Prelude
"So he opens the door, and BAM! A fist collides with his face, leaving a black and blue imprint across his left eye," Harry described complete with hand gestures and sound effects. The crowd had been glued to Harry from the very moment he began his tale. Technically, it wasn't a tale since it was all true, but there were definite exaggerations. "Shouldn't you tone it down before we get kicked out of this establishment?" warned John, his longtime friend.
"Oh, no worries. You guys are fine," replied a woman with a nametag anxiously awaiting for Harry to continue.
Harry smirked over at John who rolled his eyes in response. "Now, where as I?" Harry pondered, stroking his chin, "Oh yeah. So Ethan comes in guns blazing."
"Gun's blazing? You guys brought guns into the hotel?" exclaimed someone in the crowd.
"And which Ethan are you talking about?" interrupted another audience member.
"The one dating Nicole," answered the girl beside him.
"Oh, the one with the brother?" the observer asked.
"No! The other one!" Harry corrected.
"There's another one?" asked someone from the far left.
"Yeah, there are two," replied another.
"And they both dated Nicole?" asked the first guy.
"Yes, but she broke up with the other Ethan so now she's dating this Ethan," explained another.
"What?" yelled a voice from the far left.
"I'm so lost," sighed someone in the back.
The crowd then erupted as they tried to fill in each other on what led up to that point. The volume in the pub raised beyond the limit as little arguments sprang up between the listeners. Some were adamantly defending their version of the story while others looked confused and overwhelmed. John closed his eyes; he knew this would spiral out of control. Why he ever let Harry tell this story was a huge mistake on his part.
Finally, Harry let out a sharp whistle that returned everyone's attention back onto him. "Settle down!" he demanded. He looked at John to address the crowd. "Since some of us have a tendency to over-elaborate," John shot a look in Harry's direction who smiled and shrugged, "it'd probably be good to add a disclaimer. The following is recount of a story compiled of our own points of view and what we've been told from the people involved in it. Now in order to bring everyone back up to date, and fix some damages a certain storyteller may have caused, let's just start from the beginning," John began as everyone took their seats.
