I blow a stream of smoke into the sun and watch it flake apart, ascending in twining tendrils of already-forgotten breath. I inhale, exhale a cloud that is impaled by sunlight, once, twice, three times shanked. Inhale, I squint into a mask of smoke congealing around the mangled trident of light, a face by a child drawn in sunbeams. I exhale and the face darkens.
'Can you hear me?'
I inhale nodding, exhale frowning.
'Yes? Good. Good, good, good.'
I quiet my cigarette loudly in a rain-soaked ashtray, shush it and leave it protruding like a cylindrical iceberg amidst an ocean of those likewise shushed.
'Listen well: I’m thinking, and there is a number in that thought, a number between one and one hundred.'
I shiver as an abrupt chill whistles on the wind, traversing the folds of my t-shirt, the bushy tail of a startled squirrel, the scattershot blades of defenceless grass. The seal on my lips breaks with little difficulty.
'Sixty-four.'
'Yes, well... sixty-four indeed. Good. That’s quite remarkable. Answer me this, then: I am thinking of a name, one name that can be used both in the masculine and feminine or neither all at once.'
I free a cigarette from a hinged steel cage and torture it before an open flame, but it won’t talk. Inhale, I glance balefully into the sun.
'Alex.'
'Alex, yes. Incredible - without so much as a second guess, either. Wonderful.'
Exhale, the face thickens, an ethereal smugness filling in the unmistakable smirk.
'Just wonderful. But then, what of this: I am thinking of something fuzzy, a thing beset with fuzziness.'
Inhale, I exhale a barrage of smoke at the cloud, crisscrossing it like lashed paint across an invisible profile. Apparent is a sharp, sinister grin crowding the knuckle-grip of a furrowed brow.
'An old television stuck between channels.'
'Excellent! Your mental capabilities soar far beyond those of your fellow thinkers. What an altogether dazzling display of astonishing mind power!'
Inhale, I feel a cough a self-congratulation welling in my throat-back and tamp it down with another blustery exhale. The face of smoke is as clear as if it were carved in granite, malevolence belying it’s laudatory enthusiasm.
'You are a virtuoso, a mind master of the highest order, too exhilarating a talent to waste away here in your backyard. That’s all well and good, you may be thinking, but where does one such as yourself go to reach one’s staggering potential?'
Inhale, the cloud of smoke searches side to side for eavesdroppers. Exhale, it darkens further and whispers:
'SmartBrain Acaderama.'
Inhale, I stand and stretch, face to face with the face of smoke. Exhale, its cheek and jawbones razor to ludicrous points.
'The only three-day seminar-slash-workshop designed by SmartBrains for SmartBrains. Our team of SmartBrainalysts have constructed a thrilling new paradigm shift for SmartBrain potentiality that you’d have to see to believe!'
Inhale, I exhale slowly, languidly, smoke creeping from my mouth in a fog. I drop the cigarette on the ground and listen to the heater crackle in the moisture between the patio bricks.
'Your capacity for learningness is limitless - why settle for less when SmartBrain Acaderama is the best! Act now, and add even more value to your purchase...'
Inhale, I pull the face of smoke into my chest, yanking the stains of soot and grime from the air, holding it in my lungs until I can feel the vile dissipation of salesman seep out my pores. Exhale, a pitchfork of sunlight escapes from my mouth and blazes into the sky, a triad of smokeless light that assimilates, chameleonic, back into the sun-drenched sky.
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