Wisdom To Know The Difference

We're well acquainted, Mr. Hangover and I. We're not exactly friends, but... we're easy in each other's company.
Today for some reason it seemed he'd broken our truce, and taken to caving the back of my head in with vicious steel toes.
I silently vowed, for the hundredth time, to never... drink... again.

Gods help me. Ugh. Grant me the serenity to... thing.
I shielded my eyes from the not-that-bright-but-still-too-bright light filtering into the room.
Why hadn't she closed the curtains properly? I always ask her to close the curtains properly.
She knows how much I smeggin' hate the sun coming in early, silly mare.
I groaned and put my arm around her, I'd grumble later, for now I'd just use her body heat for comfort, a human hot water bottle.
I stroked her hair, it was coarse.
That was weird.

Weirder still was the way her beard was tickling my nose.

“Aargh!”
I immediately regretted both the sudden sit, and the scream, as an orgy of pain pulsed thickly through my head, re-flooring me.
Holy hell, it was Plisken.
I wasn't...
She wasn't...

My stomach jolted.
What a cruel trick of the subconscious.

The old guy was snoring peacefully, lying on the straw-covered floor.
“Hey, Plisken...” I whispered, sitting cautiously back up.
Nothing.
“Plisken. Where the smeg are we?”
Again, nothing.

Plisken's whacko tobacco and – as the lump my fingers found at the back of my head told me - the blow I'd received, had left me groggy and disorientated.
Not a hangover after all.

I looked back down at the geezer - he was most definitely not Jessica.
For a moment I missed the hateful wench with an intensity I'd not felt for a very long time.
Eurkch. Focus, focus.
I looked around the dim space, brain throbbing more powerfully than Justin's pants during a visit to the Playboy Bunny Homeworld.

The room was pretty small, with a ceiling that billowed tent-like from a central beam. We seemed to have it to ourselves.

I glanced at my snoozing companion again.
Still not Jess.

At that moment I'd have done almost anything to be back with her, y'know, before she hated me I mean.
Hell, what am I saying? I'd have taken her hateful, too.
I just wanted to go home.

So tired...

I felt something forming in my throat and chest - a big sad lump, like me.
If I'd not been such a selfish w*nker... perhaps the universe would have thought twice about spewing me three million years away.
... Indigestible son of a bitch.
Smeg.

Still, there wasn't much I could do about it then and there.
... Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...

Where was that bloody knife?
Crap, I'd left it with Seymour, stuffed in his chair along with my blanket.
“I'm not your hand-bag, Mr Solvay” he'd claimed.
He is my handbag.

My head yelled at me to lie back down, I obeyed.
Realising I might be concussed I fought my drooping eyelids and gave Plisken a shake, but he snored gently on.

His injury looked real sore, poor guy. The weeping stump reminded me of some of the sh*t I'd seen duri-
I halted the train of thought, and drove the images away, it was not the time - it never was.

Anyway, I'd liked how he downplayed his wound, Plisken was pretty tough for someone that had aged about forty years in a few months.
I nudged him again and this time he woke with a yell, and tried grabbing at something that wasn't there.

“My sword!”
“Must've taken it...”
“Who?” He was wild-eyed.
I forced some fog from my mind.
“Uh... The blue things. Harook... Think they hit us at the river.”
The eyes narrowed.
“... Smeggers.”
He suddenly winced, as if he was only just realising that he was in pain. He moved his hand to explore his head, a long chain running and clanking after his wrist.

“Why're you dressed like that?” He grumped as he rubbed.
I was still trying to get my brain into gear. Crunch.
“Li' what?” Anyway, he was a fine one to talk, look at what he was wearing...
I looked down at myself - I had a strange leather, and suede rag thing goin' on. Probably not an outfit I would have chosen for myself, but possibly more comfy than the undersized jumpsuit.

I gave Plisken a frown as I scanned his – some might say fetching – leather ensemble.

“Erm... Were you wearing that loincloth before?”
He squinted at it. “No, I was not.”
“Guess they didn't like our clothes.”

We shared a look, equally unimpressed at the thought of being undressed by Haruk.

“Gods I feel ill.” I told him. “It felt like the whole room just moved.”
“It did.” He strained to look through the light-allowing gap.
“It did?”
“Yeah.” He turned to face me again.

“... I think we're on a boat.”

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