Solving a Mystery

Once upon a time, I was playing a game of Sardines at a slumber party with some friends. After playing for a while, I began to get tired. Not long after, it became my turn to hide.

I found a hiding place out in the obvioius; no cramming into a closet on my turn. There was a duffel bag set in a corner of the living room, perpendicular to the fireplace. I hid at the edge of the in between and when people found the duffel bag, they assumed it was against a wall. It wasn't until at least the second (possibly even the third) time the group toured the living room that someone tapped the duffel bag and asked, "seashmore, is that you?" Not being a liar, I whispered it was and she crawled behind the bag with me.

My hiding place was good. Too good. Someone even resorted to looking in the refrigerator for me! ("What? She's small," was his reasoning upon being questioned.) I wanted a way out of the game so I could get some shut eye, but didn't want to be a party pooper and ask everyone else to stop playing. After about half of the group found the spot, I decided I could just feign sleep and let everyone else continue playing. Problem. Solved. I knew it wouldn't be long until I actually fell asleep, anyhow.

Now here's where it gets fuzzy and mysterious.

My plan worked. They acknowledged me as being asleep and continued the game. I don't know how many more rounds they played nor how long it took me to fall asleep. I don't know if I fell asleep and then woke back up and fell back asleep or if I stayed asleep the rest of the game. So the state of my consciousness was questionable when I felt someone's hand rest upon my face.

Could it have been a dream? Possibly. But I remember the sensation much clearer than any of my dreams. Which is saying a lot, because I've had some pretty intense memories of dreams. No, if this had been a dream, I wouldn't remember it so well. This was definitely someone's hand on my face.

But whose?

That's the mystery I've been unable to solve. And I can't think of a way to ask people who were there without sounding ridiculous. "Hey, does anyone remember touching my face that night we played Sardines?" But it's also one of those little things that gets fixated upon. Mostly because there's no available resolution.

A good way to begin solving a Whodunnit? is to look for motive. I couldn't really determine any particular motive. Why would anyone go out of their way to touch someone else's face while they were sleeping? The only answer I've been able to come up with is affection of a romantic nature. Of the three not immediately eliminated by that motive, only one had ever been affectionate with me at all, but he had always insisted there were no feelings in that direction. Which left me to conclude everyone had the same motive: none at all.
So there went taking that road to a solution.

I went back to what I remembered about the event. Focused on the positioning of bodies, the shadowy outline of the person crouching down in the dark. I tapped my rememory for the feel of the hand upon my face, any noises I could hear at all. Anything that could help me at least eliminate people from the pool of possibilities.

Based on the size of the hand, I was able to narrow it down to five. Two of those were eliminated based on the agility of the croucher. Another was eliminated based on the remembered size of the figure. Of the other two, I simply couldn't come up with any reason as to why it might be more or less likely for either one of them to have done it. If I were to eliminate one person because it was out of character or absurd, I'd have to eliminate them both for that reason. I suppose, if I thought about it, I'd have to admit I knew of one of those two doing something similar in the past. Which makes that person slightly more likely, but not enough to convince me.

I'm not sure why, but this mystery was the first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning. Before I even got out of bed, I captured the image in my mind yet once more. According to what I remember without looking at my documentation of that night, I had been laying on my left side, leaving the right side of my face exposed. Based on the direction of the fingers, it had been the person's left hand that had gently rested itself upon my face. The lesser of the likely "suspects" would likely have been wearing a ring on their left hand, and I don't remember feeling that. Not that I necessarily would have, mind you, but it settles the case in my mind.

It was the one I would kick in the face.

Mystery. Solved.