My Elderly Guest

     He said, out of bed arising, "I feel like I just spent the night in a clothes drier with a dead dog," in a soft, slow, gravelly voice. All of his oral emissions ended with an "aargh," perhaps in an attempt to sound piratical or, maybe, simply to express how he felt in a very succinct manner. Verbal shorthand, if you will. Handy, actually, because you always knew whether he was in a good mood, or not.