Writer's Desk

I associate smoke not with heat but with chills. Sure, smoke comes with fire-- that's how it goes. But every time I put the stick in my mouth and that stack of smoke passes my lungs, my head goes soft and I can't help but shiver. It's a feeling I associate with the cold air outside my parents' cottage.

My parents, I associate with smoke as well. My mother started as a young teenager, stealing them from her parents when they didn't know. This was a time when candles were more common, so if ever my nana asked her if she smelled smoke, my mother would reply, "I just put a candle out" (I find myself turning to similar lies when asked why my clothes smell so striking). My father, ever protester of the smoking experience, still has his cigars when out with his friends.

It's a social thing, that's what it's called. While it certainly makes time with others less anxious, perhaps even more enlightening, I'm brought to recall the mornings I've spent with my fan blowing smoke out the window. That calming feeling the odd hours of the morning summons within me goes as well with the rush of lightheadedness smoke brings as coffee does with the taste of cigarettes. No, my thoughts are that smoking is less a social thing and more a.. time-stopping thing.

Don't believe me? I understand. It's not time-stopping in the science fiction sense; it's probably a personal descriptor issue. My mind is always buzzing, and nothing had ever stopped it until I first breathed in that thick mist. The feeling is an acquired taste, not one I'm too proud of having acquired, but as long as it's there I appreciate it all the same.

Smoke isn't the brute's object; I associate it with a cold boy lost in thought.