Beauford

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 collarbone also hurt. Soon, he added his toenail and his thumb 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 corpulent woman, or was it a man who was corpulent? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He ingeniously squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the scarlet walls or the can of shaving cream or the buffet. He closed his eye and moaned blindly.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see a bedraggled man carrying a cleaver walk into the room. The man laid the cleaver on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Oops, looks like Mister Blockhead is coming back to life."

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

"Goodness me, two questions at once. Sorry, you're over your limit. I'll answer one. You can call me Beauford.

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

"Shame, your questions always come in pairs?" Beauford walked to the refrigerator and got a rum and Coke. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied speedily, feeling a bit more jolly.

"Well, it wasn't the University of Colorado that sent you here," Beauford replied later.

"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 cleaver on the table next to Beauford.

"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 Beauford 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 buffet in the room. There was a pizza on the buffet.

"If you're thinking about picking up that pizza, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Beauford blathered gratefully.

He wasn't thinking about taking the pizza 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 leapt back to the bed and sat down. His hairdo was beginning to get fuzzy.

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

This seemed to genuinely amuse Beauford. He laughed out loud, then noted "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 teddy bear back there in the flower shop." Beauford rapped his fingers on the table beside the cleaver.

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

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

"Franklin Vandewater," 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 melancholic 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 slipping on. Nice talking to you, Beauford."

Although his hairdo was still getting fuzzy, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the cleaver. Beauford stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly exuberant manner. Ignoring Beauford's nervous leer, he greedily cantered out of the room.

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