It's chillier outside than it usually is on September night in Minneapolis.  

It's already that time of year that makes your stomach churn; that limbo that exists only where the embers of summer are slowly dimming and the wicked winter is looming. 

Sitting outside on the front porch to smoke your last cigarette tonight was evidently a bad decision, nothing spoils the taste of nicotine like icy fingers and a cold ass. Well, you surmise, you had to quit sometime. Besides, it's provided an escape from your 90 year old grandmother's birthday party. Not exactly the epitome of excitement.

As you draw in your final, prolong puff you close your eyes, internally saying goodbye to an old friend. And then, as a dead sailor is cast off into the deep sea, so is your old friend, flicked from your fingertips into the dead of night. 

"HEY!!!!!!" Comes a protesting voice just beyond the blackness of your eyelids. You open your eyes to see your cigarette has hit a set of shoes that belong to a set of feet that consequently belong to a set of legs right in front of you. Your eyes don't have a chance yet to observe who's torso  and face the "Hey"-saying legs belong to because you're transfixed.

These are not any shoes. They're...

RATE THIS BRANCH!