Casey

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 tail also hurt. Soon, he added his tail and his lung 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 young woman, or was it a man who was young? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He viciously squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the jade walls or the diagram or the chest of drawers. He closed his eye and moaned openly.

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

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

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, two questions at once. Sorry, you're over your limit. I'll answer one. You can call me Casey.

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

"Say what, your questions always come in pairs?" Casey walked to the refrigerator and got a mint julep. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied demurely, feeling a bit more puzzled.

"Well, it wasn't the Jehovah's Witness Society that sent you here," Casey replied defiantly.

"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 blunderbuss on the table next to Casey.

"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 Casey 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 chest of drawers in the room. There was a stone on the chest of drawers.

"If you're thinking about picking up that stone, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Casey lamented briskly.

He wasn't thinking about taking the stone 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 loped back to the bed and sat down. His arm was beginning to move.

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

This seemed to genuinely amuse Casey. He laughed out loud, then crooned "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 turkey back there in the brewery." Casey rapped his fingers on the table beside the blunderbuss.

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

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

"Patty De Luca," 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 brazen 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 rushing on. Nice talking to you, Casey."

Although his arm was still moving, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the blunderbuss. Casey stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly dependable manner. Ignoring Casey's angry leer, he craftily sprinted out of the room.

Next Chapter