Flurry

I flicked the lighter three times, until the end of the cigarette was aflame. Though now committed to muscle memory, then, to that fourteen year old girl, it was such an unfamiliar action. 

As was the deep inhale which followed it. The taste hadn't been what I had expected. Was it better? Worse? Both?

The night was quiet, besides the smouldering of tobacco and paper. 

Before long, the taste - regardless of its much-debated pleasantness - became unnoticed. As did the motions of holding this tube between two fingers, and removing it from my pursed lips between each inhalation.

A light-headedness soon came over me. Not nauseously so; but calmingly. Like a gradual dissipation of my thoughts. Of my memories.

The pain. The humiliation. The fear.

The deep, omnipresent fear that had now seeped its way into every vessel, every organ of my being. A cancer. Destructive and malignant. 

Then, I am brought back into the moment, by a damp cold on my nose. White and glistening. More snowflakes begin to descend from the night above, and I feel each one upon my skin.

My cigarette, now, is almost spent.

In this white flurry, the fear retreats.

For now, all is calm.

For now, all is well.