An electric shock, not the kind that makes your arm twitch and your eyes roll back like lightning, the kind that runs through your body every second of every day, every time you feel anything at all.  This time I'm feeling the edge of a eight inch chef's knife bite into the top of my left index finger, just above the third knuckle. Fuck.
I drop the knife and there's the sound of high carbon steel on kitchen tile as I shake my hand once towards the cutting board. I don't know why I do this. It's just a reaction to the pain, more electrons jumping back down my arm to fling blood across the white of the cutting board. I'm bringing my finger to my mouth and tasting iron as Sara turns from the oven.
“What?” she asks.
I'm halfway out the double doors saying I need a cigarette.
Past the wine racks, past the bar across the sticky black tile the owners chose to hide spilled liquor and bread crumbs. Out the back front door to avoid passing Matt in the office. The hostess at the welcome desk says something I don't understand.
I flick the safety off my crème brûlée torch. An electric spark jumps through butane and lights my cigarette. I shield it from the wind with the pack in my right hand though it's not necessary. Smoke rushes down my throat, into my lungs and then blood.  Returning the torch to the pocket of my apron, I look up and exhale into the sky.
The sign above me reads, “exeunt” in italics. The blue glow of it drowns out the stars and planets. Despite that I've worked here six months. Maybe it's been more like eight. I have trouble keeping track of –
“Hello! Earth to chef-boy!” someone is saying.
“What?”  I hear myself say, “What is it?”
“You've been just staring at that neon sign for like thirty seconds.”
Have I?
“Yeah, you have. Your fag's burned down to the butt. So  – ”
“Argon,” I cut her off.
“What?”
“The sign, It's not neon. It's argon.”
“You don't say. So, you got another square or what? I've asked you three times.”
I blink once, twice. I have to think too hard about what she's said. Finally drop the spent straight and glance down at the box in my hand. There are two left. I tell her.
“Oh, never mind.” she says, “I won't take your last one.”
“You can't, this is my last one.”
Here I bring my cigarette to my lips and my eyes to meet hers. They're green, or yellow. The sign is still flashing purple in front of me, and it's hard to tell. I offer her the box.
“You have the biggest pupils,” she says, and places the white tube between her teeth, “are you on something?”
I reach into my pocket and torch the end of her cigarette before she can ask.
No, I tell her, I went to the optometrist today. She asks what for like she doesn't believe me, and  I don't tell her about the flashes. I don't tell her about the floaters and hallucinations, or my inexplicable chronic Mydriasis.
“I need glasses,” I tell her. “They'll be done in a week.”
She sucks her square. The smoke floats out of her mouth and back into her nostrils. I inhale and mimic her French one. She does a perfect impression of me watching her.
“You shouldn't hide your eyes,” she smirks, “I wouldn't.”
They're are a little clearer now and I see that her eyes are yellow. She's wearing colored contact lenses.
“Then why do you hide yours?”
“That's different.”
“How?”
She looks away quickly and changes the subject.
“God, your bleeding,”
I look at my hand. The blood's soaked into my cigarette, been drawn towards my mouth with every vampiric drag. I taste it on my lips again.
“Professional hazard I guess.”
“So you work here?” she asks and looks up at the sign.
“Yeah”
She stares into the glowing glass like she's never seen anything like it and lets time pass.
“Argon huh?”
“Yeah. It's trapped in the tube and as electricity passes through, it fluoresces. The third noble gas.”
“What's so noble about it?”
“Nothing. Only men are that presumptuous”
I decide to leave her there, transfixed by the thought and the light. I've always been able to move quietly, and do so to the door. I imagine the last she sees of me is the mess of ash and blood stuck to the window, left from when I ditch my last cigarette. The sparks explode at the people inside and float down to the sidewalk, the glass is barely shaken by the pitiful display.