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Up In Smoke: Craft a shortstory, drabble, vignette, or poem that features, includes, or describes the act of smoking.
As a literary device, I love cigarettes. As a real-world item, I hate them. They stink. They're expensive. They're addictive. In film or a piece of writing, though, they're silent characters with souls of their own. I love the smoky exhalation, the expectant inhale. I'm amazed at those white tendrils, reaching skyward, or the plume expelled into a face by an antagonist. I love the words and images surrounding smoking. We can twist the act any way we want. Build suspense. Create tension, or relieve it. Even find humor in the weakness of the addiction. Let me see your spin on it.

The Cycle

The world is grey and mute. I wonder if the people I walk by on the sidewalk can see it, or feel it—the black poison that writhes perpetually in the recesses of my wavering soul. I've sinned as many others have; though I carry that weight with me as many others do not. How do they forget so easily? The crimes that they've committed, or the rows of conjured lies. I keep myself buoyed, in hopes that a powerful light strikes me at its fullest, eradicating that sunken darkness in my chest. It's painful, and distracting. It draws my attention away from my familial duties like a dreadful nuisance. The pain I speak of is different from anything physical. Invisible, and intangible. There's a slight tug on my heart, as a terrible memory flashes in my mind; like a fleeting wisp.

   Fly away, go away; far as can be, and away; just away, I say.

   I do not want to think of the past, when the poem I had written for my elementary crush was rejected (those were days of shameful persistence); nor the days I broke a potential soulmate's trust and heart. Oh, how I neglected her sweet, tender care. How could I push her away when all she had given me, was for me and me alone? I took her for granted, and now she lives to be my worst regret.

   Away! I say again.

   I'm sitting in the garage. The cigarillo in between my finger tips seemed brittle, crispy. I start from the scrunched end, breaking a line through it's length. When I finished so, I emptied it's tobacco guts into the trash can. With the fillings begone and the need for a smoke thriving numbly—like skin it unfolded, as my thumb and forefinger kept it splayed open and inviting—I reached for the grounded bits of herb to the side, making absolute surety of an even spread along the cigarillo's body.

   Equal distribution meant an even burn.

   Time had frozen over, as I worked meticulously. Tuck and roll, tuck and roll. I continued those simple instructions from the west end to the east, sealing every open crevice with a lick of saliva.

   I pearled it; perfectly rolled, ready to be consumed. The summer heat worked furiously, but with the Sun away—and it's sister, Moon, alive in it's slumbering wake—the outside temperature was just right.

   Placing the newly-rolled blunt behind my ear, I fingered the button that would lift the garage door. A breeze swept in, kissing the sweat that bubbled along my forehead.

   The lit-up driveway where the motion sensor lights blinked on would do just fine. Yes, the stars above would add to the coolly atmosphere.

   Retrieving the blunt, I held it before me, simultaneously pulling from the pocket on my shirt the 7-11 lighter I had bought for the occasion. It took a single, downward strike of the thumb to liven the flame. I soaked the end opposite of where I would place my lips, dousing it until an orange-smoldering light stilled on it's tip.

   Puff, puff, exhale. The cloud of smoke that left my body seemed to take with it the aforementioned darkness. The weight was lifted. Mind and soul falling into equilibrium once more.

   This cycle of up and downs would continue for many years forward.

   Another puff.

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