One Cigar At A Time …

{ Denise gracefully hosts Six Sentence Stories, where writers unleash their magic under one simple rule: in no more or no less than 6 sentences.
This week’s prompt word is : COFFEE
A Tale from the Six Sentence Café & Bistro. }

“And though he greatly failed, more greatly dared.”
Ovid, Metamorphoses

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“You’ve been hit by a lightning, barely survived the labyrinth of the second one, and you’re going to light a cigar…really…you crazy Gatekeeper” I stated to him with a voice neither harsh nor soft, more like a Whiskey Sour: 2 ounces of affection, ¾ ounce of stern (freshly squeezed), ½ ounce of Bloody Nora, with the optional garnish of Zooterkins bitters.

Nick’s reply came under his usual cryptic way (that starts to annoy the holy macaroni out of people, nevertheless heard it was), with a voice bearing the same scars as a driftwood at the end of its journey:
“I don’t give a flying frying pan about the cigar; it is the smoke clouds it creates I gaze upon and meditate with.”

A sideway glance at Nick enjoying the wind (Windward, is it ?) from the topless car, like a Labrador sticking its head out of the window in ecstasy from the confluence of smells and sights, was sufficient to realize he was not messin’ with me; traffic was not existing in this scenic route towards the Six Sentence Café & Bistro and the extra miles are a small price to pay for a chance to watch the needle of the tachometer climb at summits, that in every other occasion would sent an invitation to every County patrol car.

He returned my glance with a smile he utterly failed to prevent from conquering every inch of his long-bearded face; “Imagine you are reading a captivating story, when suddenly your eyes loose focus…will you wait for the doctor to prescribe a pair of new glasses or will you use whatever is available enabling you to follow the thread weaved in the book you are holding…despite knowing, in advance, you will probably feel sea sick from using lenses that do not belong to you?”

The V8 was unleashing roars that no damn sound emulation of any electric car will ever replicate; at the very edge of connection between human and machine, at a climactic Corte tango where all possibilities exist in either form, I could see what he was saying: it is like using smoke to reveal unseen laser beams waiting to cut you into pieces of uncertainty, fear & self-doubt…

The Café was a different kind of busy around its entrance, in the sense that Mimi was teaching Hūnga how to hold his licker ( although she really didn’t want him to), Ford was parked at the leather chair ( the only one who could sit where it was reserved only for the Gatekeeper) after taking Hūnga for a run with his bicycle, Chris, Jenne and Tom were comfortably watching the unfolding events from a shaded table as they were chatting and enjoying a signature SSC&B smoothie, an apricot cocktail and a latte coffee;
Clark was leaning against the Bistro door with a smile on his face, the magnitude of which would send him asap to run self-diagnostics (but not this Sunday) and Denise was savoring every nanosecond of the moment, watching like a proud mom Hūnga melt every resistance (nothing aloof around this woof) when following the sudden change of focus in his gooey caramel colored eyes, she saw Nick approaching – she greeted him with a Roger Waters-Money-bass-riff-of-a-question; “ Any left for me to create some smoke of my own?”

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices
have very few virtues.”
Abraham Lincoln and Nick the Gatekeeper

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Bonus content – cigar quotes!

A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar.

I use my cigar smoke as idiot repellent.

Some people meditate. I smoke cigars.

Smoking cigars is like falling in love; first you are attracted to its shape;
you stay for its flavour; and you must always remember never, never let the flame go out.

I’m holding a cigar. Yes, I’m busy!

Imagine life without cigars…
Now slap yourself and never do it again!