Cigarette Magic.

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Cigarette Magic.; The life and times of Bobby Serpico.
Topic Started: 8 Oct 2008, 12:24 PM (65 Views)
Wintermute	8 Oct 2008, 12:24 PM Post #1
Regular Posts: 385 Group: Members Member #1,183 Joined: 18 July 2008 Country: Australia	Welcome to Cigarette Magic, my name is Wintermute and this is an attempt at a serial sort of thing, hopefully updated once every two or three days. It is about a 24 year old named Robert, Robert can see ghosts. Page 1: 4-panel layout. The fourth panel should dominate the bottom of the page, make it seem a little heavy perhaps, but that doesn't matter. Arrange the rest as best as possible, however they go together best. Panel 1: High angle shot. A shadowy figure sits behind a wooden table, a shaft of light shining from above illuminating a part of his chest, his arms and part of the table. There is a glass ashtray on the table by his left hand and in his right he holds a burning cigarette. He is wearing a suit, all black and a red shirt, but no tie. It should look like a bar, maybe a desk, leave it ambiguous. There should be a distinct sense of a film noir type atmosphere. BOBBY: So, you're interested in the world of Robert Algonquin-Joseph Serpico? Panel 2: Closeup of Bobby's face, half covered by shadow and wispy smoke creeping out of his nostrills. He is smirking. BOBBY: Well I've got time to tell you a little about myself, where should I start? Panel 3: More of his face covered by shadow, now dragging on a cigarette, his eyes shouldn't be visible at all. Panel 4: This panel should be wide enough to cover the whole width of the page, with Bobby at it's centre and the shaft of light should illuminate more of the wooden table to reveal other people who are less shadowy but their faces aren't visible. It is a bar, there should be drinks and things, someone passed out at the end with a beer mug tipped over and the person sleeping in it's contents. There is a background now, an average looking bar with a dart board and people sitting, drinking and there should be old sports posters on the wall. BOBBY: Well my name is Bobby Serpico and this is the world of tonight, but that isn't it either, is it? You don't want to know about what I'm doing in this bar, why I'm alone and where the hell my drink went. Edited by Wintermute, 8 Oct 2008, 12:35 PM.



Wintermute	8 Oct 2008, 12:25 PM Post #2
Regular Posts: 385 Group: Members Member #1,183 Joined: 18 July 2008 Country: Australia	It started as a whisper, not more than a tiny drop in a very, very large bucket. Bobby didn't have much of anything planned and work was slow, three days and not a word from his superiors, he'd taken to sleeping through the daylight hours and drinking through the night. It wasn't that there was nothing to do, he always had his day job and there was a girl that he'd been talking to when he took his break, worked the counter at the little coffee shop he liked and she seemed nice enough. He was watching re-runs of The A-Team in his underwear when his mobile started singing Goodbye Horses, drank light beer in clear glass bottles and there was a packet of potato chips on the sofa beside him, he wasn't wearing anything but a pair of black boxer shorts and a silver crucifix hanging around his neck on a sturdy chain. He thought about ignoring it at first, his head foggy with too much sleep and he woke up with four more beers and the chips were still good, salt and vinegar flavoured, still had a mouth full of them when he anwsered. "Serpico, who's this?" Swallowed hard and he swilled back warm beer to wash his mouth out. "Bobby, where the hell are you?" A husky voice, cigarette burned and old. "At home, we got work on?" He leaned over to the table beside his sofa, trousers in a heap and he dug out a crumpled pack of Marlboros. "Yeah, get down to the Snake Pit, pick Giovanni up on the way over too will you?" There was a click and the line went dead, Bobby lit a cigarette with a red Bic, gulped down the last of his beer and headed for the shower. "You fuckers be damned, I'm not going out like this." He muttered, shaking his head and he reeked like stale smoke, stale beer and stale sweat. Hot water and thick steam, Bobby threw his cigarette down the toilet when he was done and then climbed into the bath/shower with it's white porcelain cracked in pale brown and a mostly transparent shower curtain with splotches of mould creeping green up see through white. He still wore the silver crucifix, not particularly attractive, it was wrough in silver but the metal was dark and ugly. The craftsmanship left something to be desired too, rough around the edges and the depiction of Christ looked more like a picture of a hobo drawn in smeared pastel, black and grey. He wrapped a hand around it and one of his fingernails was painted black, touched the thing like he expected it to be gone, instead found it hanging from a chain at his throat and he closed his eyes, let the hot water run through peroxide blone hair and dark coloured roots were more visible when his hair was wet. It was a comfort, always knew it was there, the only thing that kept the faces and the voices at bay, he'd never lost the thing and was loath to even imagine what things would be like if he did. Bobby could see ghosts, hear the talking, but that sort of thing has a tendency to drive people batshit crazy and before he was inducted into the Circle, he was almost constantly teetering on the brink of insanity. He breathed the smell of hard yellow soap, it was the sort that people used to do their washing with but it was cheap and worked just fine for him, lathered himself up and he was a new man by the time it was all washed away. It felt good when he shut off the water, an unhappy sort of groan somewhere inside the wall and he hoped that the plumbing wouldn't give out and flood his apartment, wrapped a fat white towel around himself and wiped down a foggy mirror with the palm of his hand. His face was blurry, squinted and bared his teeth, plaque packed thick between his teeth and gums, plucked a red plastic toothbrush out of an old beer mug that he kept his toothbrush and razor in. Bobby liked to buy bubblegum flavoured toothpaste, the sort with a cartoon dragon on the tube and it was designed for children, spat down the sink and looked at the bared teeth reflection again, scrutinized and prodded with his fingers until he was satisfied that the shit was gone. The Snake Pit was a dive, no windows and the door was big, black and made the place look like it was closed all the time. It had a low ceiling and there were pool tables in a corner, a dance floor with a mini-laser show and blacklights all around, they played Industrial so it wasn't all bad but the floors were sticky and they didn't have beer on tap. It was still early when he arrived, as in not quite midnight early, a big group of punk rockers gathered out front with multi-coloured mohawks, metal studs, black leather and holes through nearly anything that would hold a ring or a safety pin. "Hey look, nice suit Mr. 9 to 5, why don't you ..." One of them sneered but Bobby ignored him, never left the house without the black plastic handled jack knife in his pocket and he could have taken the bastard apart like he was nothing. Giovanni did the same, but he grimaced and when one of the punks chuckled, Bobby half expected him to wheel around a wipe the smirk off the kid's face with the butterfly knife he was probably carrying. It didn't stop something like anger flaring in his chest, thrust a hand into his pocket and grasped the jack knife as he walked through the big black door and into Suicide Commando, smoke machine vapor and a sort of vodka cocktail smell. There were a few people, one wearing jet black devil locks and a Smiths t-shirt, he was talking to Suzie and didn't look like he know she was the Snake Pit's bicycle, even Bobby had taken a ride but lately she'd been into crack and it showed with the black on her teeth and lines on her face that weren't there a year ago. Edited by Wintermute, 8 Oct 2008, 12:32 PM.



