Bits and Pieces
Ch. 1: Aftermath
Summery[Fargo; post-film Grimsrud's past just won't leave him alone. The skeletons in his closet make damn sure of it.
A/n: I'm pleased to present my first Fargo story! The idea for this was just one of those 'Waaaaaaait a minute!' moments I get while going on the imdb message boards. Go figure. I edited this heavily. I've got family reading this, all right?! They don't like language.
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves,
And Immortality… Emily Dickinson
Grear Grimsrud stared hard at the blank, whitewashed walls of his cell. He'd only been here a month, and he was already forced to rely on sheer force of will to keep from killing himself. It's the silence you're not used to, that's all it is, he told himself as he walked to the sink. With Carl dead, the silence was suffocating. Carl Showalter was a fast-talking, weaselish little man. And, God Almighty, did he talk. Grimsrud couldn't even count the times he wanted to jab a lit Marlboro into Showalter's eye. He was sure that that would shut him up. But, what the hell? An axe and a wood chipper worked perfectly well too.
"Good riddance," Grimsrud muttered, leaning into the sink to splash water on his face.
"To what?" asked a voice. The Swedish man looked up and saw the blood-drenched figure of Carl Showalter standing behind him.
"What the hell?" he cried, whipping around. There was nothing there. Grimsrud chuckled weakly. He was going mad, that was it. It was the only reasonable explanation he could think of. Completely flipping nuts! It was almost laughable.
"You said, 'Good riddance', I'm only wonderin', you know, what you should be so damn happy about," said Showalter, sitting down on the floor. "I mean," he paused and laughed his weaselly little laugh, "look at you."
Grear stared in absolute mystification as Carl pulled a needle and thread out his pocket and began to stitch his left forearm to his elbow. Showalter acted as though it was the most normal thing in the world. The better he looked at his former partner-in-crime, the more Grimsrud knew that Carl was definitely no longer part of the land of the living. He looked more like a walking mosaic than a man. His face had been reassembled with crude stitching in black thread. A good chunk of the right side of his jaw was missing from where he'd been shot in the face. Carl laughed at the dumbfounded look on Grimsrud's face.
"What's with you? At least I'm somebody you can talk to," he said, pulling the thread up with his teeth. His arm now completely attached, he began working on his right leg.
"You're not real. You don't exist, not anymore—I killed you!" Grimsrud said. Showalter's blue eyes gleamed. His weaselly laugh turned rather foreboding.
"Yes, I know," he said calmly. "That's why I'm here."