As the sax gave way to the strumming of a bass, he spied a man wrapped in desert garb near the entrance of a cave. “What’s happening, friend?” queried the man, a phlegmatic Amelekite who was sucking on what appeared to be a rolled up piece of papyrus stuffed with some sort of dried vegetation. Foul smelling smoke wafted from an ember at the end of the papyrus roll.“Just out for a stroll,” said Mercury, trying to appear nonthreatening in an effort to counterbalance the fact that he towered a foot and a half over the prehistoric hepcat. “Is that tobacco?”“To-what-o?” asked the Amelekite, unimpressed. “Never heard of it. This is what we call ‘funk weed.’” The Amelekite took a long, slow drag on the makeshift cigarette, the corner of his mouth curling upward in cool bliss. He held the smoke for a moment and then began to exhale, but the noxious fumes caught in his throat and he started to hack and cough uncontrollably. Mercury waited while the man fell to his knees, choking for breath and ultimately vomiting into an unlucky bush.“Why would you do that to yourself?”
