Mr. Yippish Takes a Break

Night had fallen while he'd been distracted, and Mr. Yippish wondered why Night was so unsteady on it's feet.

"O, Night," he thought, rolling a pinch of tobacco between his yellow-stained fingertips, and smiling that he at the very least had impeccably clean fingernails, "It seems that you fall each time I greet you. Would that I had a crutch long enough to reach up and prop you, for no doubt there will come a time that you shan't be able to get back up after falling!"

He chuckled, and in his palm a hardened drop of sulphur hissed to life, an infant of a flame licked the end of his leaf-and-paper creation, and he inhaled, deeply, desperately, and in a fit of coughing released all of his tension and poise.

"It is not so chic to smoke these days," he mused, "Perhaps I was born at the wrong time? Or perhaps...."

His gentle eyes began to flit about the night. Nearby the windows of shops were aglow with neon and strobe, great beasts of fossil breaths rolled along on slick, dark boulevards, and overhead loud, soaring craft dotted paths through the night, blinking and winking with lights of colour, as floating Christmas decorations.

"...Perhaps...these times have gone wrong...."

Mr. Yippish found that the cigarette was too strong for him in the chilly evening air, and with the softest grunt of disgust he hurled it to the ground, noting that even such an ugly thing as a scorned cigarette could turn beautiful in its dying instant, sparkling hot orange against the sidewalk.

Feeling that enough time had wasted him, his shoes began to click upon the sidewalk.