Max finished reading the letter and rolled his eyes. Even if the cigar was poisoned, he hadn’t smoked enough of it to fatally harm himself. The letter was obviously the mad ravings of some poor grieving widow.

He grabbed the cigar and placed the burning embers on the letter. The hand written note caught fire and he tossed it into his wastebasket. For the moment, he placed the cigar in his ashtray and watched the letter burn. As act of defiance, he unzipped his pants and urinated in the trash can, extinguishing the dying flame.

The smoke-eater that kept his office air clean was located in the ceiling directly above his desk. It quickly sucked up the smoke of the trash can fire. Within a few minutes the only smoke that remained in the room came from the embers of the cigar lying in his ash tray.

Strangely enough, the cigar smoke stubbornly hung above his ash tray forming a dark gray cloud. Max sat at his desk and stared at the anomaly in bewilderment. He picked up the cigar and smashed the fiery red end into the ash tray, meaning to snuff it out. The tip of the cigar bent but otherwise remained lit.

He tried again with the same results. What was this – a trick cigar that refused to be extinguished? He tossed the stogie into the trash can. The pool of urine would take care of it.

He looked inside the trash receptacle and saw the urine boiling into steam by the burning cigar tip. If anything, it made the odor of smoke even worse. He spotted a fire extinguisher in the corner of his office. Why didn’t he think of that sooner?

He sprayed the CO2 in the trash can, but the cigar continued to burn with an ember red tip. He emptied the entire contents of the canister into the waste receptacle. The blasted thing refused to stop burning.

What was going on? The cigar smoke in the room continued to accumulate and grow thicker. Why couldn’t the ceiling’s exhaust fan pull it out of the room?

The smoke cloud gathering above the trash can started swirling in mid-air as if with a mind all its own. As Max watched in disbelieving horror, a face began forming in the cloud of smoke. Beneath it, two hands of dark gray vapor appeared below the disembodied face.

Max gathered his wits long enough to scream.

The monstrous, hideous looking face grinned evilly. At the sound of his scream the hands quickly shot out in two different directions. One smoke-filled hand raced toward the office door. The hand was as large as Max’s torso and held the door closed as Janice began to pound feverishly, asking if everything was all right.

The second hand of living smoke formed a fist and smashed into Max like a charging rhino. The wind went out of him as he flew backwards across his desk. He fell off the edge and onto the floor, knocking his desktop paperwork everywhere.

Before he could think about what to do next, the vaporous hand grabbed his suit lapels and lifted him off the floor. Max hung helplessly in mid-air, his feet wildly kicking about in an attempt to dislodge himself. His efforts were futile.