[Phil Johnson is a member of the Goshen High Class of 2005 and graduated on June 24th. This parody was written for his AP English Literature class.]

"She's certainly got looks," Elijah thought to himself while peering at her under the brim of his detective's cap. "Not exactly the type for this neighborhood though. Wish she'd spill it already."

"It's my brother," the broad jittered, finally getting to the point. "He used to be a good kid, but lately he's just been hanging out with all the wrong people. He came to town with one of those AP classes you know and its been downhill ever since. I hardly ever see him. He left me a letter once but by then he was so far gone we couldn't read it--full of words like salmagundi and macabre. And the other day," her voice lowered almost to a whisper, "I found a copy of The Awakening in his old room. I just want you to help him. The ad in the paper said 'Existential Detective.' I thought maybe you could help."

If it were possible, Elijah would have slumped even a little lower in his chair at that point. He'd heard it all before: good kids falling into all the wrong classes--AP classes--the kind of classes where you earned college credits but they always had to be sent to the next of kin.

"So what do you think detective?" blondie shot out.

"I think that we're all alone sliding down a meaningless slope called life that begins with birth and ends with death"

"I meant about my brother."

"I think he's sliding too."

The red haired Venus didn't inch. There was something strange about her. Something was going on under all those red locks within that cute head that didn't quite add up. Elijah didn't want to say anything, but he knew that her brother was probably already gone. This was going to be a tough case to crack. Elijah knew of only person who could help: Stehle.



"Good to see you again detective," said Stehle without glancing up from the records he was deftly thumbing through.

"Same to you old man," Elijah muttered. "Look, I need help with a case--have someone I need to find-- he used to be a good kid, now I think he's caught up in one of those AP classes--Literature--English Literature."

The stack of records Stehle was flipping through slammed on the desk resulting in a sobering echo. "English Literature? Look, I didn't make it through years here by asking lots of questions about that English Literature gang. People who do that find themselves walking around with a big A on their chest, or worse yet, waking up as a giant cockroach. What, have you lost your mind? Become a madman?"

"First of all" Elijah replied, "I don't think you or anyone knows enough about what's happening in my mind to comment, and no I'm not mad; I'm an existentialist. I have a funny feeling about this whole situation. C'mon I've always been there for you. Give me something here."

Stehle stared directly into the sparkling sapphire eyes of Elijah for a few minutes before speaking. "Alright, I'll help you, but it's going to be the last thing I do in this town, for sure. I'm retiring, pal. Too many years watching good kids go bad. I'm shipping out, you hear...There is a man that I've heard about. I don't even know if he exists but he might be able to help...."

And with that, Stehle got up and closed the filing cabinet. He shoved his personal items in a box and slammed the door behind him on his way out of the office. Still sitting in the now vacant office, Elijah noticed that Stehle had left one drawer open. Inside of it was a tiny piece of recycled paper upon which was scrawled: Mackay--Room A116.

Elijah shoved it in his pocket and headed off towards the room it designated. He seemed like he felt troubled, but how could anyone but him know how he felt anyway?

When Elijah reached Mackay's room long after class was over, but the poor man was still there passing the hours between the end of school and the start of some drama production. Elijah thought at first that Mackay was dedicated. He didn't realize that the poor man was imprisoned.

It was hard for Elijah to get Mackay talking, but when it did Mackay made his whole story clear.

"It’s scary, man," Mackay explained. "At first I thought I was teaching them, man. Then I started to notice a change. They started having ideas that I had never thought of, started to explain movies that I didn't get. I liked it at first, but then it got out of hand. Now they run this class. They come and go when they please stopping every now and then to make me listen to their poetry and hand out grades. I don't know how you can stop it.... but I know where to find them."

"Thanks," Elijah said.

Mackay scribbled a set of directions on a piece of paper slid it across the desk towards him. "Oh and one more thing," Mackay said as Elijah stood up. "Here, take this. If there is one thing they can't stand, it's explications. It's the reason they turned on me." Mackay handed Elijah a copy of Collected Poems by T. S. Elliot. "Good luck out there. You're going to need it."

Elijah followed the directions on the piece of paper to a secluded corner of the hallway where he found his mysterious AP students. He also found something he didn't expect: the woman who had sat in his office was there with her baby brother.

"Bravo Detective, Bravo," the woman's brother mused with a sardonic clap. "You found us. You've done exactly as we wanted."

"You think I can ever truly understand what you wanted," our existential hero replied.

Now, the young man's sister spoke: "That's a question for the philosophers, detective. In the meantime we're going to have to have fun with you. We knew you were the only one who knew the right people to stop us. Now we're going to make sure you never think about literature seriously again."

For the first time, Elijah noticed that the woman whose younger brother he had been told to find was actually not attractive at all. She was bald, and she was constantly switching between wigs or various colors and hairstyles right before Elijah's slow eyes. Noticing this, Elijah saw an opportunity and acted quickly. The woman had taken out a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre's The Wall and planned to cite examples from the text that would prove a point so obscure that it would ruin the meaning of the story to Elijah forever. However, before the bald, doubling-crossing hair swapper could do this, she needed to change wigs. Elijah saw his opportunity. He pulled out the poetry Mackay had entrusted him with.

"Explicate this, punk." he said to the little brother as he shoved the hopelessly incomprehensible stanzas into view of the woman and her brother. The poetry left the pair writhing on the floor in agony.

Elijah picked up the copy of The Wall and wiped the sister's dirty prints off it. He then strolled back to the bed in his office perfectly content with a hard day's work and ready for a night of pondering his own very existential beliefs in the company of his favorite short story.