I had really meant to say, “I’m fine,” but it’s hard to do that when your head decides to make a quick physical connection with the table below it. At least the sketchbook broke the fall, right? Not the pillow I would have chosen. I mean, honestly, I was rethinking my position on memory foam pillows, and well, I wanted to try a buckwheat type one sometime. I heard they were cooler in summer than the usual pillows. I couldn’t actually tell you what was in my pillows. I had a really old feather one at one point, but it started losing fluff. \u00a0I guess just that weird wispy “pillow stuff” they sold in big plastic bags at the craft stores. \u00a0(They really are witchcraft stores, religious nature aside. \u00a0Need seed beads for your who-do? You do? Then try a ‘craft’ store. Um. \u00a0I may not have been as coherent as I liked, if I was thinking like this.)<\/p>\n
I opened my eyes. “How long?” I asked. Everything looks pretty normal when you’re perpendicular. I guess real change has to wait for when you’ve chosen a new horizon. \u00a0 That sounded far more like a grand philosophy in my head. \u00a0Which hurt. \u00a0My eyes hurt. \u00a0I was experiencing pain. \u00a0And a wetness on my right thigh that turned out to be a cup that I had overturned.<\/p>\n
“Those are the words of someone who has done this a lot,” Janet said. \u00a0I couldn’t tell if it was as disapproving as I thought it was. “You just went out. \u00a0I was about to call for medical assistance, or rather, the enthusiastic employee over there was, but then you started muttering something about fluff.”<\/p>\n
“Did I?” I closed my eyes to move, and my neck added another source of pain to the score. \u00a0I held onto the table in order to settle myself. “Pillow fluff or some other kind of fluff?”<\/p>\n
“Does it matter?” she asked, and maybe there was a little annoyance in it.<\/p>\n
“Well, it changes the joke from whether or not I’m down for it to something about marshmallows. But really, ‘How long’ made the most sense of the questions I could ask. I know who I am, I know where I am, and I’m pretty sure I passed out so I know what happened. \u00a0‘How’ is a medical question, so ‘when’ was the most obvious thing you could answer immediately.”<\/p>\n
“Reasoned well,” she gave me a slight bit of approval.<\/p>\n
“Thanks. Sure you don’t want a silly pillow reference?”<\/p>\n
“Nah, I can’t afford the down payment.”<\/p>\n
It took me a moment, but I grinned. \u00a0“Um, sorry,” I said, passing the portfolio over to her. “I don’t actually usually, like,” I shrugged. \u00a0She knew what had happened. “First time for everything.”<\/p>\n
“I hope so,” she said, and that sounded like flirting.<\/p>\n
I looked back up at her eyes. \u00a0They were pretty eyes. \u00a0I mean, sure, I like legs, but eyes are a good start. \u00a0Not that I’m prejudiced for eyes. If you were blind, and\/or didn’t have eyes it wouldn’t mean I couldn’t like you. Just that I appreciate body parts. \u00a0Wait, that’s serial-killer weird. \u00a0I appreciate body parts attached to the proper places on a living being. \u00a0No, somehow that doesn’t make it any better. \u00a0I liked the colour. Her eyes were a lovely liquid brown. \u00a0Brown is a hard colour to dignify with a description, especially since you’ve got mud and tree bark and, well, the brown colour of eyes is something more soulful. \u00a0And just as there are so many shades of blue, her brown was dark, very dark, the threat of landslides and the loam of the earth.<\/p>\n
Oops, there I went a-comparin’ again.<\/p>\n
“You’re staring,” she said, after a moment.<\/p>\n
“I may still be bewildered. Presuming one can be wildered in the first place. \u00a0One can be mused, assuming a muse attaches to a person. Can you be awildered?”<\/p>\n
She tapped something on her phone, letting me consider the words. “William Morris, Earthly Paradise. \u00a0He got there before you.” She put a hand to my forehead, and then laughed. “I don’t know why I did that. You knocked your head, not had a fever. \u00a0Befevered, maybe?” She had a nice laugh, too.<\/p>\n
“Hold on, you’re coming too close to my world. You might not want to step inside. Your feet can get dirty,” I said. \u00a0I started to get up for a stack of napkins, but Janet was already there, and gave me a handful.<\/p>\n
“Oh, I’m wearing boots,” she said. \u00a0She sat back down. \u00a0“So it’s good? Not… weird anymore?”<\/p>\n
At least what spilled wasn’t right in my lap. That would have looked and been very awkward. \u00a0I pat at it less reassuringly and more hoping it wouldn’t stain. \u00a0I wasn’t going to cry over spilt chocolate milk or anything, but I was going to hope it didn’t look too damp against my black pants.<\/p>\n
“Oh, I don’t know, it’s pretty weird.” I looked up and shot her a grin so she knew I wasn’t serious. \u00a0“What do you think was different this time?”<\/p>\n
She pursed her lips in thought, frowning slightly. \u00a0“I was really mad. \u00a0That creep…” she shook her head. “I hope he felt it.”<\/p>\n
“I’ve no doubt.” Dry, no, but I’d taste like chocolate for a little bit. \u00a0Maybe my mind was in the wrong gutter or something. \u00a0“Seriously,” I backed it up. \u00a0“If he even felt a part of that… You tapped into something pretty primal with rage. \u00a0Not a place I’d like to go, for certain!”<\/p>\n
Her frown turned more into a wry smile. “I just conjured up imagery from old movies, I think. \u00a0Something about a place where demons could pull you to their world for your crimes.”<\/p>\n
I had a shiver. \u00a0“Uh, demons, yeah. \u00a0Of course, we all hope that’s the other guy they pull in, because his crimes have got to be more than our petty commandment-breaking opportunities, right?”<\/p>\n
“Petty commandment-breaking?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
“I covet a pair of dry pants and a chocolate sundae right now,” I said, wistfully. “Let’s not even talk about how I honour my mother.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The moral of the story? Never refer to brown eyes as “like something else.” That “something else” is never a good idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-10-opener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}