White Spirals

-She started smoking, shortly after the last time he saw her, shortly after the last time she saw him. She used to tell him, “only you, smoke like they do in the movies,” she’d say this with a laugh. She meant, one drag after another, often, lighting one cigarette with the dying ember of the other. So many years gone by and this is what she remembers. This is part of the reason she started smoking. It wasn’t a cool Joe Camel ad, or the masculine facade of the Marlboro Man. It had nothing to do with a corporate image, an icon of ‘cool,’ but rather with the image of him. Not the last time she saw him, but rather from all those moments they had shared. That last time really wasn’t the best impression of him she had, she tried not to hold onto that one.
At first it hurt her lungs, she started coughing. She wondered, right after she had taken that first drag, why? what had compelled her. But there was something about it. She remembered how when he’d light up and smoke through a succession of cigarettes, it would leave them sitting, or standing in a haze. It was almost ethereal. Everything else blurred out slightly, that which was most real was found in the center of the fog. His eyes, a little irritated by the smoke, would glimmer just slightly with the light that made it through the fog, their fog. She remembered also, every time they embraced before parting, she would inhale deeply, his scent, but mixed in there, was always the hint of smoke. It grew on her, just like he grew on her. It became impossible for her to imagine him, without imagining a whiff of smoke spiraling near him.
It had been on one of those low-tide Mondays. She had been sitting in her dorm room, on the third floor, staring out the window at the crashing waves. It was not uncommon then, for her to think of him, often. There was something about the way the waves crashed and water splashed upward in a spiral, droplets falling on the retreating surf. The image came to her, and she could see him clearly, inhaling deeply, another red. She had been feeling numb and lonely. It brought her a smile, weak, but a smile nonetheless. And as she sat there, the ocean disappeared. It became an abyss of smoke and she felt he was somewhere in there. Then as the sun began to set, it became nothing more than a bright haze, covering over everything.
She stood up from the wooden chair she had been sitting on and turning around, facing her room, her life, she had one of those moments. By then, she had become accustomed to them. She simply smiled, another weak smile, at the realization that she was there. She was there, in her room, in that dorm on the third floor, on the University campus, miles away from home. The home she didn’t feel was home. She had told him this, on one of the few occasions he didn’t smoke through half a pack. She had looked at him and told him, “it feels like I don’t have a place. Sometimes, I just want to leave, really far away.” She didn’t go far enough, she thought, as she recalled how long it would take her to jump in her car and drive back down to that place she had left.
She walked through the dorm, out to the hallway and out the glass double doors, with the slide card entrance. She stood there, her gaze trailing off toward the parking structure, wondering where she could go. It hit her then, the thought of a cloud of smoke. There was something comforting in it. An urge stirred in her, an urge to find it, an urge to create it, that comforting cloud. Lost in the thought, in the urge, she inhaled deeply. It felt empty, the air. It was suffocating. She pressed her eyes down, hard. All she could see were white spirals, lifting into the space of her thoughts.
She barreled down the streets. It was night and dark. The few street lamps lighting the way flickered as she passed. She blasted the guitar solo by Santana on her stereo. This too, may have been part of the reason why she started. The song reminded her of that night, a year ago. They had spent hours sitting on the cold iron bench, at some theme park. That memory, still scented of him and a hint of smoke. This was one of the memories she held close. It had been Santana’s same solo guitar riff that played on the radio, as they cut through the night. It was this same disc, which had not left her stereo, her car, for months now; each time reawakening that hint of smoke.
Her eyes became glossed over, she could feel their warmth. She opened the window and let the cold wind pour in. Staring at the road, she could feel the welling up inside and she let them fall, her eyelids, heavy, taking a deep breath of cold empty air. Gasping, her eyes snapped open, tears falling, she swerved. Her tires and the rim crashing against the center divider. She slowed to a stop, before pulling in to the parking lot of the grocery. A sign, she thought. Then, just as quickly as the thought had come, she let go of it and ignored it; getting out of her car and making her way to the automatic sliding door.
She hesitated as she stepped inside. The little red boxes lined up in the cubbies behind each register. A smile struggling to form on her lips, she walked down the aisles, weighing the thought, thinking. Comfort. She looked down at her pale fingers, imagining holding a cigarette. In all that time, she had never taken the cigarette from him. Once, she had taken the pack and pretended to throw it out the window, but she had never taken a cigarette out of his hands, much less inhaled from it. As she looked at her fingers, she held out two, folding the others in toward the palm, as she remembered him doing, as she had seen so many people do. Her eyes, still a little watery, she brought those two fingers up to her lips and inhaled, nothing but cold stale grocery store air. She could taste the emptiness. She quickly unfolded her fingers and stared at her hand.
Quickly, she unwrapped the little red box, taking out the middle cigarette. She remembered he’d always turn this one over. She didn’t have time. She knew if she didn’t light it soon, she might back away from the urge, from the thought, from the possible comfort. She shook a bit as she held the cigarette in her hands, lifting it to her lips. It trembled she trembled, as she fussed with the matches, one after the other being blown out by the wind. Finally, she managed to keep one lit until it reached the end of the cigarette. She inhaled and she could feel its burning sensation down the length of her throat and into her lungs. She exhaled quickly coughing and wondering, is this what he feels. She stared at the cigarette, burning, wondering, why?
She didn’t try again that night, but she kept the pack with her and pulled it out, whenever she thought of white spirals, whenever she sensed that hint of smoke. She held onto it for so long before she started smoking, when she did, she was barreling down the freeway, the Santana solo filling the air, as she made her way back to that place she had left.
She never smokes a succession of cigarettes. She never smokes, as she remembers he used to, but she smokes on nights, now, years later, before she goes to bed, when she thinks of him.