Wintermute	9 Oct 2008, 10:04 AM Post #3
Regular Posts: 385 Group: Members Member #1,183 Joined: 18 July 2008 Country: Australia	They made for a motley crew of misfit mages, Giovanni who could do rudimentary blood magic and Mike, the astral projectionist who could only move a few metres from his physical form without falling into catatonia and Karl the German magician who was something like a norse shaman but all he could do was make ugly trinkets that offered a little protection against things that nobody needed protecting from in the first place. Then there was Bobby, the bleached blonde seer of the restless dead, his supernatural strength turned out to be a weakness that would drive most anybody insane, himself included. The Circle didn't want them at first, never really thought they were worthy of induction into their ranks, but a rogue lupine found it's way onto the streets of New York and that's when the elders decided that people like Bobby did have their place within The Circle. A shit kicking cabal of half arsed mages who were weak enough that they were expendible, used them as a sort of cabal of enforcers. The group sat around a table with a slick black plastic top, a round of beer between them and there was another man with them, the husky voice from the telephone with grey hair and a grey three piece suit, he had a pocket watch with a delicate gold chain and he looked like an anachronism beside Bobby in his black suit on blue silk and Karl's bright red hair, Giovanni looked like an up and coming mafiosi and Mike was wearing a KMFDM t-shirt with black fishnet underneath it. "I called you here today because Mr. Islington has detected something odd in the city." He sounded even more cigarette burned in real life, dull grey eyes staring into a half empty mug of Coors and he reeked of cheap cigars. "What is it?" Giovanni asked, he was playing with an ornately engraved zippo, floral patterns and a pair of swans whose necks made a heart shape in dull brass. "If you'd allow me to finish." The old man started, his name was Einstein but he kept his hair slicked back with Brylcreem and wasn't nearly as bright, not in the way Albert Einstein was at least, his intellect was far more animal than that. It was obvious that he hated the place, but regardless of the fact that he was the leader of the cabal, he couldn't get them to meet anywhere else so he learned to live with it. He took a long draught from his glass, left nothing but foam clinging to it's insides when he was finished and when he set the glass back down, he sat up straight and Bobby thought that it looked like he was afraid to touch anything that wasn't a drink inside of the Pit because of the atmosphere of filth that the place had to it. "A very important member of our society has been divining alot as of late, he's discovered something in the city." Something about his voice gave alot of gravity to this 'something' but Bobby didn't think much of it, the old man had a way of making his having two of the filthy cigarillos that he smoked left sound like the day of judgment was on tomorrow. "There is a spirit that is posessing people and using their bodies to commit murders, have you been watching the news? No, Bobby thought but instead of saying it he gulped down a mouthfull of beer and saw Karl nod his firey red head and Giovanni stopped fiddling with his lighter, the mention of a pissed off spirit roaming around the city and causing something like chaos had sneered his interest and he looked more like somebody who was listening now, secreted the lighter away in his trouster pocket and he leaned forward, rested his head in his hands and his elbows on the black tabletop. "How big?" Mike asked, his glass was empty and after he spoke, he wiped his mouth with the back of a fishnet clad arm, his fingers were all spiked rings and poor quality pewter skulls. "They think it's a daemon sprite, but they aren't sure, tonight he's on Staten Island." The old man shook his head, clicked his tounge and those cold grey eyes looked deep into the bottom of the glass. "It's posessing a young girl and has been for the past two days now, they just discovered it's whereabouts today so you'll need to move fast. "We'll take care of it." Giovanni said, looked alert and he probably had something unsavoury on his mind, it showed but he was polite enough that he'd never say it and that was enough for the others, Bobby at least. "Make sure you do, but for fuck's sake boys, try not to get into trouble while you're doing it." He stood up, winced when he did and then he looked over his cabal as they looked back at him and then shook his head. "Don't get caught and try to be subtle about it, actually, just don't get caught." So they were a little messy, they always got the job done and there was a low sort of pride in that much for Bobby, he was at the bottom of the ladder and didn't even register to the movers and shakers in his secret society, but he got shit done. It wasn't big, it wasn't political, but it was messy and it was shitty, they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole and he lived lived knee deep in it. Though they hadn't been busy lately.



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