daydream while he worked.
Nam liked to fantasize that he was a famous surgeon, or a
musical artist, or an important expert witness at a murder trial.
And all throughout his imaginings, Nam incorporated the ambient
sounds into his ruminations. The drone of the the ventilation
system became noise from an impossibly complex medical imaging
device that Dr. Terces needed to consult during an especially
taxing surgical procedure on the Secretary-General of the United
Nations. The hum and din of the floor polisher became the "Qualtex
Ray Gun" aboard the super-secret C-3 bomber to which Sharpshooter
Class-X, Maj. Terces had been assigned.
But Nam's favorite inventions happened late at night after
everyone else had left. In the empty building, the only sounds that
Nam heard were the tickings of the clocks. Those timepieces
inspired Nam's espionage fabrications. In those fictions, he was
Agent Agen (that's his nickname spelled backwards), member of an
elite squad know as "The Custodians."
Such was Nam's life for a good twelve years. He and Efil had a
pleasant life together. One day, all that changed.
Nam returned home one day and found police at his home. The
officer in charge solemnly told Nam that his home had been
burglarized. Nam tried to call Efil but she didn't answer her cell
phone. Inside the house, Nam listened to his answering machine and
heard his wife tell him goodbye. That was the last he ever heard
from her.
Months later, after he had resigned himself to the fact that she
was not coming back, he began going through the personal items she
had left behind. He found a note to her, hastily scribbled on the
letterhead of their lawyer, Y. T. "Tim" Retlaw. It was reasoned
that the note was done in a rush because Retlaw's normally
fastidious secretary, Ethyl H. Tertiary, had made the mistake of
forgetting the "r" in "for." Before the note was turned over to the
Rockton Police Department as evidence, Nam began a careful analysis
of it.
Finally, he really did need to use his espionage skills!
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