“Damn,” she says, her voice flat. “A run.”

She still hasn’t looked in my direction, and I begin to think that perhaps I was simply hearing things. I begin to turn away.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

I stop and furrow my brow.

“Yes, I’m talking to you, little man,” she continues, still without looking at me. Instead she seems to be intent on the items she has piled on the small table next to her.

“Me?” I ask calmly.

“Yes, you.”

“How? You aren’t even really here.”

“You tell me,” she counters. “It’s your vision, now isn’t it? Ah, there it is…”

She smiles and holds up a scissors-style cigar cutter.

“Right now I think I would prefer to believe you’re a figment of my imagination,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “If you want to believe that.”

“You left it up to me.”

She counters with a question. “Yes, I did. But you aren’t that stupid, now are you?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Unfortunately, I don’t suppose I am.”

She giggles. My answer is obviously amusing to her. Canting her head to the side but still not looking in my direction she says, “You belong to her don’t you?”

It is a statement as much as a question, however, I ask, “Her who?”

“The her who is taking what is mine,” she spits. “Felicity, I believe is what you said.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She carefully trims the end from a cigar then sets it alight. Silence flows between us as I watch her. A thin stream of blue-white smoke comes from between her pursed lips as she blows on the glowing tobacco and inspects to see that it is burning evenly. Placing the lit end in her mouth, she then exhales slowly through it, sending a cloud of pungent smoke billowing from the end. I know all too well that she is “smoking it” for her Lwa.

After a moment she pulls it from her mouth and rests it on the edge of the table.