The Wake

This was it, the final day of the smoker study. A plain jane waiting room, in one of the university medical facilities, Marnie sat. A wide array of people were there, fatties, skinny bitches, and people well on their way to either. It was a comfort to see that other than being present, there was no way to tell they were smokers. Well, most of them did twitch, or fiddle, or squeam, but there was really no way to tell.

It was important that she get past this final round. There were 500 beautiful bucks waiting for her once it was done. She sucked down two cigarettes waiting for the bus and another on the walk over. She reeked of cancer and looked like hell. Her eyes were bloodshot from a night full of stupid internet videos and her clothing was straight from the dirty bin. As she glanced around, she thought…just maybe, she went a little overboard in her want to dress like a convincing smoker. Perhaps her image was a little off? Some girl sitting across the room peered over her fashion slave magazine and was not at all discreet in appraising Marnie.

Looking down at her tank top and jeans, Marnie glared back up at the bitch and snarled.

“Emily…” said a bored nurse who came through one of the doors.

Emily the fashion whore clutched her holy grail to her chest and huffed down her nose as she passed through the waiting room. Marnie slouched deeper in her chair and grunted.

It wasn’t fair that she had been one of the first to arrive yet they kept her waiting long past most. She watched smoker after smoker walk through the waiting room doors and come out with a satisfied look on their faces, probably off to have another cigarette.

Next to her sat a rather disgruntled looking individual, perhaps even more than herself. He glanced around the room with his scrutinizing eye, examining everything with a frown on his face. The sketchpad in his right hand and a cluster of markers in the other, it was quite obvious he was drawing something.

Marnie felt a warm fuzzy feeling bubble in her chest as she watched him. What could he be drawing? With so many reds yellows and oranges it had to be something very fire and brimstone. A hellish sadomasochist view of life in the waiting room? Her fingertips tingled. She could envision study subjects hanging upside down by hooks while the dommish nurses cackled as they lit torches. But really, this individual seemed far too co-op dependent to relish in more licentious and extravagant tastes.

Leaning over in her seat, she craned her neck to get a good view. He shifted the slightest and her view was blocked. She craned further, he shifted again. Marnie sighed. Propping her feet underneath her bottom she crouched over him.

“Why?” he said as he stood up and moved a couple human lengths away. Marnie lost her balance as she flopped head first into his chair. It was warm from the heat of his butt.

“I just wanted to see what you were drawing,” she said as she clambered back into her seat.

Sighing quite audibly, he looked her up and down before sitting across the room.

“Nothing very interesting,” he said and pulled the cap off a burnt orange marker. He dragged the tip up and down the sketch pad while glancing off towards the door.

Marnie frowned as she craned her neck again. “You’re so into it,” she said. He shrugged.

“That doesn’t mean you have to be.”

She felt the brunt offence but smiled. This one was unapologetic. He wanted to ignore her, she could see that in his hostile responses, but his curiosity could not be sated. The tiny pride she knew he held in whatever shitty drawing he made was definitely there.

“I wanna see what you’re drawing,” she said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not done with it.”

“What, I’ll disturb the creative flow if I bug you?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“How long have you been smoking?”

He put the sketchbook down long enough to fish a lighter and cigarette out of his jean pocket. He lit up and sucked down the cig in such a storm, clouds of smoke formed around him. When the cig was no more than a stub he pressed it to the drawing and ripped the paper from the book.

The same nurse from before emerged and called out a name.

“Ethan? Ethan C.?”

Ciggie threw the marker drawing to the side and stamped out his cigarette on the waiting room carpet. The nurse dropped her jaw before threatening to do some harm to his person, his grades (was he even a student?) or some part of his life. Marnie smiled.

As soon as the door clicked shut she rushed towards the chair, nearly tripping over herself, and snatched up the marker sketch he left behind. It was…blotchy, and…really shitty. It was all red orange and yellow over and over again to the point where the paper was crumbling soaked from the markers and left boorish spots on the paper which looked like enraged boils.

She crinkled her nose. Now she knew why he didn’t want her to see it. It was total crap, not even good enough to wipe her ass with.

But somehow, it was alluring. It caught her attention; that was sure.

Ethan…C. Ethan Ciggie. Ciggie. He who signed his name with a cigarette. Naughty.

Folding the sheet carefully she placed it in her bag and settled into a chair. She smiled again and propped her head on a hand. What kind of person burned through drawings and paper with a cigarette? Who would put it out on a waiting room carpet floor?

Ciggie was a rather interesting character. The moment he came through the doors she accosted him with a pen and the discrumpled piece of paper.

“Number,” she said.

“What?” he replied, just as uninterested in her as he was before.

“Marnie. Marnie W.” said the nurse who appeared behind him.

“Number, on the paper,” Marnie said.

Ciggie sighed as he lit up again. The nurse clicked her tongue and snatched it from his hand before he could take a proper puff.

“You can destroy your lungs all you want outside,” she said, “Marnie W. come with me now.”

“Number,” Marnie said and held out the pen and paper. Ciggie shook his head.

“I don’t have a phone,” he said, “But I’m usually somewhere around Dinkytown.”

“Somewhere around Dinkytown?” Marnie said as she put a hand on her hip, “Just wandering around?”.

“Yeah, usually.”

“Like a Dinkytown vagabond or something?”

He glanced up at the ceiling with a meaningful frown on his face. Pursing his bottom lip, his head began to make the slow motion of bobbing up and down.

“‘The Dinkytown vagabond’,” he said, “That sounds like a legend I’ve heard before.”

Marnie followed his gaze to the ceiling to see where the hell his mind was going.

“So you’re a student?”

“Um, yeah,” he said and scratched his head. He dug around in his knapsack and pulled out a few markers. “Sure, whatever.”

With that he was gone. Marnie grinned to herself as the nurse pulled her away.

By the end of the say she was $500 richer and had a new person to acquire into her personal arsenal of entertainment. Oooou, Susie would have a field day with this one.