Micro Story: The Restaurant Across the Street

I am so happy to be here. Nice warm weather, nice breeze, people walking around, happy, talking. Nice evening. I can smell something good from the restaurant across the street. It's dinnertime for some people, and some people are walking and talking together. Some people are walking dogs. All kinds of dogs. They look like they are enjoying the nice evening and the good smells from the restaurant.

Here comes a man wearing a black coat. It is a long coat, which is strange, because it isn't cold out. He's not walking a dog; he's just by himself. But he's talking, and there isn't anyone with him. Strange. He's talking like he's angry, and he keeps reaching inside his coat. What's inside?

The strange man walks toward the restaurant with the good smells. There are people sitting outside the restaurant, eating at tables on the sidewalk. The strange man stops next to them with his hand inside his coat. What's in there? I smelled the man when he walked by, and he smelled bad. He smelled wrong. He is taking something out of his coat. I start barking. Maybe I can make the people at the tables look at the man in the black coat. But they are not paying attention to him. No, somebody is looking at him, now: two people at a table next to the little tree. He is holding the thing he took out of his coat. What is it?

The two people at the table look scared. The strange man is talking to them in a loud, angry voice. Other people are looking. The man at the table raises his hands up in front of him, and he talks very fast, and the woman looks back and forth between the two men. Maybe she is crying. A tall man in a black and white suit comes from inside the restaurant to see what is happening. I am still barking. Suddenly, the strange man starts yelling, and I see fire coming the thing in his hand! What is that thing? There is a loud noise, too. Every time the fire comes--no, it's not like fire; it's more like the lightning that comes when it rains. Lightning and thunder, many times, from the thing in the strange man's hand.

Now people are screaming and running away, and some people are going under tables, and the tall man in the black and white suit falls down. The two people at the table fall down. I smell bad smells, now. There is a smoky smell, and a fear smell, and a blood smell, and a death smell. The strange man turns the thing in his hand toward himself, and there is the lightning and thunder, again. The strange man falls to the ground and doesn't move. I smell the bad smells again. The death smell again. The thing with the lightning and thunder has fallen out of the strange man's hand onto the sidewalk.

What was that thing?