Part I.
Alec briefly thought as he took yet another extensively long drag from the skinny Marlboro clutched intermediate his fore and middle fingers. It was only the second inkling to cross his mind in the past hour, and, like most things that are desired, it was evanescent. After the thought had fled, Alec turned and peered at his friend, Mack, who lounged beside him on an antiquated vinyl loveseat. Mack’s face was positioned so that it obstructed Alec’s view of the incandescent light behind him, exhibiting an eclipse-like effect around Mack’s annular head. If Alec’s brain weren’t in a wholly numbed state, it may have registered this. It may also have produced some insignificant interjection, such as “whoa,” or “cool!” But, as is the case in most “privileged” adolescents, Alec was being gripped tightly by the anesthesia of his suburban domicile, and, gradually, was slipping into a rather matter-of-course slumber.
Although it was, by no means, timely, Alec at last gestated the thought that had escaped him earlier: “One day, I want to…”
But, before the idea had completed its short life in Alec’s cognition, a very peculiar thing began to happen.
Alec’s smoldering cigarette pulled his cranium towards itself, with an irreversible force. He subsequently and involuntarily indulged in yet another drawn-out puff, and experienced the sensation of the toxic fumes encompassing his body. Under any normal circumstances, the smoke would have remained in Alec’s lungs, but in this moment, it permeated his lung tissue and expanded rapidly throughout his body. Alec could feel his corporal being quickly dematerializing and sublimating, although his mental being appeared to remain as it was. Soon, Alec had fully metamorphosed into the funereally gray substance that, only moments before, had been being expelled from his cigarette.
Alec discovered that he was compulsorily taciturn in his newly gaseous state when he attempted to query Mack, who was still stagnant on the loveseat, about his predicament. Alec soon realized that his attempts to speak were futile, however, and found that moving was almost effortless, slipping beneath the miniscule crack beneath his front doorway.
Alec ascended and then hovered above his small, suburban borough for a few moments, but noticed far too late that bits and pieces of him were beginning to be removed and fly into the black, evening sky.
Soon, a northeastern gust picked up, blasting Alec with a barrage of chilled air. He dissipated: Each constituent molecule flew off in its own, unique direction.
Part II.
Matter is neither created, nor destroyed: Only changed from one form to another— and at an alarming rate, at that. It is said that each human possesses, somewhere in their bodies, several atoms that once belonged to William Shakespeare.
Part III.
Jeremy briefly thought as he took yet another extensively long drag from the skinny Marlboro clutched intermediate his fore and middle fingers. It was only the second inkling to cross his mind in the past hour, yet presented itself fully and transparently, so that Jeremy understood every facet of it: “You, through that cigarette, are inhaling the dispersed remains of a young boy named Alec,” the thought eerily and bluntly whispered to him. But, Jeremy ignored the thought, knowing very well of his existence, as a pawn of the invisible hand which facilitates suburban living, and as merely a puppet of his hazy, cyclical, monochrome suburban life.