[SHORT STORY] Fingers

Author’s Note 1: For all the Vice Men stories so far, check out the Puff You website to experience a more immersive experience with these characters and their unique world—especially on PC!

Author's Note 2: My first segment of the project featuring its leading human lady, PJ! "Fingers" is a concept story I did for a Scribophile contest. While this version is non-canon, a more refined version of it may appear in a future update. I hope you enjoy this first glimpse of Smoky and PJ's dynamic!

The following tale stars PJ.

I caught him staring at his hands again. His brow was furrowed so tightly that you'd think he was examining gold. It wasn't gold. It was a sickly yellow.

"Pretty gross, huh?" I said. "You really had no idea all those cigarettes were doing that to you?"

Basketball-player-tall Dawson "Smoky" Hayes, ambassador from a different dimension, just grunted as he turned his hand over again to further examine his fingers. In his true form, he was a humanoid being with a somewhat camel-like head and a body covered entirely in a layer of shaggy grey fur that resisted cigarette stains. But his artificial appearance for earth was as hairless as the average human, making his decades of habit obvious to everyone around, including himself.

I watched him reach for the pack in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out an inch, then his eyebrows jumped up. He'd remembered that the entire brewery office was smoke free, including the art studio. With a quick nudge the pack disappeared back into the jacket. He'd do it at least three more times within the hour.

Poor sucker probably doesn't even realize he's doing it, I thought as I watched him return to his sketchbook so he had something to do with his hands. It's completely normal in his world.

I turned to my phone to check my work e-mail just in case I'd been summoned to a last minute meeting by the execs, but my vision was blurred by the memory of the one time I'd dimension-hopped and had to cross through Smoky's hometown. Cigarette ads were on every surface imaginable. Neon signs shouting "DRINK! GAMBLE! EAT, EAT, EAT!" marred the fronts of beautiful historic buildings. There was even a long, decorated alleyway that wound itself around several blocks of buildings: Sinner's Alley, where legend had it nobody ever left without a smoke in hand. The city thrived on vice, and so did a man named Smoky Hayes.

"PJ, I need a second pair of eyes."

I broke out of my daze to find that very someone holding his sketchbook up. He'd blocked in some characters at a backyard party where the characters were swimming in beer. I snorted and shook my head.

"They're going to think we're advertising alcohol to kids," I said.

"Add some boobies?" he asked.

"Big ones."

With a wicked smirk Smoky flipped his sketchbook back over and rubbed his kneaded eraser vigorously on the page.

A short beep alerted me to a text message. I glanced down to find a coupon code for an art supply site I forgot existed. Knowing I could afford a minute or two of laziness, I clicked on the link and scrolled through their current selection of markers. My favorite set was starting to dry out...

"Peej, I need your eyes again."

This time two all-caps words were on the sketchbook page: START DRAWING.

"You're gonna get fired." He looked extremely serious. "I know I'm an interdimensional ambassador involved in a bunch of crazy bullshit, but we still have to pretend we're just regular members of the ad team for now."

"How can I pretend any of this is regular? You're a camel," I said as his hand drifted towards his pocket.

"And you're a primate being from ancient mythology," he said, sliding that evil little box out and holding it in front of his lap. "That doesn't mean you can't - "

"No smoking."

His eyes flicked down to the pack. He pressed his lips together. Took in a slow, soft breath.

"Like hell there's no smoking," he muttered. "I'm going outside."

I returned to idly browsing art supplies for the first five minutes of his absence. The second five minutes I dedicated to organizing work emails. By the time the third five minutes finished, I'd grown more nervous than I should have. He was chaining again.

The smell of fragrant burning leaves led me to him. He stood half a block away in front of an older bar that still had a freestanding cement ashtray out front. He'd put his oversized triangle shades on to block the bright summer rays. The casual way he stood with one hand in his pocket and the way the chain hanging down from his jeans glimmered in the sunlight made him look effortlessly cool.

But that damn cigarette ruins the whole view.

I walked closer. He turned to look at me and raised his hand - and his cig - in greeting. The smoke drifted off of it and curled around his head, obscuring parts of his face.

There were so many things I wanted to say. So many things I wanted to do, like taking his cigarette pack and throwing it into the dumpster behind the brewery. I'd grown fond of him over the last few months, which might have meant something about my taste in men that I'd rather not think about. But he also insisted on inhaling toxins any free minute he had. I could just picture those fingers of his becoming twice as yellow under all that fur.

"You're seething. Relax," said Smoky.

Somehow I'd wound up next to him right in the middle of the cloud. I stared down at my feet, trying to come up with something to say other than, "Why?" From close up, I could hear the steady, even way he exhaled.

