*A Drabble is a strictly 100 word form of flash fiction.

Stubbed butts, no ifs.
Yellow fingers tap on the table — half tremor, half countdown — waiting for the Jackson of a perfect medical score.
Thin lapels and thinner morals. A bri-nylon reek of half-cut complicity. The stuck drawer reveals the cheap rye. It has leaked across personnel files.

The ashtray sits full, ignored by the narrow-lidded shrew behind reception.

“Drop’em,” he says, ash flicking in bitter semaphore.
His hands are colder than his stare. A thousand yards colder.

“Cough.”
Does he mean me?
Cough.

“Promise me you’ll stop smoking.”
He coughs.

I take the hypocritic oath.
The bill has already disappeared.