“Get me a beer.  Make it a double.”  A few hours ago I had decided the only way to salvage the day was to drink myself into memory loss.  The bartender appraised me, giving me a look that was more IRS agent than JTS Brown.  He must have been concerned I’d be unconscious when it came time to close out my tab.  Or, more importantly, would I be coherent enough to tip?  Not in his estimation.  To be honest, I hoped he was right.  I told the bartender I was good for it anyway.  Actually, I said, “Hagoo.”  The bartender would have to work out the translation himself, seeing as my face was on its way to an urgent meeting with the bartop.

My name’s Jonah Nelson, I’m a speech therapist.  A private speech therapist.  I take the cases no one else will.  The cases no one else can.  That’s why I ended up working with that marshmallow motherfucker; why I ended up drinking myself into oblivion.

He didn’t look like much when we first met, but I knew he’d already put two other speech therapists into rooms with walls softer than him.  I knew why as soon as he spoke.  His body was a horrible perversion of anatomy; no bones were present to restrict the awful cascades of his fluffy maw.  Sounds poured from the lipless gap with no recognizable phonemes, his voice crashing down into a deep contrabass as the movements of his mouth stretched his throat far beyond any human capacity.

I looked away from the otherworldly horror in front of me and flicked the intercom on.  “Cindy, be a doll and cancel the rest of my appointments for the day.”