"I guess I just don't understand," I finally mumbled.

"The smoking?" he asked.

"Yeah."

His cigarette was almost burned down to the filter. With no hesitation he lit another off the ember, then placed the spent butt in the ashtray.

Taking note of my expression, he asked: "This really bothers you, doesn't it?"

There was no sarcasm or malice in the way he said it. Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes anyhow. Smoky's expression softened. The cigarette stayed between his lips.

There was a strained pause. I couldn't bear to look him in the face anymore, only stare down at my shoes. Wisps of white in the corners of my vision made it impossible to forget who - or what - I was standing next to.

"You're a fiend, too, y'know," Smoky said.

"Says the chain-smoker," I said.

"No smoking necessary to be a fiend. Hand me your phone."

With a touch of hesitation I gave him the device. He placed it into his jeans pocket and gave it a few pats.

"Alright. Let's get back to work." With that he stubbed his last cigarette out in the ashtray and started walking back toward the building.

"I know what you're up to," I hissed to him as we climbed the stairs to get to the third floor. "This is about that thing in your world where they banned smartphones. You think my phone is worse than cigs."

"They didn't ban smartphones," he said. "They restricted social media and other algorithms for being habit-forming. And you've got a habit."

"Well, I'm two steps ahead of you, Mr. Ambassador of Camel Land. I quit social media three years ago. No more doomscrolling for this punk. Real life is healthy."

"Mmm. Interesting philosophy."

The art studio was still empty - it always was, since most of the design team worked digital - and we each returned to our sketchbooks. I did a few gesture sketches of young adults at a barbecue, an alternate idea based on Smoky's pool concept. No, maybe the pool thing would work if we had the right colors.

I reached over for my phone to search for color palettes only for my fingertips to meet the cold surface of the empty table next to me. My stomach dropped for a moment, then I remembered the phone was safe in Smoky's pocket. I loosed the breath I was holding and went back to the page.

The curve of the back of the woman I was trying to sketch in looked too exaggerated compared to other illustrations we'd done for the brewery ads. I leaned in closer to the paper as if it would give me better control of my hand. If I focused, fixing the sketch would only take a moment.

The beep that broke the silence sounded louder than usual. My hand reached for the still-absent phone so quickly that I accidentally trailed a line of graphite across the page. Smoky began to snicker.

"It hasn't even been five minutes," he said.

"That could be important," I said as I erased the stray line. "Let me see what it is."

"Whatever it is can wait another five."

Something about the way he said it made me extremely irritated. I gripped the pencil too tight to correctly complete the curve on the woman's back and ended up with a deep, jagged line instead, cutting into the paper so deep that it tore. I growled and yanked the paper out of the sketchbook, crumpling it and tossing it into the nearby trash can.

"You're genuinely jonesing," said Smoky.

"I am not 'jonesing,'" I said as I gestured the woman back onto the new page. "I'm just worried it's a reminder for a meeting that starts soon."

"As a text message?"

I let out a weird groan as I tried to find the words to say, but he was right. None of the bosses we answered to used text.

A buzzing at my hip caused my hand to shoot down to my pocket. My fingers brushed against denim.

"Phantom ring?" asked Smoky with a knowing smile.

"You are pissing me off," I said, fidgeting with a pencil so I had something to do with my hands. "Your habit gives you cancer and emphysema. Mine just makes me think there's a buzz in my pocket. They're nothing alike."

"Hmm." His own hand went down to his pocket. Fingers curved around the pack. He scrunched his brow. No smoking in the building. He compromised by holding his pencil like a cigarette. "Tell me, how old were you when you first went on social media?"

"Fourteen, which is a normal age for it," I said.

"Guess how old I was when I had my first smoke?"

"Smoky..."

"See? They're exactly alike."

"Oh, you are dastardly."

"And you're an addict."

That damned beep sounded from his pocket again as if to prove his point. Anxiety bubbled in my gut. It was a phone, not a drug. It couldn't give me cancer or even yellow fingers. I could put it down if I wasn't at work, of course. I could put it down if I wasn't working on a project for sure. If I wasn't worried about missing an important e-mail. But there were just so many things I needed it for while on the clock. Too many things. And missing any of them could be disastrous!

"Alright, fiend," Smoky said as he slid my phone back out of his pocket. "Think I've proved my point. Here's your fix."

"You haven't proven anything. I just have a lot of work stuff to do," I said. Just feeling the smooth plastic of the phone case made my shoulders relax. No longer would my work be impeded by Smoky's weird smart tech hangup. With the phone, I could get back to being productive.

As I scrolled through the mailing list coupons I'd been bombarded with in the last ten minutes, I noticed, for the first time in my life, a distinct buzz behind my eyes.