Let me tell ya buddy, life is full of endless surprises. One minute you're staring at an unfathomable horror from beyond space and time and the next you're finding yourself laying ass over tea kettle on the floor upchucking a chicken bone you don't even remember eating. I may not be the greatest detective in the world, or hell, even in Chicago, but you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to notice this bushwa doesn't add up. And as crazy as that sounds, that ain't the weirdest thing eating me. No sir, that honor goes to the ugly mug peeping back at me in the mirror. 

It ain't mine.

The name's Diamond, Ronnie Diamond. I'm a hot shot gumshoe out of the Chicago with a penchant for booze, broads and cases right out of the funny papers. "Diamond Detectives - Rock Solid", that's both my company slogan and a personal motto. Not that it ever got me much business, but hey my Aunt Gertrude liked it. Anyway, I digress...

The baboon looking fella in the floor length mirror is aping my position - reclined against a natty single bed and looking like he went ten rounds with a tornado. Nothing about him is familiar, not his greasy unwashed hair, his patchy stubble or his double chin and pot belly, yet when I raise my hand, so does he. If I make a face, he makes it back... uglier than I remember my own face being, but still creepy all the same. I start prodding my noggin, looking for bumps. Did I hit it when I was choking to death? There's an overturned bucket of fried chicken, half eaten, suspiciously taunting me from the floor.

"What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" I mutter.

I haven't had any bathtub moonshine in a week, so I'm damn sure I'm not drunk. What else then? Do I have amnesia? I start running down a list of my actions in the last 24 hours in my head. It all comes back to me without any trouble, which in itself is troubling. Hell,  I can clearly recall the last week, including when that blonde skirt with long gams came into my office and set me up. That's a day I wish I had stayed in bed.

Hell, this has got to be real, right? These memories are mine, there ain't no way I'm creative enough to imagine it all.

So what the fuck am I doing here and who the hell am I?

I reach back and grab the side of the bed to pull myself up, as expected the fat slob in the mirror does the same. On my feet I'm overcome with the urge to spew half digested chicken, only barely manage to force it down. Back in control of my faculties, the first thing I notice, aside from the general opulence of the room, is that I'm tall. Or at least, taller than I remember being. Either that, or this room is smaller than it should be. I'm in a bedroom... possibly "mine" and hooo-boy is it awful swell. The sheets of the bed I am touching are fine and soft, not that rough cotton stuff that I'm accustomed to. There's a bunch of pictures on the wall, most of them make absolutely no sense to me. A prominent one features a gaggle of elementary school kids with bubs so big they belong on a zeppelin. A thought occurs to me.

"Am I a pervert?"

Well, not me, but this guy. You know what I mean. I'm going to take the fifth on the rest of that your honor. The point being, that poster ain't something you'd find in a gentleman's bunk room, at least not one that ever expected to entertain a lady.  Did I die only to be reincarnated as a fat perverted virgin? 

The rest of the room is dominated by a floor to ceiling bookshelf that runs the length of the far wall. It's jam packed with knick-knacks and brit-a-brack that I can't even begin to describe. Sitting next to that is a desk, a chair and some sort of black box with wires coming out of it that I can't make head nor tails of. Just looking at it leads to more questions than I can expect answers to, so instead I approach the shelf and grab the spine of a colorful looking book. It's light and feels weird in my hand.

"Hmm... Monster World Hunter Apocalypse Online..."

I go to flip it open and then realize my mistake. This ain't no book. It's some sort of case. I give it a jiggle with my mitts and sure enough something is rattling inside. I just slap it down on the desk - it's another mystery that I'm passing up in favor of more important things. 

Just as I'm about to continue my investigation, I hear some muffled voices coming from the other room. I try to creep towards the door, but it's impossible. This body is too tubby and doesn't move how I want it to. With all the grace of a boxer on a toot, I swing open the bedroom door and try to get the drop on whoever - not that it'll probably do me much good, but who knows? Maybe fatso here can sit on someone.

I'm in a short hall, there's a door to the left of me and what appears to be a lounge room ahead. I try to creep forward, but my lead feet cause the floorboards to creak ominously. Cringing inwardly I can only curse my corpulence. The voices get louder as I move and then at the end of the hall I take a chance and peek my lid around the corner...

"What the..."

I know what I'm looking at, but I can't believe it. It's a television alright on account of there not being any sort of projector, but it ain't any kind of television I've ever seen. Not that I've seen them in flesh per see, but I know about 'em and they sure as hell ain't like that! The thing is as big as a barn and the picture... it's like I'm looking through a window. And in color! I stumble over to the couch and grab my reeling head, this latest discovery only confirms something that I've been suspicious about since I woke up in this guys room.

"I'm in the future..."

It's a crazy thought but it ain't any more crazy than half the stuff I've seen in my career, and no I don't want to talk about it. I especially don't want to talk about that. Hell, just thinking about my last moments... that glaring visage, the eyelashes made out of bone that went click-clack as it blinked... I can feel the darkness crawling up my brain again, picking away my sanity like a pack of gnats. It takes all my self control to just let out the breath I had been holding.

"... the second such disappearance this month. All of Sakura City is looking to the mayor and police force for answers."

Some broad in a red jacket is reading the news on the television. Any other day this might have been a moment of amazement for me, but right now it's just giving me the heebie jeebies.  I've been dry for well over a week and all I want to do right now is crawl into a bottle of Bourbon and wake up with a sore back in my run down office. Like any sensible man in this type of situation, I make finding something to drink a top priority.

"Sakura City..." I repeat the name with my dry lips. It's a place I never heard of before. I don't even know what a Sakura is. I'm not in Chicago any more, that's for sure. I wonder if I'm even still in Illinois, or America for that matter. 

