Why gods don't do the shopping

Officer Crooker gently handed the trembling store manager a styrofoam cup of the horrible tea from the police stations vending machine. "Here you are Mr Laufeyson."

The store manager took it with a look of pathetic gratitude. “Call me Luke, please.”

Scarred and burly, DC Crooker often got looks of pathetic gratitude – from suspects, who had realised he wasn’t actually going to eat them. This was different: He was already using his gentlest gears, so Laufeyson’s continuing air of fear was unsettling him.

"No problem Luke. No problem. Now you’re certain the gentleman who caused all this just had a hammer. Not a pneumatic road hammer or …..?"

"Yes. I… a big, big hammer.” Luke shut his eyes, ran his hands through his short dark hair, and then spread his arms until they were about three feet apart. “…About this big.”

Crooker recalled Lukes store, as he had seen it when he’d responded to the call: A largish supermarket, reduced to pieces no bigger than his hand. Every witness agreed, it had only taken seconds. He recalled the preliminary forensic findings: No trace of explosives, or extreme heat in the wreckage. Nothing to suggest an explosion… as such. But still… he wondered….one man with a hammer?

Luke interrupted his confused musings: "When he came in… great big blonde lad, with the hammer and all…I thought he was something to do with the road works ….” He was looking up expectantly, so Crooker made a show of writing this into his notebook.

The manager continued: “He walked in shouting about coco pops: ‘I seek Coco-pops, good merchants!"

"And….?”

"Well... Maggie went to talk with him-  she’s good with the rowdies- and she showed him the coco-pops.”

"And then he became agitated again."

"Yes"

"About….?"

"Well we've got a sale on for the five hundred gram boxes, so they're only two pounds. But the three hundred gram boxes, well they're two pounds nineteen. He thought it was some kind of trick. And we didn’t have any ‘honey mead’ or any… any whole roast hogs….. and.. and…” Luke’s hands were shaking again, spilling hot tea onto the scratched metal table.

“It’s alright Mr Leufeysen, take your time.”

"He-he-he-he- went to the automated check out. Oh I swear I didn't know it’d do that, I swear… he argued with it officer. But that’s not the worst bit…..” There were tears in Luke’s eyes, “ it  argued back. It called him an oversized tool with an oversized tool. And then he went really, really, purple… and … and then…. he held up the hammer and said… said… ‘Look-eye this is your doing, isn’t it? I will not stand for it, I AM FOR!’ And everything... sort of.... exploded........"

“He was for what? And do you have any idea who or what a look-eye is?”

Luke shrugged, tears in his eyes. “Dunno officer. Dunno how any of us are still alive, seeing what became of the store.”

Crooker had to admit that was the weirdest – if most merciful – part. Not one employee had any injury worse than bruises…

After another hour of fruitlessly trying to get a sensible story from Luke, DC Crooker left the interview room with the odd feeling that, somehow, he’d only just escaped with his life.

*

Oddly enough, just as the big detective left, the CCTV camera on the wall gave out a little electronic squeal and died.

Watching it's circuits melt from his seat Loki, trickster god, let the disguise of ‘Luke’ disperse and congratulated himself on a good performance, and a well pulled off double prank: Once Odin heard of Thors little tantrum he’d make the doofus go back to anger management classes, and CSI Harlow were never, ever going to figure this one out.

He hadn’t needed to kill the camera, but the spell disguising him gave him a headache if he wore it for too long. He snapped his fingers and the store managers uniform became a rather smooth green and gold shirt. He grinned again: Now, he silently gloated,  for the store’s CCTV footage – let’s make sure that ends up on youtube, and Odin will HAVE to banish his beloved Thor to anger management for at least ten thousand years.

He couldn't help himself - he rubbed his hands and cackled:"Mwahaha!"

As the trickster stepped through the door of the interview room a very large, very dust covered, hand snapped out of the shadows and pinned him against a wall.

The arm turned out to be attached to a very large blonde man, who carried a three foot hammer in his free hand. The giant grated, through clenched teeth: “You actually want to eat breakfast some time this week brother? Or do you just want to muck about?”

End