The Smoking Man

[pchwang]

Planet Gran Canaria.


The man sat on a lawn chair outside the cafe, and glazed around at his surroundings. He noticed a waiter carrying a plate shuffle towards a table, drop the plate, and proceed to wipe down a perfectly clean table with a soiled rag he produced from his pocket.

The man chuckled, and lit a cigarette. He stood up, and walked to the ledge of the platform and looked down into the valley.

It had been so long, he thought, he barely remembered his own name.

The waiter walked to his table, and set a check down for the plasma steak the man had eaten, or at least had pretended to eat. The man returned to his table, and picked up the checkbook.

The man took out a credit card and slid it into the tiny slot on the checkbook. Within seconds, holoscreen on the checkbook told the man that the transfer was authorized. The waiter gave him a pen, and he signed with his left hand: X.

The waiter looked at the holoscreen on the checkbook, and seeing that everything was in order, nodded, and placed his pen in his pocket.
The man sighed, and tossed the cigarette nonchalantly onto the table, where wisps of smoke drifted to and fro. He got up, patted the waiter on the back, and slid past him.

As the waiter checked the table and looked into its nooks and cranies, he was dismayed to find that the man had not tipped him.

He wrinkled his nose, and reached for his pen.

The pen, however, was gone. In its place, the waiter found a thin roll of two one-hundred credit bills.

As the man walked out of the cafe's atrium, he wiped the pen clean with a hankerchief. He may have been tired of it, but for now...he could not, and did not exist.

Outside, he dropped the pen in the grass.

---

[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?