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Flash Fiction Effort

You know the drill. If not, scroll down to a previous Monday or Tuesday and follow the link.

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Homage to Ernest

"Well, how did I get here?" I thought, looking at the sideways view of the wall ahead of me.

I rolled over, and looked at her sleeping form. Or at least I thought she was sleeping. For all I can remember, she might be dead.

"Damn." I groaned, pressing my palm against my forehead.

The pain in my head was heavy, but comforting. I had felt it many times before. A hangover. Too much bourbon.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed to stand. It roused her, and she rolled over looking towards me and murmured, "Where you going, Sport?"

Calling me "Sport" meant she didn't know my name. I didn't know hers either.

"Babe, I gotta run." was all I said, as I reached down to the mealy looking shag carpet for my boxers.

She started to cry. I pulled on my trousers, shirt, and tie.

I was dressed, but disheveled, as I bid her adieu and walked out the tenement apartment, down 9 flights to the street below.

A low wail of a saxophone was heard down the block from the building. It suited the grey, damp mood of the day.

Gaining my bearings as I gazed around, I realized I was only 20 or so blocks from my own rental room. As I walked on, I saw Joe's Pub and Eatery down the street.

Joe's was owned and operated by Mike. Mike didn't want to pay for a new sign, so he kept the old one instead.

"The usual." I said as I tossed a ten spot on the counter as I walked to the rear to use the head. He had the food on the counter before I got back.

Mike euphemistically called my "usual" the "Hair of the Dog" plate, and I ate it anytime of the day or night. A burger with fried onions, a couple scrambled eggs, hash browns with horseradish on the side, and a double bourbon over crushed ice.

Up on the wall was a mounted head of a whitetail deer I had shot several seasons ago. A very natural pose in the neck and head of the beast. Except for the cockeyed left eye. I saw him looking at me, thinking. Thinking what he should do.

So I shot him through the eye socket and scrambled his brains. The taxidermist did a good job with what he had to work with.

I raised my glass in mock salute towards the buck, and drained it in seconds. Pulling out my handgun, I took aim right between the eyes of the beast. But he would not reveal any more thoughts.

"Well, how did I get here?" I thought again. "Damn."

It pays NOT to think. I ordered another drink for the road before the thought took up root.

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Well, pseudo-existentialism is a helluva lot easier, and in my estimation, a lot better read (at least within my own limited ability to write). But, I decided to keep it brief, in case I should wander back into that verboten vocabulary rich forest.

PipeTobacco