Chapter 5

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
—Joseph Heller

Ryan awoke with a start. As most people do when they first wake, he experienced a moment of great existential uncertainty. Who am I? Where am I? Oh gods, where did this lampshade come from?

Luckily for Ryan, though, it was limited to wondering how this blanket had gotten on him.

It was then that he noticed Josie staring at him.

“Good… Morning?” he said, unsure if that was the right answer or not, not sure what the question even was.

“Morning,” said Josie curtly. Ryan got the impression that he had done something wrong, but he had no idea.

He yawned, and stretched. The blanket slid off him, and he noticed that his shirt was missing. “What-” he started to say. He was cut off by the observation that his shirt had, somehow, ended up on Josie.

It was by this time, somewhat later than would be ideal, that Ryan realized he could not remember much of what happened last night. Through the mental fog of morning he thought he could remember… Did he punch someone? And then they got their room… What happened after that? He thought he might be able to remember someone very rudely trying to gain access to their room and being forced to throw the intruder out a window, but he couldn’t be sure.

Ryan looked over at Josie again. Her mood didn’t seem to be improving.

“I think I’m going to get something to eat,” he said carefully. “Can I get you anything?” She nodded.

“I’ll be back soon,“ he said, and stood up. “Er… Could I have my…? Uh. Never mind, I can see you need it…” He wandered out of the room.

In the main tavern, Ryan surveyed the destruction apparently wrought last night. Stepping over a table that had somehow been cut in two, he approached the barkeep. This one looked almost human.

“What do you offer for breakfast?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“We have the best breakfast for miles around! We’ve got sausage, sausage pudding-” Ryan shuddered. “-egg, egg custard, double fried chips with ham, and cheese spools[1]. What’ll it be?”

Ryan considered his options.

“I’ll take, um, the double fried chips with ham and two eggs. Scrambled, please.”

“Coming right up,” the barkeep said. Ryan was beginning to like him; it’s easy to be appreciative of anyone willing to make things easier in the morning.

He decided to push his luck.

“Do you have any orange juice?”

The barkeep walked over from where he had been polishing a mug.

“Of course we do! What do you take us for?” the, and Ryan was willing to consider him one, man said.

“I’ll take a glass,” Ryan said. How bad could it be?[3]

It was orange, yes. But it could not be considered, by any stretch of Ryan’s imagination, juice. It glooped. He tipped it sideways, and after a couple of seconds the substance started to slide out. For the sake of curiosity, Ryan positioned the container[4] so that some of it slid into his mouth.

He chewed it for a second, then incautiously swallowed it. It tasted… Orange.

Really, it was actually kind of like a smoothie.

Ryan asked for another cupful, grabbed the plates of breakfast, and, balancing it all carefully, made his way back to the room.

When he came in he was glad to see that Josie had, in his absence, opened the shutters on the window and was sitting in a patch of sunlight. That had to be a good sign, right?

“I’ve got breakfast,” he said redundantly.

“You’d better,” she said, but there was a hint of approval.

Looking around, Ryan didn’t see a surface to put the dishes on, so he put them on the bed. From the looks of it, the worst had already happened to it.

Josie padded over and examined the food. Ryan watched nervously, but he didn’t need to; after checking to make sure that it wasn’t moving, the majority of it was recognizable, and it wasn’t producing light under its own power, Josie began devouring it. The way she ate was inspirational; she ate as if the food had insulted her personally.

After a couple busy minutes, she looked up. She gestured at Ryan with a double fried chip, a questioning expression on her face. Ryan waved her off. Josie shrugged, and turned back to the dish.

A couple more minutes passed before Josie, satiated, lay back on the bed, her arms behind her head. Wordlessly Ryan passed her the orange fluid. She took it gratefully and tipped it to her lips.

After she was done she let out a happy little sigh.

Ryan was entranced. He found Josie oddly hypnotizing. Usually, watching someone eat is a test of endurance, but he found everything she did held a strange attraction.

She noticed him staring and looked over.

“Thanks for breakfast,” she said.

“You’re… Welcome.”

There was a pause.

“What mayhem do you have planned for today?” Josie asked, but Ryan could pick up an overtone of amusement.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sniffed.

“Hah.”

There was another pause.

Ryan attempted to break the silence.

“So you have family here?”

He got the impression that he had said the wrong thing.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, uh… Want to have a look around town? We might run into them.”

Josie shrugged.

“Not much else to do, is there?”

“I guess not,” said Ryan.

They got dressed and left the inn.

As they walked down Scrod’s main street, Ryan finally asked the question.

“…What happened last night?”

Josie stood very still.

“You mean you don’t remember?”

“Well, no.”

“Oh.” She paused. “…Neither do I.”

“I see.”

They stood in mutual embarrassment.

Ryan coughed.

“Well… Let’s keep going.”

“Right, right.”

They walked on.

[1] A regional dish. Cheese wrapped around whatever was left over from the stew[2].
[2] Which, in turn, consisted of yesterday’s leftovers.
[3] Never ask this question.
[4] He couldn’t bring himself to think that a substance like that would be put in a glass.