The Strange Case Of John Gates

I have been working in the New York police department for now almost a decade, I have never ever seen or heard about a case as bizarre as the case of John Gates, or the case of the vacuum-man as I prefer to call it. This case was no doubt the weirdest and most stirring case I ever got.

John Gates, looks like a normal fellow and talks like one too, no sign of madness, just a normal person, in his twenties, struggling to make ends meet. On about eighth of October, he had finally saved up enough to rent himself a well to do apartment in the city of New York. A small apartment, but enough for him. He had bought a robotic vacuum cleaner for himself with his initial income, he believed it would help him ease the pain of cleaning his house. But little did he know that the vacuum cleaner would change his life forever. He adored the little automatic-vacuum, time passed by and the vacuum had made a place in the heart of John. John would treat it as pet rather than a machine made for the purpose of cleaning his house. He would even take the little robot-vacuum on walks, people would often laugh and chuckle at him as he strolled his vacuum on the streets, thinking of it as a joke, but for John the vacuum was like his pet dog, his pet dog Timmy who he had tragically lost when he was merely 12 years old. John didn’t enjoy the comments and the laughs of the people as he walked his pet vacuum, he founded it disturbing, that the passersby called him mentally ill, due to this he had started to go at late night walks with his vacuum, when the streets where empty and there was no one to judge him.

It was an ordinary day as usual; he stepped out of the subway and whistled his way home. The streets were empty and dark, the street lights flickered and small flies flew around them. He climbed the stairs to his apartment, as he grabbed the door handle to open the apartment door, he was surprised to find that the door was already opened, with a soft stretched squeak the door opened revealing a horrific sight.

As the door flung open, he saw his little vacuum smashed as if someone had intentionally stepped on it, he couldn’t believe his eyes. A tear rolled down his eyes as he saw his pet vacuum lifeless, he picked it up and tried to turn it on, but it was useless, he had lost it forever.

Suddenly he heard something fell down, his sorrow turned into anger, whoever had done this was still here in his apartment. He threw his bag aside and rushed inside. As he walked inside into the hall, a figure rushed towards him, pushed him aside and ran towards the door, losing his balance, John toppled over and fell down. He hit his head on the edge of the small table placed in the hall, luckily, he was still conscious, only a little bleeding.

He had no time to waste, the criminal was running away, he picked a knife from the kitchen and rushed downwards, taking two three stairs at a time. He saw the figure running on the street, a little far from him, John ran as fast as he could, the small knife tightly clutched in his hand. The thief appeared to have brought no weapon with himself for self-defense. The thief frequently turned his neck around to look at John approaching him with a knife.

Scared to death and in a haste, the robber got hit by a police car, the car stopped immediately as the thief toppled over the police car’s hood. John had wide smile on his face, his eyes wide opened, he was finally doing justice with the criminal. As we stepped out of the car, John jumped on the hood of the car and stabbed the thief multiple times, before we could have saved the person, he was dead, our car’s hood was bathed in blood.

John gave a satisfied smile, his face smeared with drops of deep red liquid and his eyes bulging out. He didn’t resist much and we took him into custody immediately.

And that ladies and gentlemen was the strange case of John gates aka vacuum man. As of now John has been sent into a mental asylum and he seems to have find a new pet for himself, a stone.