[right][h2][color=808080]Charlie's Catharsis[/color][/h2]
[@BaronOBeefDip][/right]

[color=808080]Briefly, his gaze moves to the other tables before settling back on Charlie.

[i]"A cure is not guaranteed. Neither is a death sentence."[/i]

The man in the white gloves tucks the notepad into his breast pocket and straightens his jacket at the hem.

[i]"Call me when you've made your decision."[/i]

And with that, he turns and goes.[/color]

[center][color=808080]━━━━━━ ◈ ━━━━━━[/color][/center]

[right][h2][color=808080]Floriano's Catharsis[/color][/h2]
[@Blademusica76][/right]

[color=808080]There is, finally, a figure. It moves away before it can be hailed, unhurried through the café and gone around a corner.

Should anyone follow quickly enough to catch it, what turns around is not the barista. It is not a man at all.

The face is brass, hammered smooth at the cheeks and forehead, jointed at the jaw in a way that is correct in theory and wrong in execution. The eyes are fixed convex glass, not the soft glass of a doll but ground to a perfect curvature that throws the viewer's own face back at them in miniature. From somewhere inside the chest comes a sound, not breath, not voice. A winding. A click.

Then the gears catch.

It walks back the way it came, measured and even, each step identical to the last, and reaches for the coffee pot. Lifts it with both hands, the arc smooth and ballistic, not one degree wasted, and pours into the nearest cup.

Across the table, a face of the same brass tilts back. The jaw drops to its fixed angle, the coffee disappears into the dark of the open mouth, closes again, and the cup is set back down.

A bow, and on to the next table.

Lift. Pour.

Jaw drops. Coffee disappears. Closes.

And the next.

And the next.

Over and over and over, each repetition identical to the one before it, without fatigue, without variation, without a single wasted motion.[/color]