"Dr, what are these?"

In place of the usual lemon tea and milk tea cartons, tonight there is a brown glass bottle of some kind of small brown pill.

"Please, have some. Good for your penis."
"What?"
"When you are becoming older, your sperm numbers lower-"
"No, try this - 'When you get older, your sperm count decreases.' Dr., stay in tense."
"Ah thankyou. Yes, so this is a yeast pill, it is high in Z."
"We say zinc."
"Which makes your penis stronger. I read in the young men's magazine, many young couples are now take this before to enjoy the facking. "
His grammar always seems to go wrong when he talks about sex, which is rather often.
"Dosage is very high, maybe 10 pills 3 times a day. Have some, healthy."
"No, doctor I'm-"
Dr. Nono's head is tilted back under the bright japanese flourescent light in such a way that the many ringed layers of bags under his eyes are suddenly visible down to the last pore - its as if they grow from his face like great warts; grotesque, and in strong a way, unhealthy. He is pouring a handful of the pills into his mouth, eating them in a way that reminds me of a child eating Cheerios from the box.

Several of the pellets escape his old mouth, roll onto the the printout of a recent Sotherbeys auction lot that he was bidding on. A pixilated image of a Murakami painting - next to it prices listed in British pounds, USD, yen - is lined with a thin glistening trail of saliva as one of the pellets from Dr. Nono's mouth rolls across the page.

"Excuse me."
"No problem."

I look at the trail of saliva, across to the prices of the lot. USD, $29,000, high bidder: Nonogaki.