The Bro Code

I Don't Mean To Be Racist, But...

14: Gabe: I Don't Mean To Be Racist, But...

"If I fart in his face will he wake up?"

I vaguely registered Harold's voice through my drowsiness.

"No, I don't think that will be a logical option," came a different, slightly disgusted, voice which I didn't recognise.

My eyes fluttered open and I saw, as expected, Harold looming over me. A man was at his shoulder, a man I've never seen before. He looked to be about forty, with chestnut coloured hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and a cane in his right hand. Bram was reading a graphic novel on a chair in the corner of the room.

But what room was I in? I sat up, causing Harold to exclaim something I couldn't register in delight. I was lying on a sofa in a very cozy-feeling living room. But who's living room?

"Lucky you got up," said Harold, "I was about to proceed with plan B: using my manly gases to lure you into consciousness."

I was a tad horrified and a tad disgusted. "What was plan A?" I asked, anticipating the answer.

"You don't want to know," said the middle-aged man, now at a minibar pouring some drinks.

Suddenly I remembered the events that took place on the train. How Harold got up to use the bathroom, and apparently the bald Illuminatist found him and chased him onto the roof of the moving train. Then, how Bram and I followed, and I got shot in the arm and passed out.

A wave of gratitude swept over me once I realized that Harold and Bram weren't shot by the bald man, but in this strange room with me right now.

I suddenly looked down at my arm, which was bandaged and didn't hurt at all.

But what happened after I passed out? How did Bram and Harold get themselves - and me - out alive? These were all questions that needed to be answered right then.

The middle-aged man came back with three glasses of brandy in his hands. He offered one to Harold, who gladly took it and downed the cup. He offered a glass to me, and I refused, so Harold quickly took my place and drank every last drop.

I squinted at him.

He was weird.

"So." I said, after I finished revelling at the thirteen-year-old kid who so happens to love brandy. "Where am I? And who are you? And what happened after I passed out on the train?"

"Careful," said the man, "you might just ask more questions than you want to know the answers to."

"Do you have more of this?" Asked Harold, holding up his two empty glasses of alcohol. I saw the glimpse of a smile on the man's face as he took the cups from Harold to go refill them.

As the man was pouring more brandy into a glass, he explained some of it to me. "I am Richard Owen, of England. You are in my vacation cottage in Slovakia right now, and have been asleep for the entire afternoon yesterday, last night, and the whole of today. It is six fifty one and thirty-four seconds PM right now, and you must be famished."

He handed the newly filled glass to Harold, who gratefully wrapped his hands around it. I gawked at Richard.

"Come come, let's go have a bite to
eat." Said Richard, and turned and left the living room.

I looked at Harold, who seemed a bit loopsy after his third glass of alcohol, then got up and followed Richard out into the corridor. Come to think of it, I was super hungry.

Harold, Bram, Richard and I sat around a small circular table, a bit too close together for comfort. "My assistant will bring in our food," he said. So this man was rich - no wonder. Not only did his attire and decor have a wealthy aura, but he had an assistant too.