Strange Loyalties

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I woke up with a head like a rodeo. Isn’t it painful having fun? Mind you, last night hadn’t been about enjoyment, just whisky as anaesthetic. Now it was wearing off, the pain was worse. It always is.

I didn’t want this day. Who sent for it? Try the next house. I burrowed into the pillow. It was no use. A sleepless pillow. What was it they called that? Transferred epithet? My teachers. They taught me everything I don’t need to know.

I got up and went on safari for the pain-killers. There weren’t many places they could be. The bedroom was unlikely. That left the sitting-room, the small kitchen, the hall and the bathroom. The hall was out. There was nowhere there to keep them, unless I had cunningly hidden them under the carpet. The places were the kitchen or the bathroom. Deductive reasoning. Lucky I was a good detective.

After checking cupboards that held old razor blades and more dishes than I would ever use, I found the magic bottle. It was in the sitting-room behind the tiers of the change I hated keeping in my pockets. I got a glass of water and took two pills, feeling they wouldn’t be enough — like sending in two rookie policemen to quell a riot.

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