The sun was rising slowly, setting the surroundings alight. Tom had already been awake for hours. He had got up when it was dark outside, feeling drunk. Throughout the time Tom had been awake he had got more and more in control of his movements, swallowing tears back into his eyes around twelve and inhaling his vomit out of the toilet bowl a little before that. Now, against the pink sky, Tom sat with a full bottle of whiskey. He picked a cigarette butt out of the ashtray and rubbed it along the tray, producing a cherry like ember. He gripped the filter tip between his lips and blew. This gave life to the cigarette and it burned brilliantly, and with each exhale it grew and stiffened. Yellow smoke curdled in the air around his mouth and nose, and by the contented expression on Tom’s face, I could see he liked it. After a few minutes he went back to the ash tray, picked a blackened match and shook it into a flame. Tom’s brow furrowed as he lifted the match to his long lit cigarette and caught the ember, leaving a raw edge of tobacco in its place. He tensed as he extinguished the match by grazing it along the rough edge of the matchstick box.