flibble flobble

He sits and watches the talking man opposite flicking his cigarette incessantly into the ashtray. '...and then I says to him....later on it's......and that was that see?' Each time he moves his mouth the man catches a glimpse of darkened teeth stained like filthy rags. The man's breath still permeates the air even though he has moved his chair back and arched his neck back as far as it will go. The other man has compensated for this by leaning even more dramatically over the table, his soiled hands making wild gesticulating movements to highlight his words.

'Do you mind stopping breathing,' the man in the suit says. The other man pauses, frozen and stares at the suited man.

'Stopping breathing?'

'Yes. It's your breath you see. You obviously haven't taken the care and attention to clean your teeth for the last God knows how long and your breath smells like a cross between rotten fish, sulphur from a particularly pungent volcano and the feet of an elderly gibbon.'

The man's eyes widened. 'Here I am trying to make you understand, and all you can go on about is the stink from my mouth?'

'It is rather pungent dear chap,' he says waving his hand theatrically under his nose and wrinkling it as much as it would wrinkle.

'Look see, I could be shitty about your suit, but I'm not being am I.'

'That's because there's nothing wrong with my suit and you know it. It's beautiful, made in Milan don't you know.'

'I don't give a monkey's if it's made in Timbuctoo, it's a horrible suit and it makes you look like a poof.'

The suited man looks aghast, his eyes widen and his mouth falls open. 'You ghastly little man. How dare you. How dare you insult this suit. This suit is worth more than all the cotton rags you could ever collect over a whole lifetime.'

'At least I don't look a poof in my cotton rags. Yellow shirt and purple and green striped suit. What were you thinking. Were you on drugs when you bought it?' The man's eyes sparkle mischievously and a smile emerges at the corner of his mouth.

'Why you rude, filthy, soiled excuse for a human being. I will not sit here and be talked to this way by a man who never actually made it onto the evolutionary scale, who exists as a pre-amoeba lifeform in some fantasy land of excrement.'

'Sorry, what did you say, all those big poofy words see, didn't really understand them.' He is grinning openly now, proudly showing off his defunct teeth wobbling in his gums as he shakes with laughter.

'I refuse to engage anymore in this adolescent baiting. Do you require my services or not. If not I will happily leave now and pray I never have to meet such a clod of grubbiness ever again.'

The man stifles a laugh and mutters 'sorry,'under his breath. 'But I won't stop breathing for you, not yet at any rate.'

'Well do you mind leaning back a little at least?'

'I'll give it a go.'

They talk for a further few minutes. To an onlooker it seems a serious conversation. There were no further smiles.

'Well I think that is all I need to know. I can help you and the cost will be fifteen thousand pounds.'

The other man looks aghast. 'Fifteen thousand pounds?'

'That is correct.'

'I can't believe it.'

The man smiles, 'What can't you believe dear chap?'

'The cost, Christ the cost!'

'Yes it is rather cheap isn't it, cheap as those chips really,' he said, motioning to the sickly looking chips strewn across the plate.

'Cheap, are you off your rocker, cheap? Cheap to you maybe, but not to me.'

'The cost of a mid range saloon? That's not cheap? Then it is you who is off their rocker my dear chap.' The man clasps his hands and smiles absently, 'Of course if you can't meet my terms...'

'No, no I can, I will, I've got the money somewhere, just not here, I'll have to get it for you.'

'That you will my dear chap, that you will.'

They had agreed to meet at the man's caravan. It was situated underneath a motorway bridge in the urban sprawl of Birmingham. With its sprawl of exterior junk ranging from pieces of cars and old fridges and it's moss encrusted roof it seemed more organic than the rest of its surroundings. The man sniffed with his nose held high in the air, 'ah the whiff of human excretia.' He dares not knock on the caravan door for fear of ruining his suede gloves and merely clears his throat before speaking loudly 'are you there?' The caravan shook and the door swung open. He leans out like a monkey hanging on a branch.

'Have you got the money?'

'Of course I have. I told you I would have. Have you got the stuff.'

'Money first and then I shall provide you with 'the stuff' as you so choose to name it.' The other man grunted his acceptance of the terms and after reaching inside his jacket pocket hands over a wad of cash roughly tied together with string.

'It had better be worth it.'

'Of course it will be worth it. As I said, it's cheap as chips!' The man began counting the money.

'It's all there.'

'Of course it is, of course it is, just got to be sure that's all.' After a couple of minutes he's satisfied and shoves it in a plastic bag. 'And here's your stuff.' His hand reaches within his jacket and grasps hold of something. He clasps it in his palm, knuckles white clutching it tightly. The other man hangs further from the caravan, his mouth open in anticipation as he reaches out his hand. The man merely unfolds his fingers and reveals the contents. Through his eyes and into his brain the light shines and through that light comes a blanket of darkness sucking all within its path and the man at once falls under its spell. The patchwork of neurological pathways and associated chemistry empties into the machine. His body falls to the ground with a crump and lies face down twitching as the muddy water seeps into his widened eyes.