The Literal, The Intuitive

Detectives were dispatched to the home of a missing person.
The junior detective was young and eager.
Briefly perusing the missing man's home, he noticed no signs of an altercation. "My husband's suitcase and clothes are gone!" his wife cried. Leaning deep into the junior detective's chest, the young woman sobbed.
"My husband's been so unhappy after losing his job, and with his responsibilities as a provider!"
The junior detective consoled her, breaking away only long enough to jot in his notebook that the man had deserted his wife.
The senior detective was an older and slower man.
He looked closely at the woman's face, and asked, "Where do you think your husband is now?"
For an instant, as he watched her eyes dart toward the backyard, the detective felt a deep chill. Then the woman looked down at her feet, sobbed, and cried, "He's just vanished...oh, we loved each other so much!"
The senior detective walked into the kitchen for a glass of water, and, as he drank it, stared out the back window into the dark backyard.
"'Loved,' not 'love,'" he murmured.
In the bedroom, he confirmed the man's clothes and suitcase were missing.But in the bathroom, two toothbrushes still lay on the sink.
When next he returned, with a search warrant, the senior detective found the missing husband and his suitcase of clothes, spread beneath a bed of newly planted roses in the backyard.
Thus, emotions must be clues -- and you a detective.

August 16, 2014, excerpt from The Parables of Reason © 2007-2014 (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), by Frank H. Burton, Executive Director, The Circle of Reason

Aphorism of the Week

To win a rational argument by evoking emotional irrationality is a sadly pyrhhic victory.

Dedicated to "T'Pring," Star Trek actress Arlene Martel.