"It's okay." He takes the pipe, which feels warmer in his hands than he thought it would. He regards the pipe curiously, and scrunches his nose. The pipe was perfectly fine, but felt a little strange and wrong. Like a square trying to fit into a peg hole, except that peg hole was life, and the square was a pipe, and the pipe wasn't just a pipe, but it was more or less just a pipe. He felt weird; weirder than when he tumbled out of the tube headfirst, weirder than being in a spaceship, weirder than just seeing that he only had Casey and a hammer in his wallet. It was like he ate a thousand tacos, and they had all been filled with beans.

He holds the pipe with both hands, and then quickly drops his left when he thought he looked like he had never handled a pipe before. Straightening up importantly, he put the pipe into his mouth, and thought about three things. First, there really wasn't any tobacco in there, and it was a little disappointing because it would have been a totally authentic experience. Second, it was cold and hard and not really that fun. The third wasn't something to be put into words.

"Do I look older with this?" He grinned sloppily, one hand still holding the pipe in a distinguished manner. He probably looked super cool, and not like a little kid trying to fill up the absence in his life at all.