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The vendor sighs and seems to deflate ever so slightly before your eyes.

Nostrils flare like hairy little cannons.

Veins rise like old roots beneath his thin skin.

Whispered, urgent, seething.

Little bits of foam stick to it, and there are broken pieces at the side. She's torn it from something else.

She flaps her hands around inside them to demonstrate volume.

A light pink flush on her cheeks.

Anything. You can't feel anything.

She touches a hand to the wounds on her chest.

She shoots you a quick glance, trying to read your expression.

It's not climbing fast, but it is climbing.

One of the thinner tendrils reflexively lifts as you nudge it.

Warm cottage cheese dragged through battery acid.

Damp. Slightly raised. Almost fuzzy, like it's sweating.

Lopsided, only one half of his mouth lifts to bare his teeth in the sinister smile he gives you.

Fresh blood vessels pop in his eyes.

A labcoat splattered with blood both new and old.

Blood in his gums, too.

Oh, yeah. Feel that heft. This prybar's pried some shit.

The entry wound glows warm, as though awakened.

That's not liquor.

A noose around his neck. A labcoat splattered with blood both new and old.

The lettering on the man's t-shirt, although barely legible, reads: '¡TODOS SOMOS NESTOR!'

She rubs the card between her discerning thumb and forefinger.

The shadows under her eyes deepen. She swallows.

Automatically, your eyes scan up from hers. You notice the lace at the front of her wig.

Dolphins reflected in his eyeglasses.

Her husband clears his throat.

She sends a worried look to the door. Pascal sits beyond.

She pats her left hand dry on the tea towel hanging from the cupboard. There are tiny little daisies on it.

You hear someone laugh, loudly, on the roof above.

'I wish I was deaf.'

His words uncertain, his bearing unsteady. Drunk, possibly high?

Horrific chemical orgasm. A hallucinogenic purge of everything stored within the brain's archives, known to the laywoman as life flashing before your eyes.

A faint but all-encompassing shiver passes through the old man like a tree-shaking wind. Then it's gone -- the tree resettles, a few leaves less than before.

Milk fills the glass of his eyes.

In the background you can hear the sound of machinery and men hurling masculine insults at each other as cargo is hauled from ship to shore.

Raindrops gather on the wreckage overhead.

You see a haze of coloured light, dark figures moving within.

You hear laughter and music ahead.

He's none-too-discreetly hiding a cigar-sized joint under his wrist.

Dust and carbon paper flakes dance in the circle of light.

The book flashes open for a moment -- you see that the margins are black with annotations furiously scribbled out on almost every page.

Ramses was white lithium grease and hash. Vespar: leather, salt, sour pear. Karolina, often up programming all night, wafted coffee wherever she went.

A delicate fragrance rises from the bush: jasmine.

It tasted like perfume -- floral, bitter. The flavour lingered on your tongue all day.

A vast improvement on your current odour.

The smell is ecstatic, overwhelming.

A hangover massages your skull. The sound of a blender makes your eyes itch.

Upside down, the planes of the bathroom wall and floor form alien geometries. It's hard at first to tell what exactly you're looking at.

823 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 16 of 17