Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley by Danyl McLauchlan

occupied the far end of the shelves, which were flanked by rectangular speakers. More clothes were scattered on the floor here. Black female undergarments, along with some sort of weird, oversized, bifurcated blanket made of blue denim.
    Beyond the lounge stood the dresser and room divider. Danyl walked between them and entered the bedroom. The bed was huge, with a massive, flesh-coloured duvet piled in the centre. He circled it to verify that the bed did not contain a pretty naked girl. There was a narrow door on the side wall near the bed. This led to a bathroom—the only separate room in the house—and he glanced inside it. Danyl had had nasty surprises from bathrooms in the past. But this one was empty.
    He turned around, and after a moment he drew in his breath. Lying on the floor just beside the bed was a bright blue envelope. He cried out, ‘Aha!’ and stepped towards it. And then the gigantic man sleeping on the bed snorted and stirred.
    Danyl froze. The bed wasn’t empty . The bed wasn’t empty! When he checked earlier he’d been looking for a naked girl, so he’d failed to notice that the flesh-coloured, oddly stained duvet was actually a huge, naked, muscular man with a shaved head and tattoos. The huge man coughed and rolled over. The bed groaned under his weight.
    Danyl was paralysed with fear. He knew this sensation well. It happened to him a lot, and right now he was roughly in the middle of the fear–paralysis spectrum: he could blink and twitch his fingers, and he did both of these things while the huge man climbed out of bed and stood before him, yawning and scratching his belly, which was covered with tattoos of skulls and roses and eagles and knives. He shouted out, ‘Joy!’ Then he walked past Danyl and around the bed, heading for the bathroom, his uncircumcised penis slapping audibly against his leg. He disappeared into the bathroom. Seconds later came the sound of a torrent of urine coursing into the toilet.
    Thoughts flapped around Danyl’s mind like a plastic bag in the wind. This must be Joy’s boyfriend. Why didn’t he see Danyl? Why did he walk straight past him? How loud his urination was. His urethra must be huge! And why didn’t Danyl see him earlier? A gigantic, dangerous man lying on the bed in plain sight!
    Then he understood. When he looked at the bed he’d expected to see a naked girl, not a terrible giant. His brain had filtered the giant out. And the same thing had happened to the giant! He didn’t expect to wake up and see Danyl in his bedroom so he walked right by him. Also, the light was bad, and Danyl’s jacket blended in with the plaster walls and the murky grey light from the skylight. That was lucky. But his luck wouldn’t hold. The giant would eventually stop urinating and walk back into his bedroom. He’d see Danyl and then he’d hurt him. That’s what Danyl would do if he found a strange man in his bedroom. If he was capable of hurting anyone, which he wasn’t, and if he had his own bedroom, which he didn’t.
    The blue envelope lay at Danyl’s feet. At least he’d found what he came for. All he had to do was grab it then run for the door. He was going to make it.
    He knelt down to pick up the envelope but, as he reached for it, he felt an odd little jolt inside his brain. It wasn’t painful; it felt like the static charge you get when you touch a hot car or an escalator handle, only it was inside his brain. He shook his head and reached for the envelope again, but his brain jolted once more. What was happening to him?
    Danyl’s mind flashed back six months to his doctor’s office, when he was first prescribed his medication. ‘You may need to take it for the rest of your life,’ the doctor warned, waving the little bottle of pills before Danyl’s eyes like a hypnotist. ‘If you ever discontinue it, the process must be carefully managed. Otherwise