Professor Akkad and his Cigarette

Professor Akkad sat at a messy desk writing in a notebook, reports were displayed on his three monitors, notebooks were stacked on the right side of the table, a two day old bowl of chili was on the left side of the table next to an overflowing ashtray with a lit cigarette. Akkad wasn’t worried about the chili going bad, the whole base was as cold as a refrigerator. He wore a thin orange coat, having gotten used to the cold in his six month stay in the arctic base. The professor took a drag from his cigarette then went back to writing, preferring to write and transcribe onto a computer later.

Doctor Wong Krane walked through the open door of the professor’s office. He had short black hair, tan skin, and appeared to be of Asian and European mixture, and wore a blue and orange coat. “We can smell your smoke.” The doctor told the professor.

“I am so sorry.” Akked responded sarcastically, continuing to write.

“You can smoke outside, or quit.”

“It’s below zero outside.”

“Smoke in the loading bay.” Krane said in an exasperated tone.

“I need to finish this.”

“Professor, we’ve been over the ship a dozen times. There is nothing more we can learn from it, it is just too damaged.”

 Akkad put his pen down, “There might be something we missed.”

“There is nothing more.”

Akkad turned around, looked at Doctor Krain with his amber eyes in a vaguely heard shaped fussy brown head, it put a cigarette in it’s proboscis, took a drag then: “The sooner you people get off your world the sooner I get back home.” it said.

“I’m sorry but-” Wong began to say but stopped. He sighed then:  “Could you at least not smoke, it can’t be good for you, it’s really bad for us.”

Akkad took another drag from the cigarette, “No.” it said, turned back around and continued its writing.

Wong turned to leave, stopped, looked at the Professor, “You know we-”

“You’ve been to your moon, I know.” it interrupted, “as if that quarter million miles matters.

“Is your whole species like you?”

Akkad stopped writing, “I’m one of a kind.” it said then continued its writing.

“No wonder they left you here.”

“That stopped being funny the hundredth time I heard it.”