What day is tomorrow?
Thursday.
Oh.
The man looked at him for moment, unsure, as if he had surely
been joking. After a moment he gave a weak laugh, nodded as he took his drink, and shuffled outside.
All day Max could see him on the beach with his wife, lounging
awkwardly in his chair. Every few moments he would check his watch, as if
Derek Stobert - The Bum
from instinct, sipping furiously at his drink, already anticipating the next.
*
The sky was turning purple. The air stuck to his skin. Max sat at his
veranda again, off the side of his chair and hunched over the coffee table. On his lap sat a small box, from inside he pulled a small baggie and rolling papers. He rolled the buds slowly between his fingers, dark green tinder with a smell both pungent and obvious, breaking them into small pieces and distributing them evenly over the paper. With sticky fingers he rolled it tight and licked the crease to seal it, tucking the spliff behind his ear.
He lounged again as the sun went down over the water horizon.
Tourist shops littered the cobbled walks along the island, dark now. Fruit vendors wheeled the last of their goods away to their homes. The lights of a cruise ship hung in the distance. Max opened the box in his lap and peered inside. He smiled. Inside lie a crumpled and unclasped gold watch, the hands unmoving and the battery long dead. Next to it was his class ring. He put the baggie and the papers back inside and closed the box and 17