Cellophane crackle. Pop open packet. Cardboard-paper sigh. Lips wrap around filtered tip. Pink matchstick scratches sandpaper. Zippo click, roar and FIRE. Hot electric orange glow. Smoke tickles back of throat. Flick-flick ash.
A sensual ceremony bonding outcast rebels with a cause to ask ‘anyone got a light?’ Wendy at school nicks your dinner money turns into your bestie at break and short years later your CEO is call me Dave for the length of time it takes to smoke a beautiful white cigarette, the love of all our lives. Still – pack it in eventually or die. You give up everything but dirty yellow fingers. No whiffs. No butts. Grieve for a friend who is no such thing.
But it was good while it lasted, weren’t it. And even after all this time sometimes walking down the street a snifter of ciggie smoke floating tickles tastebuds. Takes all the self-respect you own not to snatch the rollup out of that stranger’s hand. And suck on it. Hard. Cheeks turned inside out. Second hand-me-down smoke. What a drag. Not even your favourite brand. But you’ll take it. Inhale deep. In and out, and again. Taking time. Dreaming. Recalling when all possibilities were eternal, endless. Then you walk on. Leave it. Get on with your day.
Cath Holland is a writer of fiction and fact based on Merseyside, published by Mslexia, Deak Ink Books, Fictive Dream, Arachne Press.
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