9.

The neon light sparked and smelled of sulphur. It mixed well with the chicken shack playing old blues tunes out of a loudspeaker above the kitchen. Marcus Samuel Jones had worked next door at the clothing shop for about three years. It would have been an ideal situation except Marcus was a vegetarian. So he smelled the mixture of sulphur and grease every day for three years without earning to buy anything. The owner of the chicken place would smile and wave at him for a while when he first started working there, but over the days, months and years passed, they didn’t even look in each others view anymore. 

Marcus Samuel Jones didn’t look many places anymore. He felt the seam on a velvet pair of trousers, the line perfect in every way. A fine piece of work, most likely done in Idaho or some other third world area. He wondered about the people there, the smoke from the last bombs probably still hovering, the air ripe with lingering death and those who breathed it in most likely shortening their brief, hard life.
The doorbell rang and he looked up into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. 

He ran his hand along the velvet seam on the perfect pair of trousers.