I was caught between getting rid of all the dragon-related items and storing them for when it didn’t hurt so much.\u00a0 I mean, I still liked the idea of dragons the way I had had before this unfortunate incident, but I also didn’t want them staring at me.<\/p>\n
“Storage,” Sylvie said, giving me a glass of water.\u00a0\u00a0 “It’s like rental on a time capsule.\u00a0 No, actually, it’s more like a man’s version of scrapbooking.”<\/p>\n
“That’s the garage,” I suggested.<\/p>\n
“Doesn’t disprove my point at all,” she noted.<\/p>\n
“You have experience with this,” I said to Sylvia at one point.<\/p>\n
“I like helping out,” she said.<\/p>\n
“No,” I said.\u00a0 I didn’t mean to disagree with her, but I was having some serious Mercury-in-retrograde kind of communication difficulties.\u00a0 “It’s more than that.”<\/p>\n
“You’re welcome,” she said.\u00a0 She was shutting me out.\u00a0 Someone else in her life had gotten her used to long hospital stays and cranky convalescence, but I let it go.\u00a0 She didn’t need to share any pain with me.<\/p>\n
She was there when her classes were out.\u00a0 Matana had offered to stay over nights, but I just wasn’t feeling inviting enough to have to deal with a vampire on top of my own bad attitude.\u00a0 Maggie came by and worked on my computer at things, since I was mostly catching up on everything my DVR had to offer, and falling asleep on the couch every now and then.<\/p>\n
I was rousing from another bout of drug-induced somnia when I was hit in the face by something thrown at me by the Magster.\u00a0 The notebook was followed up with a pen.<\/p>\n
“You can’t sit there forever.”<\/p>\n
“No, I have to use the facilities often enough,” I noted.\u00a0 It was a pretty big complaint, actually, since it meant I was using muscles that were aligned against me.\u00a0 Actually, if my body was at war with itself, the muscles were really the, um, muscle of the enemy operation.<\/p>\n
“You’re going to run out of television fairly soon, you haven’t checked your e-mail in days, and occasionally I get a snarky comment out of you, but that’s about the most you’ve said besides `please’ and `thank you’ when we shove food into you.”<\/p>\n
“Huh.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, and a lot of grunts.”<\/p>\n
“What do you want?”<\/p>\n
“I want E back from whatever dark place he’s hiding.”<\/p>\n
“He’s too busy hiding.\u00a0 If you’d like to leave a message at the tone, he’ll return your call after St. George helps him take care of his special reptile infestation.\u00a0 Beep.”<\/p>\n
She threw a couch pillow at me and went back to whatever it was she was doing.<\/p>\n
After she left, I picked up the pen and started writing.<\/p>\n
Goals.<\/p>\n
1. Stop being such a schmuck.<\/p>\n
2. Find out what happened.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I kind of stopped there, because I had a thought.<\/p>\n
The Questor.<\/p>\n
3. Have dinner with Questor.<\/p>\n
4. Slay Dragon, keep treasure, live in luxury for rest of life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think I put the pen in my mouth for a moment, thinking.<\/p>\n
5. Find right girl to share treasure & luxury.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yeah, that sounded about right.<\/p>\n
So, how to stop being a schmuck?\u00a0 I think that was the right word.\u00a0 My Yiddish was worse than my Chinese, and I only knew enough to say “Feng Shui” a couple of different ways and not embarrass myself by ordering in food.\u00a0 I was not a linguist.<\/p>\n
First, apologies.<\/p>\n
Apologies: Chocolate?<\/p>\n
Apologies: Flowers?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I crossed that last one out – neither Maggie or Sylvia were flower types.\u00a0 The carcasses of once beautiful things probably irritated the whole witch aesthetic.\u00a0 “Unless it was the heads of their enemies,” I noted to myself, aloud.<\/p>\n
The living room was very, very quiet.<\/p>\n
Apologies: Dinner<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yeah, that definitely worked for Sylvia.\u00a0\u00a0 I’d take her out someplace nice.<\/p>\n
I scribbled a few other ideas for Maggie.\u00a0 I got up and went to my computer, intent on browsing the History to see if she’d scrubbed it or if there was anything interesting.\u00a0 Then, of course, I had to check my e-mail.<\/p>\n
A few hours later, I stretched and realized I didn’t hurt so much anymore.<\/p>\n
Or I could have a fever.<\/p>\n
Second, in the “not being a schmuck” column, I took a shower.\u00a0 I brushed my teeth.\u00a0 I put on something that wasn’t ratty or funky.\u00a0 I took some time shaving.\u00a0 I looked at myself in the mirror.<\/p>\n
I don’t know if I looked like I cared.\u00a0 I at least looked like I could fake it.<\/p>\n
Third, a real meal.\u00a0 I spent some time throwing things out of the actual refrigerator area that were too fuzzy to meet the “scrapable” standards.\u00a0 I ended up having to use some frozen stuff to pad out the dinner, and I ate out of the skillet, but it wasn’t strictly convenience foods.\u00a0 It made me flip to the next page to make a grocery list.\u00a0 Then I had to flip to the page after it to make a practical note about calling my insurance about my car.\u00a0\u00a0 It led to a few other items I had to handle.<\/p>\n
Part four would be making amends to Maggie.\u00a0 I didn’t even know where to begin with that.\u00a0 I mean, we’d given each other the “just friends” speech in countless ways in the interim, but I think both of us finally got it.\u00a0 I say “both of us” and “we” because I’m the kind of guy who likes to take full credit for his understanding and relationship foibles.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 So really, what would a friend do?<\/p>\n
I stayed stymied on that for a while.\u00a0 Maybe I was missing some kind of obvious response, but “not being a schmuck” would kind of have to handle it until the right thing dropped into my head.<\/p>\n
Part five, find out who this Rohana person was.\u00a0 She left me her number, so I guessed she meant for me to call it.\u00a0 I could at least thank her for the books – I was enjoying them even if reading was more scattered than normal.<\/p>\n
I checked my watch.\u00a0 It was too late to call tonight, but I’d try tomorrow.<\/p>\n
There was a knock on the door.<\/p>\n
I froze up.\u00a0 I couldn’t remember if Dragons knocked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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