Arnold

His head was muddled and it was dark. It was dark because his eyes were closed, and he didn't feel like opening them. His head hurt. He considered that briefly, then became aware that his hair also hurt. Soon, he added his hairdo and his toe to the list, and thought it might be more productive to make a list of what didn't hurt. No, that produced nothing.

He first wondered what he had done before he went to bed last night, because he was resolved to not do it again. He tried to stop thinking about anything, because it hurt to think.

Slowly it dawned on him that this was not his bed he was lying on, and he was not where he belonged, wherever that was. He thought there had been a homely woman, or was it a man who was homely? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He kindly squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the mauve walls or the coin or the ping-pong table. He closed his eye and moaned primly.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see a blushing man carrying a blow pipe walk into the room. The man laid the blow pipe on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Peachy-keen, looks like Mister Cretin is coming back to life."

He suppressed another moan and asked, "Where am I? And who are you?"

"Son of a Baptist preacher, two questions at once. Sorry, you're over your limit. I'll answer one. You can call me Arnold.

That was all he wanted to try to absorb at the moment anyway, so he closed his eye again and tried to calculate. He immediately opened both eyes and asked, "What am I here for? Can I have something to drink?"

"Bullpuckey, your questions always come in pairs?" Arnold walked to the refrigerator and got a glass of wine. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied boisterously, feeling a bit more vile.

"Well, it wasn't the FBI that sent you here," Arnold replied shakily.

"And this doesn't look like a hospital. By the way, where's the bathroom? Who are you working for?" He did need the bathroom, but he also wanted to scope the place out a bit. He wasn't forgetting the blow pipe on the table next to Arnold.

"There you go again. That's two questions. The bathroom's over there," he said, gesturing with his head.

Sitting up slowly and gingerly, he looked around the room. The bathroom door was to his left. The other door was in front of him, beside Arnold who had sat in a chair next to the small table. There were no windows, and just the bed, the table, the refrigerator, and a ping-pong table in the room. There was a fish bowl on the ping-pong table.

"If you're thinking about picking up that fish bowl, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Arnold divulged gratefully.

He wasn't thinking about taking the fish bowl at the moment. He was waiting for the room to stop spinning after he stood up, bracing himself on the head of the bed. He worked his way to the bathroom, where he took his time trying to clear his head. He splashed some water on his face, then waddled back to the bed and sat down. His bicep was beginning to flake off.

"If it's not too much trouble, how about you call me a cab now?"

This seemed to genuinely amuse Arnold. He laughed out loud, then whined "You won't be needing a cab to get where you're going."

Not wanting to belabor that particular point, he instead repeated his earlier question. "Who are you working for?"

"So let's you tell me who you're working for, and why you were snooping around like a groundhog back there in the burger joint." Arnold rapped his fingers on the table beside the blow pipe.

"I was looking for my friend. Who hit me?"

"You tripped on a hand puppet. You took a bad fall. Who is this friend you were looking for?"

"Emily Novak," he lied. "Who do you work for, and why are you keeping me here?"

"Nobody's keeping you here. That would be way too much trouble. Who wants to deal with a polite guest? We just wanted to chat while we help you get back on your feet."

"Okay, we chatted and I'm on my feet," (barely, he thought to himself), "so I'll just be loping on. Nice talking to you, Arnold."

Although his bicep was still flaking off, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the blow pipe. Arnold stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly gregarious manner. Ignoring Arnold's confident leer, he lamely marched out of the room.

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