It felt as though nearly a full minute had passed between the time Scott opened his eyes until the time the ceiling to decided to hold still. Scott loosened his death grip on the sides of the bed, but left his hands in place should the room start moving again. He entertained the notion of standing - or at the very least sitting up - but the ceiling had once again gotten his attention and he was studying it, trying to place what was wrong with it.
Then it struck him. This was not his ceiling. Someone had snuck in while he slept, taken his ceiling, and replaced it with this imposter. He was about to call the police and report the robbery when the lonely part of his brain that was still functioning produced, albeit slowly, some logical reasoning. A ceiling couldn’t be stolen. So if that wasn’t his ceiling, this most likely wasn’t his room. If this wasn’t his room, he’s most likely not in his bed. This thought finally alerted Scott to the point he stood up.
He immediately fell to what was instantly recognizable as not being his floor: this one had been vaccuumed recently. His head felt as though it had been used as a butter churn all night; 8 hours of someone violating his skull like a piston while his brains were sloshed and mixed. What the hell had happened to him? He tried to get up again, and his brain was taking it easy, moving everything slowly, eyes closed as often as possbile.
He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to remember what had happened the night before. Emmit was somehow involved. He definitely remembered riding with Emmit in that old T-bird of his. Cerulean, that’s how Emmit described it. Scott at first thought he was talking about an alien race from Star Trek, but he was referring to the car’s color: it was cerulean, and God forbid you call it any other color around Emmit.
Now why was that stuck in his head?
He stood and felt a bit sturdier than before. He was getting his bearings and his balance now and his head was finally starting to clear. Scott exited the bedroom and as he walked down the hallway to the bathroom he became more and more sure that he was at Emmit’s house. The gasket being used as a coaster for a beer bottle on the living room coffee table was a dead giveaway.
So Scott knew where he was. That was a start. He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face as let the water fill the sink. So why hadn’t he gone to his place last night? Scott looked in the mirror and tried to remember, then stuck his face in the water-filled basin to try and wake up some more. He ignored the insistant knocking at the front door, figuring Emmit would answer.
Scott heard the door open and Emmit called from the master bedroom, “Who is it, Scott?”
Scott yanked his head out of the water and yelled back, “I dunno. I’m in the bathroom.”
Emmit walked up and stood in the bathroom doorway wearing jeans and a faded T-shirt that looked like he had picked them off the floor and thrown them on. “Well if it wasn’t you–” he started.