The tall dark man walks over to the jukebox and drops a quarter in and punches the buttons for "Earth Angel" five times. He turns to face the room and pulls the craziest trick anyone ever saw: he was the picture whose eyes followed you everywhere--possible for a two dimensional portrait, but he stayed three dimensional, more, really: everyone who looked at him sensed time leaping by in great chunks, years in a second, decades in a glance, a lifetime in a long stare. He didn't open his mouth but everyone heard him speak: Greaseball heard him say, "I didn't get you this time, but your time will come." Blondy's message was "Don't worry about that chick from the fifties...you'll learn all about it someday. Hell, no pun intended, you'll be part of it someday." The kid behind the fountain heard him say he'd better stop wasting time and hook up with ponytail. Life's too short to waste time wasting time." A different message for everyone in the place, even the hogger who thought HE was the creepy one: "You wanna see something REALLY scary, champ?" Then he was gone and everyone felt the rumble of his car.

--seed