The Smoke Between Lives

Title: "The Smoke Between Lives"

There's been a feeling all my life that I must have lived many times over before this.

Something in me recalls an idea, and as I turn my blue lighter, the words sound just as clear as smoke in the air on a chilly day. A thousand people's lives are seen as a pile of papers ignored in a box.

The light flickers and shines a weak orange light on my hands. I do not like this colour because it is overly happy and cheerful. I probably got it from someone else. I rarely opt for gadgets with such a loud sound.

I have a cigarette hanging from my mouth. It's been some time since I smoked, but tonight, I feel like backtracking. Only in Sycamore Park's clearing can you witness the incredible sight of the sky beautifully streaked by stars.

I do not run the car. Not yet. The steering wheel feels uncomfortable, while the engine is excessively noisy. Therefore, I hop onto the car's hood and inhale my smoke, which slips into the open air like a spirit wandering its way.

Quiet surrounds this place with a blanket of green plants and darkening light. I hear it all: the broom of the breeze in the pines, my boots as they touch the metal, and a faint noise from distant car traffic. The crickets' song seems orchestral tonight and fits in with everyone else.

This is the place I used to go with someone. A woman. Her laugh was so sweet that it smelled like peppermint and rain. I might just have imagined her. When people have lived for many years, they may have so many memories that some fall away.

There's been a feeling all my life that I must have lived many times over before this.

Something in me recalls an idea, and as I turn my blue lighter, the words sound just as clear as smoke in the air on a chilly day. A thousand people's lives are seen as a pile of papers ignored in a box.

The light flickers and shines a weak orange light on my hands. I do not like this colour because it is overly happy and cheerful. I probably got it from someone else. I rarely opt for gadgets with such a loud sound.

I have a cigarette hanging from my mouth. It's been some time since I smoked, but tonight, I feel like backtracking. Only in Sycamore Park's clearing can you witness the incredible sight of the sky beautifully streaked by stars.

I do not run the car. Not yet. The steering wheel feels uncomfortable, while the engine is excessively noisy. Therefore, I hop onto the car's hood and inhale my smoke, which slips into the open air like a spirit wandering its way.

Quiet surrounds this place with a blanket of green plants and darkening light. I hear it all: the broom of the breeze in the pines, my boots as they touch the metal, and a faint noise from distant car traffic. The crickets' song seems orchestral tonight and fits in with everyone else.

This is the place I used to go with someone. A woman. Her laugh was so sweet that it smelled like peppermint and rain. I might just have imagined her. When people have lived for many years, they may have so many memories that some fall away.

I look at what seems to be a cigarette. Half gone.

I usually had vivid dreams back then. I would drift off and spend a lifetime as a dancer, sailor, thief, or widow. I can imagine the days I woke up regretting the lives I never had. Was that the beginning of the situation? A mind in motion finds difficulty settling down?

I've been reshaped countless times by the accounts I made for myself. I'm not feeling like myself tonight. A girl, clothed in something that is not hers, recalls memories as she stays with the moon's light.

I'd use it now if my camera could record smells, laughter, and a hurting chest when someone touches your hand. I could capture this area with smoke in my nose, the scent of pine and tar around, and silence in the atmosphere.

It gets shorter as the cigarette burns.

I might have the chance to live again for a hundred years. Start over and see how I can change myself. Find a different place to settle and give it a new name. But I may never be able to understand anything. Is the point about remembering instead of innovating?

Should I have stayed instead? In my mind as well as in the area around me.

I inhale my cigarette for quite some time. There is about thirty seconds left. I can twist them around. Savour this moment as long as you can.

Time can be very odd sometimes. Linear might not be the description. It might be fabric with frayed and knotted edges, and we can select the needle's stitching spot.

I could use the scraps to sew something fresh: a new life ashamed of the past.

Twenty seconds.

It appears the crickets change their pace in the direction of an unseen leader. As if the tune never ends, as old as the surrounding trees.

Ten seconds.

The air is moist and crisp, smelling of burnt tobacco and fresh soil. I let it fill the pieces of me that I believed were gone as I closed my eyes and took a deep inhale. 

Five seconds. 

I conclude that this is the picture. The choice to remember, not the sky or the smoke. 

A single second. 

And perhaps—just possibly—that is sufficient.