Last Cigarette
I wake to the sun beating down upon my face, relentlessly yelling at me to open my eyes and take in its beauty. I lift my head and look at the red neon numbers of my clock which read 7:34. There is no dot in the left-hand corner so I know it’s the morning. I sit up and look out the window, cursing the sun for being so nagging. I am awake for ten minutes before the feeling begins to grow inside of me; it is a longing feeling which makes me sick. I know fighting this feeling is a struggle I won’t win, so I give in, grab my golden flip-top box and head for the door.
It has been months since anyone has described the weather as warm and inviting, so as I open the door that leads outside I assume I am about to be met by a barrage of angry winter wind. But this day is different; the nagging sun I detested twelve minutes ago turns out to be my best friend, as it is glad to spread its warmth throughout my frigid New York town. For the first time in months as I move away from the door, I do not regret going outside for the heinous, self-deprecating act of smoking my morning cigarette.
I open the top of my box and I am floored by the fact that rather than seeing a plethora of cigarette filters jammed together inside, all I see is my one lone lucky cigarette, which I had flipped upside down at the time of purchase, an act whose origins I did not understand but did any way out of habit. It is a terrible feeling to have one cigarette left at the beginning of the day, mainly because all I can picture in my head is my bank balance which is prefaced by a negative symbol. I know that after this cigarette is gone it may be a while before I can indulge in another one. It is too nice of a morning and my body already assumes it will be taking in that sweet deadly smoke, so I can’t let my body down and put the cigarette in my mouth.
Most people light their cigarettes with a cheap plastic lighter or a Zippo with some senselessly stupid monogram on the front which they use to show off mundane lighter tricks more than they use it to light their cigarettes. So in order to stand out even when I am the only one around like today, I use matches. Mainly because when I actually am around people it gives me a vintage feel, kind of like Humphrey Bogart or something. It has always been important to me to stand out from the crowd, I always feel as if I need to prove something. I strike a match successfully, thanks to a lull in the light cooling breeze, take a split second to smell the enticing aroma, then put it to the end of my cigarette, and suck in. It is now lit, and I being my five to seven minutes in my deadly heaven.
I stand here outside this apartment building at least five times a day so at this point there is nothing interesting to look at, so all my attention is on my cigarette. Every time I breathe in I can hear the paper burning as the pointy, grey, convoluted ash glows red at its base. I suck the smoke into my mouth, take the cigarette away, and let the smoke creep out of my mouth just a tiny bit, before quickly sucking it all into the bottom of my lungs. I blow the smoke out of my mouth up towards the sun, watch it rise and eventually disappear and become part of the diminishing ozone layer. I take another drag but this one doesn’t creep down to my lungs; instead I keep it in my mouth and blow thick smoke donuts, one after the other, that float and dance around in front of my face. They eventually break, diminish and disappear, magically floating throughout the air in every direction.
My head seems to become lighter and lighter every time I remove the filter from my lips. I can taste that familiar taste, the one that is exclusive to my 27’s, kind of like coffee or caramel or peanuts, some familiar flavor I can’t put my nicotine-stained finger on. It is sad to say, but overwhelmingly true that these short moments are the only ones in my life I can describe as bliss.
Then just like everything good in life, it begins to come to an end. The ash begins to get closer and closer to the “No. 27” inked just above the filter. The gleaming white paper begins to turn into a less impressive brown. I keep puffing, but let the smoke linger inside my lungs for just a few moments longer, trying to grasp onto the last moments of my happiness for today. Then the ash encompasses the No. 27 monogram and before I flick the excess ash off, I look at the grey mountain and see that the ink is still there. I don’t normally take the time to notice this, but when I do get the opportunity to see it, I am nothing short of impressed. After the remaining ink is vanished all that is left is the miniscule amount of tobacco just above the golden line that marks the end of the death stick. I manage to squeeze two last drags out and then it is over, and I reluctantly flick the filter far away from me, because I want to distance myself from the thought of no more cigarettes. I watch it summersault in a curving arc into the street, landing on the yellow line in the middle of the road. Somewhere in its trajectory the ember which was clasped on to a tiny piece of tobacco at the bottom separated and landed on the edge of the curb, still on fire. I stood there, outside the building watching the small piece of tobacco burn like a tiny signal fire.
I head back inside, ready to face anything the day has to offer, with the smell of smoke radiating off of my right hand, hair, and sweatshirt. It is a smell that most find sickening but for me it is a smell that conjures up unrelenting thoughts of happiness, and I can’t help but smile whenever I get a faint whiff. It is ironic that something that brings so much death and pain can give me such feelings of joy.
As I walk up the six flights of stairs that lead to my studio apartment I begin to feel lightheaded, but not in the way that I love, like when I am smoking, this is a feeling I do not enjoy. I keep walking and my head starts pounding, and my surroundings being to get lost in a dark fog. My left arm is numb, the whole left side of my body I numb, and I have never felt any pain like this before. I go to sit down on a step to catch my breath, but there is no breath to catch, and I fall down a few stairs onto a landing. I am dying, my best friend Phillip Morris is murdering me, and there is nothing I can do about it. The air that I have becomes less and less available. I have always wondered what something like this would feel like. So this is it, 19 years of scrapping together eight dollars every day to go to a gas station and buy another golden pack of cigarettes vandalized with Surgeon General’s warnings, has cultivated in this clichéd death, cold and alone from a heart attack. I just wish I could have---
The lawyer behind the huge mahogany desk stopped the tape, removed his glasses and looked across the desk at a young man with tears in his eyes and confusion on his face.
“So Mr. Rosenberg, what you are telling me is that the only thing my brother left in his will is these tapes of him narrating and describing his life?” Collin asked the lawyer.
