Late at night a magician pulls into a roadside diner for a pre-bed bite. He is tired and a bit on edge from money worries. He orders coffee and pie. He’s the only customer in the place, but the service is slow. He gets his coffee but not his pie. Finally from his seat he aims a finger at the pie cooler and via levitation slides the door open and edges the plate out. Due to weariness, however, his concentration is off, and the plate falters and then crashes to the floor.
The little gnarled counter guy spins around at the far end of the seats. A second old face appears behind him out of a doorway. The magician feels very sheepish and stares down at his coffee.
He gets his pie. The counter guy kneels down and picks up the many scattered pieces of broken plate. When he goes for a mop, the magician leans over the counter and wags his finger back and forth through the air, thereby cleaning the floor spic and span of its mess. He does this out of injured professional vanity. The old guy reappears with the mop. He drops it and looks narrowly at the floor and then at the magician. The magician gives a casual, apologetic grin and shrugs. The old guy takes a step backwards. He lifts his hand a funny way and there is a blue-lighted detonation that knocks the magician flying out of his seat.
The second old guy comes running out of the doorway. “What the hell!” he says. “He was acting strange,” the counter guy grunts. “I didn’t like it, not tonight. Gimme a hand.” The two of them drag the magician behind the counter. He has a dark, scorched bruise between his eyes. They cover him with aprons and then lock the door to the back. Then they pull off their masks so their little green antennae spring up free behind their ears, and they hurry out behind the diner, to set the flares for the landing.