Excerpt: The Garret

Chapter 1

Something exploded through the roof of my garret, blinding white through my bathroom with a deafening roar. The oak floor cratered in front of me and a geyser launched me off the toilet with an impromptu enema. I hit the far wall and the mirror shattered noiselessly. I slid down to the floor in pain; my mind fixated on Armageddon. I had lived badly, and God's retributions had begun.

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Someone slapped my butt cheek. A woman's murky voice called from afar, and I gurgled deep sea diver breaths. Water caressed my cheek and Lloyd Bridges popped into my mind. She slapped me harder, knocking "Sea Hunt" back into late night Nickelodeon reruns. After a third slap, she called me sir and asked me if I could move.

"Sir. Can you move?"

I hated being called sir. It made me sound old. In my mind, I answered, "Yes," and tried to roll over in a space smaller than a car's trunk. My head brushed against jagged glass. I stopped. Pain forced tears. I last cried when my sister died. The woman's distant, urgent voice echoed in my head then faded.

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The pain of a needle prick aroused me. My eyes opened a slit expecting Satan to be stabbing me with his pitchfork, but instead, a blond hottie held one leg and a tall beanpole grasped the other. Apollo Creed hoisted me from under my arm pits at an odd angle. My damp barking spiders tee-shirt survived, but everything below my belly button dangled, exposed like blood-covered fish bait. My torn pants hung like rags on a beggar. I thought I said that I could walk but they ignored me. A stretcher accepted me in the living room just outside the bathroom door. Some relief, more pain, and then darkness.

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(much more stuff)