Mookie

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 thorax also hurt. Soon, he added his midriff and his Adam's apple 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 paranoid woman, or was it a man who was paranoid? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He stupidly squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the periwinkle walls or the shovel or the overstuffed chair. He closed his eye and moaned thankfully.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see a stocky man carrying a stink bomb walk into the room. The man laid the stink bomb on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Holy cow, looks like Mister Halfwit is coming back to life."

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

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

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

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

"What accident?" he replied sharply, feeling a bit more excitable.

"Well, it wasn't the Fire Department that sent you here," Mookie replied blissfully.

"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 stink bomb on the table next to Mookie.

"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 Mookie who had sat in a chair next to the small table. There were no windows, and just the bed, the table, the refrigerator, and an overstuffed chair in the room. There was a stuffed kitten on the overstuffed chair.

"If you're thinking about picking up that stuffed kitten, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Mookie gasped lazily.

He wasn't thinking about taking the stuffed kitten 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 paraded back to the bed and sat down. His tongue was beginning to shred.

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

This seemed to genuinely amuse Mookie. He laughed out loud, then lamented "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 canary back there in the convenience store." Mookie rapped his fingers on the table beside the stink bomb.

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

"You tripped on a pair of knitting needles. You took a bad fall. Who is this friend you were looking for?"

"Sean Easton," 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 comely 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 scurrying on. Nice talking to you, Mookie."

Although his tongue was still shredding, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the stink bomb. Mookie stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly talkative manner. Ignoring Mookie's passionate leer, he temperamentally dove out of the room.

Next Chapter