Bart

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 antenna also hurt. Soon, he added his eyelid and his knee 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 difficult woman, or was it a man who was difficult? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He crazily squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the turquoise walls or the flowerpot or the hope chest. He closed his eye and moaned ignobly.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see a curvy man carrying a photon torpedo walk into the room. The man laid the photon torpedo on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Now what?, looks like Mister Weenie is coming back to life."

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

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

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

"Gosh darn, your questions always come in pairs?" Bart walked to the refrigerator and got a cup of espresso. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied mysteriously, feeling a bit more stylish.

"Well, it wasn't the American Medical Association that sent you here," Bart replied quickly.

"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 photon torpedo on the table next to Bart.

"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 Bart 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 hope chest in the room. There was a feather duster on the hope chest.

"If you're thinking about picking up that feather duster, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Bart concluded unexpectedly.

He wasn't thinking about taking the feather duster 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 sashayed back to the bed and sat down. His pancreas was beginning to flush.

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

This seemed to genuinely amuse Bart. He laughed out loud, then orated "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 koala back there in the pizza joint." Bart rapped his fingers on the table beside the photon torpedo.

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

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

"Kenneth Turner," 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 an ignoble 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 flying on. Nice talking to you, Bart."

Although his pancreas was still flushing, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the photon torpedo. Bart stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly sexy manner. Ignoring Bart's princely leer, he queerly cantered out of the room.

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