your pastimes consisted of the strange and twisted and deranged
There are times, awful times, in which the entire world condenses itself into nothing more than a stretch of days, a timespan which Sherlock wishes could be blissfully indeterminate but never is, not without the needle. So a stretch of days passing in achingly, infuriatingly precise intervals, then, ticking by in moments marked by stimuli sundry and useless, deductions not nonsensical, not generally, but simply inane, information only worth deleting. Never anything that means something, never anything which stands out from size eight shoes and the scuff marks on the floor of the flat from where its previous occupants moved the furniture around (sofa, something big and boxy and ugly, rug was there, two chairs too close to the scorch marks near the fireplace - sudden impression of the scent of smoke, sense-memory, not nostalgic, simply there, and that's the problem).
It all becomes a blur eventually, white noise, intolerable, too much, like quantum ooze, everything and nothing all at once. Sherlock hates it.
That's what it's like, days with no case, nothing to hone his consciousness down into a singularity, something which finally has mass again, something which is, in fact, supermassive, sucking up all those stray thoughts and observations and meaningless inputs and hiding them behind the event horizon of the case, the puzzle, the only thing in all the world that matters because it's the only thing that keeps the static - spectrogram fuzz like a smear of sonic ink, wild spectral points and dips like hypodermic tips - at bay.
Coming out of the end of a fit of boredom is like adjusting the focus of a camera lens. Everything was there before, all the information was there, it simply wasn't processed properly, the scope wasn't shifted, the depth improper, everything washed and imprecise, the wrong colour, too much. And then suddenly it isn't. Suddenly the detail is relevant, makes sense, suddenly there's vibrancy and everything comes back. The flat comes back. John comes back. London comes back.
The precipitating events are always remembered. Sherlock keeps them for metaphorical rainy days (not literal ones, no, actual rain is halfway glorious when he can see it and hear it and feel it so he doesn't quite understand that turn of phrase but is more than capable of using it all the same). He holds on to them as though they might help, as though the mere remembrance of such a moment might inspire one. It almost never works, but for all that Sherlock tries to make of himself a rational creature, he's not always entirely a practical one.
This one, though, this one's going to be worth remembering regardless, even if it comes to naught, even if the puzzle ends up being mundane and pointless in the end. It'll be worth it because right now, at least, it's novel. Sherlock is used to being consulted, it's how he gets his work, but he can't recall an instance in which he was outright consulted by the murderer he's supposed to catch.
He doesn't think he's ever encountered anyone who has the flair to do it by sending him a severed hand by post, either, yet here he is, perched at the edge of his sofa like a strange animal, crouched on bare feet precariously on the edge and peering down into a package on the coffee table (neatly covering up the discoloured splash mark he managed to make on it a few days before in an unfortunate mishap involving the undue application of heat to a beaker of aqua regia) at what was once a hand. Sherlock supposes it still is, but it's a well-disguised hand, neatly flayed (taxidermist's knife most likely, very sharp blade, well-maintained, good hands, steady hands, surgeon's hands, like John's but crueler) and then not so neatly savaged. By the look of it most of the bones are broken. Judging by the smell it's been several days since it was severed, despite the very recent postmark. Not a likely lead, that; or at least he'd like to think whoever sent this is clever enough not to have used a post office near to his place of residence.
Then again, who ever knew? It hardly matters at the moment. The first thing to do is to wait for John to get home, to demonstrate that there are far worse things to have on their coffee table than a bit of highly concentrated, overheated acid, and then... then they can start.
Just to be safe, though, just to avoid such unsavoury and irritating eventualities as a date or a pub night or some other minor distraction, he sends a text.
Criminals becoming more considerate. Received hand in morning post. Up for a date?
SH