He was beaten up bad. He smarted all over - from his head to his feet, and back again. Who does that? Who is ever that thorough? He was on the floor, and he stayed there for a while, breathing softly. Then, without moving his position, he tested for breakages, from shifting his jaw - side to side, across his lean body, down to his wriggling toes. He seemed ok - another near miss. He sat up - painfully, and looked around him. He was in a rundown public convenience - somewhere, he didn't know where - he couldn't recall. He'd been drunk - he thought. He must have been - perhaps. He couldn't rightly remember. He looked down at himself. He was still dressed - mostly, but he had lost his boots. He looked around at the piss-reeking floor, but couldn't find them. "Shit!" He muttered. He staggered to a stand, swaying to and fro - but stand he did. He shuffled over to the broken mirror, his naked feet slapping noisily across the pools of cold piss. He looked at himself, his reflection. Jeez! He looked even worse than he felt. By the end of the day he was going to be black, blue and bloated. One eye was near shut, the other stared at his beaten reflection balefully. He ran his tongue over his teeth. He brightened. Cool. He hadn't lost any. Good teeth were always an attraction. A symmetrical face, your own hair, good teeth - got you places - they always had, they always would. He glanced through the mirror at the piss-pooled floor that he had laid on, probably for hours - and smirked. No, it wasn't lost on him. He was worth more than this - he knew it, and he would move on in a while - definitely. He would stay doing what he did well, for just a little while longer, maybe until he lost a few teeth, the ones that mattered. He grinned widely, showing his full set of pearls, till he felt the pain in his face, and stopped abruptly. He would move on when he was ready - do something else, be somewhere else, be something else. He turned, glanced around for his boots one last time - gave a brief scowl, and hobbled to the exit - ready for a new day and a new pair of boots.
