the other cranium or rather the ear that was straining itself was that of augustin neptuno . his bald plate glistened with sweat, was working overtime. his eyes were closed. a letter was placed near his right ear and a soft cooing sound was emerging from him at regular intervals.
he was using his gift,the gift of far hearing. there are people in the world who are far sighted some possess something called sixth sense there are a few odd ones who can start a fire but there was only one neptuno who could hear what others could not. it was all because of his ears. they resembled that of an over sized cauliflower. being endowed with such kind of satellites as ears neptuno had the unique gift of far hearing making him capable of tuning into frequencies of materials i.e. a piece of paper placed near his ear would tell him how it was made from pulp, the factory that it was made in, what was done to it, to whom it was sold, who had written on it et al thanks to his deconstructive and re constructive ear.
with every gift comes responsibility and a higher probability of being labelled as a freak.
in neptuno's case the former was given a lower weight resulting in the the latter being given a higher weight. his childhood had been miserable and being the weakest of the lot also did not help. it all cumulated in knowing the secrets of his tormentors and using it against them which resulted in being called freaky cabbage ears.
his snooping activities led him towards a career of a private detective. it had been a successful career till now, investigating secret liaisons and adulteries of the rich and famous and he already had a long list of satisfied clients.
it was when he was at the crest of his career that the scarlet killer became famous and the ears of neptuno pricked in attention upon hearing the methodology of the killer resulting in the soft cooing noise that was emerging from.
neptuno's present location was at his office situated in the middle of press and a carpenter.the carpenter used to go knock knock knock throughout the day while the press went clickety clack clack clack throughout the night. in the midst of such noise neptuno could fine tune his skills sothat no other object's frequency reached his ears except the one placed near his ear. sometimes the headlines of the next day reached him or the history of the wood being used in the new cupboard reached him but that could be kept out as he was doing now. his right ear had a scarlet letter(procured from illegal sources) near it and in the mind of neptuno flashed the images ofit being kept in a police file, the policeman handling it, the ill fated reader, the inside of a mailbox but this was where the trail came to end. it was all blank before that. his left ear had also given him the same information.this had never happened before. neptuno was puzzled leading to the cooing sound to relax him and remind him of happy times. all the time he was thinking
why could not neptuno's skill of far hearing help him?
who was this scarlet assasin? coo coo coo...