A New Toy

Ed stared down from his front door at the man sprawled on the ground in the parking lot. From a distance, it was like seeing himself in the way of an out of body experience. The thought made him shiver as he realized what that would have meant had the home invader come when he was there. He might have been mistaken for Stan and suffered whatever consequence Stan suffered.
Ed was familiar with Stan's bookkeeping business and did not doubt this was all a part of a bad deal with an excommunicated customer as Stan would refer to them in conversations. The dangers of renting from a man like this was far outweighed by the cheapness of the units. Stan had explained once that he could make his true business look legit by charging less rent and bumping up the appearance of normal rental costs to avoid suspicion of price gouging. He would take the $450 he charged Ed and Jennifer each month and bump it up to $750 with his betting income. Stan often referred to the process as self laundering money.
Jennifer still stood staring frightened at the robed figure stunned on the ground. She must not have recognized Stan from her angle and the cops were unfamiliar with him. The officer that had tazed him stood still and frightened having never used this device before this day. The remaining officers drew their weapons and began inching towards him.
"It's Stan!" Ed came running down the stairs toward the gathered officers. "Put your guns away. It's Stan." He pushed through the crowd and leaned over Stan. He began to shake him lightly to wake him. It took a moment, but Stan finally woke up to Ed's face.
"What...the...hell...just happened?" His voice returned to normal as his muscles fought to regain normalcy. He looked at Ed and then beyond him at the crowd of officers. A look of fear came across Stan's face as he looked back to Ed for information.
"Are they here because of me?" Stan whispered a little too loudly. A few officers raised eyebrows at his question. The man with the tazer in his hands still did not move.
"Yes, but not for anything you've done." Ed nodded to assure Stan they weren't there to arrest him. "They do have some questions on what exactly happened here today." A flash of anger came across Ed's eyes as he whispered, "I have a few myself."
Stan struggled to stand and face the crowd. He searched the ground for the answers he would need to address and seemed to decide on the following. "I admit Jennifer and I have been having an affair for a bit now. We had a fight today and I ran off. I assume she told you some crazy story, but I assure you, it was just an argument and nothing more. Sorry to bother you, officers. I hope this should answer your concerns and allow you to go back to serving the people that need you. With that, if you will please vacate the premises so I can speak to my tenants in private, I would appreciate that."
With a satisfied nod, Stan turned to revel to Ed about how he controlled the situation and to gloat about being above the law. Ed seized the opportunity landing a right hand to Stan's ample stomach and a left catching him in the temple knocking him out cold. Staring down at his landlord fists clenched, Ed felt a slight sense of satisfaction before remembering he was not alone. With a start, he looked up and found the Sergeant looking at him.
"He was sleeping with your wife. We'll just pretend that didn't happen. Get him into his home so we don't have a scene here and call me when he wakes up again. We'll take a look at the lamp and let you know what we figure out. See what you can get out of him." With a high pitched whistle, he rounded the officers up and into their cars.
Ed was no body builder and having to carry Stan back to the other end of the complex wasn't helped by the return of his anger. Jennifer came down to offer to help halfway across the parking lot before Ed yelled at her not to touch Stan. "I can't deal with this right now. I'll put Stan in his unit and I'll come to you when I'm ready to discuss this rationally if at all. I'm too disgusted to even look at you right now."
Jennifer walked away unfazed. She did not react to any of Ed's words and seemed to feel no remorse. How can a person hurt their significant other so badly and feel no regret over it? Doesn't she love me anymore? Ed stopped walking. She doesn't love me, he thought. What the hell did I do?
He pondered this further while lurching the remaining distance with Stan breathing heavily the entire way. He didn't have a key to Stan's place, but he didn't care about that at this point. As delicately as possible, Ed laid Stan on the ground and sent a solid SWAT-style kick through the door leaving the latch in tact and door splintered open.
Ed returned to his heavy burden and laid Stan on the couch. Stan grunted on landing and Ed heard a high pitched ringing noise before witnessing Stan's robe disappear in a flash of light and a puff of dust. Ed was staring at his naked landlord lying on a garage sale couch and began to wonder where his life went wrong.

Stan proceeded to roll over revealing more of himself than Ed would have wanted to know if he were the man's doctor. Ed heard the click this time before the ringing started again and Ed's couch flashed out of existence tossing Ed to the floor and sending the stamp rolling to a stop by Ed's feet.

Grasping the handle careful not to press any buttons, Ed held the stamp in his hand. It didn't look much different than the old rubber stamps they used to use in the library when he checked out books as a kid. it was a bit larger and the biggest button shining in red light was different, but all in all it wasn't uncommon. Cautiously, Ed pressed the red button and watched as the end lit up with a blinding light before hurriedly pressing the button again.

Stan began to stir and Ed had no real explanation why his landlord was currently naked on the floor without a couch, so he took his new toy and walked out of the room. Not prepared to deal with Jennifer, Ed took to the streets.