• Vol. 04
  • Chapter 11

Happiness is a Warm Blanket

I’m quite warm in this blanket. I normally use it at night, when I’m sleeping, or to fend off the sun, when it’s sunny, but today it’s not sunny and it’s not cold. Just warm and dark, an evening of heavy heat. Probably it’ll be chilly later, and I’ll be glad of the blanket then, but right now it’s pretty warm. It’s maybe even warmer than the hotel across the street, which is saying something, because that hotel is very popular. There are people drinking on the street just to get out of the crush of the hotel bar, it’s so warm in there.

The hat doesn’t help. They say most of the heat of the body leaves through the top of the head, but with this thing on, nobody’s going anywhere. This hat hates heat getting out. It’s a hot dome under here, that’s for sure.

I would say then, all in all, what with the blanket and the hat, I’m as warm as can be. Put it this way, if I climbed into bed right now – not my bed, which is basically some wood with a sheet over it – but a nice bed, a fancy bed like I bet they have in that hotel across the street, with thick pillows, and woollen blankets, and sheets so silky you’d slide right out again – if I climbed into one of those beds, with a fire in the corner of the room, and with a pair of nice cotton pyjamas on me and, yes, a nice big woman beside me, naked except for something lacy – all of those things, I don’t think I’d be as warm as I am right now.

The only things that are cold, I’d say, are my toes, which keep peeking out like little kids at a window, no matter how often I tuck them under the blanket, and my gun, which never gets warm. The gun lies on my belly like a steel pup and it’s as cold as ice.

If it wasn’t for the gun being so cold, I’d probably fall asleep and not kill the guy when he comes out of the hotel across the street.

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