Mike stood over Ed, gently slapping Ed's cheeks with one hand, holding Ed's chin with the other. "Don't MAKE ME have to call and AMBULANCE!" Mike snarled.
Ed opened his eyes and stared at Mike in fuzzy recollection. Parade the snake lay around Mike's neck and front torso in a seductive manner.
"YOU'RE HIRED!" Mike yelled, and ran to the counter, grabbed the baton, twirled it rapidly between his fingers as Parade ducked its snake-head into Mike's underarm pit, and Mike ended his little show by bringing the baton to his foot and bowing. A customer looking at some porn magazines golf clapped.
Ed sat up on the couch and wiped his face with his hands. His dizzy brain and sporadic heartbeats were slowly becoming unfogged and calmer. He smelled shoe polish, alcohol, and plastic wrapping in abundance. It was as if his nose and sense of smell were brought to some higher level by fear. He sniffed again and could smell vanilla inscense, old cigars, new cigars, and he was pretty sure someone in the building recently had worn a pair of very filthy socks. He smelled a banana-nut muffin, cold coffee, and gasoline. And then he smelled the sweat above his lip.
"Come over here to the register, Ed, I want to show you how easy this system is to use. Are you familiar with scanners? This one can detect the barcode anywhere within a six inch radius, which is nice," Mike said and flagged Ed over with the baton, like summoning an airplane to safe landing.
Posted by nft at May 24, 2004 11:12 PM