The evening was dark illuminated only by the faint orange light emitted by a streetlight in the distance. My mind raced with thoughts about the implications of hypothetical actions.
“Chill out man she’s got you bad,” Commented Ryan.
“I don’t know man, I wish I just could forget about the while situation,” I murmured.
“Well you know what could help?”
Ryan held up his metal tin that read American Spirts across it. Ryan kept all of his cigarettes in this tin, his own little crystal ball the future it held was of breathing equipment, sickly yellow teeth, patches, and perhaps eventually our headstones. The poison of choice tonight was Palm mals. Looking back this wasn’t to be the best decision I’ve ever made, but at that point I didn’t really care. I thought about how I’m always the nice guy, the one who is there for his friends and respects everyone… a lot of good it did me with this one girl. I had feelings for her and well she knew it, and used me up until I couldn’t take it anymore then she threw me away like a piece of rubbish that has been sitting on your car floor for months. Now I really saw my self as that piece of trash, I felt old, dirty, used, and worthless.
Unsurprisingly I deiced to take the habit now presented by Ryan back up, a habit that she had started me on. I held the bic lighter tight in my hand. I could hardly make out the word “KISS” on its black body. A body engulfed as the evening was in a suffocating blackness. Flick… Flick… Flick… Hiss. The metal gear worked feverishly. A crimson flame was now hungrily licking the paper of my cigarette of the cheapest quality. The smell which can instantly bring a smoker back to a comfortably nostalgic memory of smoking on a warm summers evening washed upon me. This however was far from that picturesque moment; no standing in the cold with my friend of 10 years as we both attempted to get our death sentences lit was, different. Palm mal all the risks of more expensive cigarettes for the discounted price of $6.40 “Thank you for choosing Palm mall.” Indeed.
I inhaled deeply, holding my dirty breath for a couple seconds before I exhaled, releasing the smoke in a flood, as if it where breaking through my dam of moral conflictions. I had done what I promised myself I wouldn’t; I had in a moment of weakness gone back to a habit I thought was dropped. Strangely I wasn’t upset in the least; instead I greeted this bitter filter like a long lost friend. It gave me a warm reception right back, grabbing hold of me tightly and perhaps never letting go.