Shadow Surfer

The Surfer stared at him. "Aren't we a joke?" Otto's gaze panned the fractured mirror tiles behind the bar. The young man speaking to him was colorful. On the outside anyway. The reflection turned his profile into a cubist interpretation. He turned to face him. "How do you mean?" The Surfer summoned the darkness for two more drinks. "Well, like, a Surfer and a German Expressionist walk into a bar......" The young man stopped. What at first seemed like a dramatic pause turned awkward. "That's all I've got," he said finally as he looked to Otto for more. It was in this moment that Otto became aware of his own grayness. Not his hair, or his gray tweed herringbone suit, but his grayness of being. He looked at the warped ashen forms that were his hands and quickly hid them in his coat. He wanted to sit closer to the young man but the one stool between them was an ocean. " I'm sorry but I don't know this one," said Otto. The Surfer spun around in his stool surveying the darkness around them. "There's a joke in here somewhere! I just know it!" His exuberance belied the encroaching resolution. Otto watched with regret as the youth sauntered into the black. The sound of his footsteps seemed to zig-zag. The remnants of this joke weighed heavily on Otto. He suddenly became aware of someone behind the bar. "Can I help you?" said the priest.