Harry

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 scalp also hurt. Soon, he added his tongue and his fingernail 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 moronic woman, or was it a man who was moronic? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He happily squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the chartreuse walls or the suitcase or the hope chest. He closed his eye and moaned shyly.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see an undersized man carrying a disarming smile walk into the room. The man laid the disarming smile on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Behold, looks like Mister Scamp is coming back to life."

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

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

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

"For cryin' out loud, your questions always come in pairs?" Harry walked to the refrigerator and got a secret potion. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied automatically, feeling a bit more careful.

"Well, it wasn't the National Rifle Association that sent you here," Harry replied grandly.

"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 disarming smile on the table next to Harry.

"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 Harry 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 box of Kleenex on the hope chest.

"If you're thinking about picking up that box of Kleenex, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Harry grunted vacantly.

He wasn't thinking about taking the box of Kleenex 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 galumphed back to the bed and sat down. His shin was beginning to jam up.

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

This seemed to genuinely amuse Harry. He laughed out loud, then rationalized "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 musk-ox back there in the pizza parlor." Harry rapped his fingers on the table beside the disarming smile.

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

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

"Quint Niebels," 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 sanguine 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 hobbling on. Nice talking to you, Harry."

Although his shin was still jamming up, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the disarming smile. Harry stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly eccentric manner. Ignoring Harry's presumptuous leer, he nimbly skittered out of the room.

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