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# Stubbed Butts
- URL: https://mindovermechanism.com/drabble-stubbed-butts/
- Published: 2026-03-22T11:46:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-14T08:45:54.000Z
- Author: Peter Merrens
- Tags: Prose

Stubbed butts, no ifs.  
Yellow fingers tap on the table — half tremor, half countdown — waiting for the Jackson of a perfect medical score.  
Thin lapels and thinner morals. A bri-nylon reek of half-cut complicity. The stuck drawer reveals the cheap rye. It has leaked across personnel files.

The ashtray sits full, ignored by the narrow-lidded shrew behind reception.

“Drop’em,” he says, ash flicking in bitter semaphore.  
His hands are colder than his stare. A thousand yards colder.

“Cough.”  
Does he mean me?  
Cough.

“Promise me you’ll stop smoking.”  
He coughs.

I take the hypocritic oath.  
The bill has already disappeared.