I give my face a quick slap and look around. The television is still playing, there's no apparent way to turn it off. The room itself looks pretty normal - couches, a lounge, a coffee table. At least the basics haven't changed too much. This place is some kind of apartment as there's an obvious front door and a small kitchenette partitioned from the living area by a short wall. Cozy and frankly normal.

The familiarity of it all actually helps sooth my jittery nerves, but still, a shot of panther sweat would do me just fine right about now. Hell, even some bathtub moonshine would be welcome. I looked around for anything resembling a liquor cabinet, but came up deuces.  Even the kitchen is a bust - an empty refrigerator and a pantry stocked with what looks like noodles. Who the hell eats that many noodles? This guy clearly didn't do much cooking himself, as there ain't no flour or sugar or coffee and most importantly not even a drop of sherry to drink. With much reluctance I settled for a glass of water from the tap as I pondered my next move. I imagined my teetotaler Aunt Bertha looking at me, deeply moved, as I sipped on my first glass of water in seven years.

Being a detective I have two areas where I have some talent. First, observation and secondly, organization of those observations. The course of action here is pretty clear - I need to look for letters, bills or a journal, something to give me some insight into who "I" am. From that there would be a bunch of  complications of course, namely family or friends, possibly a job and any other kind of personal circumstances that a fella might find himself into from time to time.

The next problem would be, how would I explain my ignorance of everyone and everything around me? Don't get me wrong, I'm a smooth talker, a real hit with the skirts, but given what I've seen so far I might as well be living on the moon! I felt like a caveman looking at fire for the first time. My gift of gab would only get me so far, I needed a cover story and pronto. With a course charted, I went to work and 30 minutes later I was sitting again on the couch, with a refilled glass of water (this stuff grows on ya) and a bunch of clues arranged in little haphazard stacks on the coffee table before me.

I picked up the billfold and inspected it. I had found it tucked under some sort of flat square, made out of glass and what appeared to be some sort of fancy plastic. I had no idea what it was, but given it was next to the wallet I could only guess it was important and I shoved it in my pocket. Anyway, I opened up the wallet and spread out the contents on the table. The biggest prize was a card with a picture on it. I'd recognize that mug anywhere, it was "me", or at least the current me, assuming the mirrors in this place ain't all liars. There were some markings on it, characters maybe in a foreign language. I felt a real rush of fear at the idea of not being able to talk to anyone around me until my ears caught the noise coming from the television. That's right, they were speaking English, so maybe I'd be fine.

I held the card up to my face, squinting at the small characters when all of a sudden my vision went blurry. No, that's not right, my vision was fine, it was the characters that went blurry. They swirled around and shifted before my eyes until suddenly they became words!

"Ryouji Hishigata... birth date... October 13th... 2029!!"

Hey, hey, this is a little much isn't it? At least I got a name now to put on this ugly mug I'm wearing, but 2029? How old is this guy? What year is it currently? Is this really over a hundred years in the future? Sure, it was great that I had a name but a ton of questions just flopped in my lap. I started going through the rest of the clues I had collected, but nothing in there had as much impact as the name Ryouji Hishigata. My name. I guess. Just as I was putting everything back in order, a loud banging erupted from the front door followed by a girls voice, brash and loud - 

"RYOUJI!!! WAKE UP YOU IDIOT!!"

A tingle of terror zipped down my spine. I had no idea why and before I realized it I had already shuffled towards the door and opened it. Standing before me was a young girl with impossibly huge hair done up in a style I'd never seen before. She didn't look any older than her late teens at least by judging her face, but her body... wow that was something else. She had a front that went "Pow!" and a back that went "Bam!" and she was wearing some sort of blazer and skirt combination that showed off an abundance of the former while barely concealing the latter. What could I say, she had my attention.

She took one look at me and her face screwed up in disgust. Wait, was she on to me already? Did she know I was an impostor?

"You stink!" she exclaimed while bringing her hand up to her nose. "Get in the shower or we'll be late for school!"

I stared at her, my yap totally open, barely comprehending her words. She sighed and grabbed me by the shoulders, a feat that required her to reach up and stand on her tip toes, and then proceeded to frog march me back into the apartment. My brain scrambled to come up with something to say, but all I could focus on was the twin blimps mashing into the small of my back. Christ almighty, girls from the future were something else!

With a strength that didn't jive with her short stature, the redheaded girl shoved me into the bathroom and slammed the door. I stood there for a moment, plotting what I was going to say. I wanted more time, to figure out my next move, or at least a believable lie. There was a brisk knock, then without a reply from me, the door cracked open and a bundle of clothes flew in hitting me in the head. The door quickly slammed shut leaving me alone again.

I eyed up the fat slob in the mirror and wrinkled my nose. Yeah, I stunk and I looked dirty. Shorty wasn't wrong on that count. I stripped off my shirt, revealing my less than impressive physique and grabbed the spare tire around my gut with both hands. Why couldn't I have been reborn as someone a little more fit? Oh, well, I guess it doesn't matter - a strict diet of whisky and Lucky Strikes would take care of that.

I said my silent apologies to the palooka in the mirror. Sorry Mr. Hishigata, but I'm going to be needing this jalopy of a body of yours for now. I can't promise to take good care of it, but between you and me I don't think I could do any worse. 

And with that out of the way, I spent the next two minutes trying to figure out how to use a 21st century shower.

jjm152

I slightly revised this chapter from the original version. I'm still rusty and lacking, hopefully it gets better. Please remember to follow this story if you like it!

There was a second revision a couple of weeks later. I'm slightly more satisified now than I was before.