#theyre just.. difficult to write..

“You owe me £10,” Ethel could do with the money, she could do.. something with it. She turned around and found eleven other ‘people’ (they may not be, not everybody is a person). Where did they come from? They weren't always there, were they?

The old-ish man in glasses mouthed something about margaritas to her. She didn't think this was neither the time nor place because people are dying - or just sleeping. Probably just sleeping. Snoring away like-

“Can you get Bruce Wayne, please?” The man sounded annoyed and desperate, which is certainly not a good tone for him. He can't host with that sort of attitude can he?

“What do you need him for?”

The man coughed, “personal.. matters.”

“Ethel, What's going on?” the old woman called from the other side of the room.

“André Beetroot wants to have sex with Bruce Wayne,” Ethel said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, because it was.

“Wait,” the small man who was dressed for cold weather tilted his head ever so slightly, “André Beetroot?”

“Who's that?” Ethel asked.

The small cold man looked taken aback, for reasons she didn't understand, “but you just said-”

“He owes me £20.”

The man on the phone scoffed, “what? But you said £10! Why do I even owe you money? I don't even know who you are!”

“You said I couldn't sink the Titanic, we bet on it.”

“We- you did what?”

“Ate a squirrel.”

“No, no, not-” there was a sigh, “Wait I go on the Titanic? Did you just spoil that for me? I swear if you spoiled that for me-”

“You were, I was there, I saw you, I was there. You were there to host an ice carving competition.”

“An.. ice carving competition on the.. Titanic?”

“You owe me £30.”

“Okay, shut up. Put Bruce on the phone.”

“Can't.”

“Can't?”

“He's resting his eyes,” Ethel shrugged, the other eleven (when did they get there?) looked at her with pride. Definitely pride.

“Can you wake-”

“Nope.”

“Right, why not?”

“You owe me £40.”

The man made a grunt of annoyance, “listen, lady, I'm on a time crunch here and it would be really appreciated if-”

The lights went out, and the man stopped talking.

“Hello?” She called into the phone, “helllloooooo? I'm still listening, helloooooooo.”

“What's happening?” Another voice said, a woman's voice, “is everybody okay?”

“The man's stopped responding, he owed me £20,” Ethel pouted in the dark.

And, not a moment later, the lights came back on without warning. It didn't take Ethel long to notice that one of the old-timey women had laid herself down on one of the velvet sofas, the one without a back. Her white blanket-thing she wore as a dress had been stained red, the red coming from her chest where a broken wine glass had embedded itself - how clumsy.

Ethel tutted as she realised she had probably choked on the grapes in her mouth, what a waste. She walked over to the old-timey woman and plucked a grape from the stem and popped it in her mouth.