Reminds me of herself.
The campus is lit with little auras of tungsten-yellow that hang overhead. Halos between lightposts are always almost close enough to touch. But that would cause the atom to split, so they stay well enough apart.
We decide to take a seat. I’m a fish in the big lawn where memories come to roost. The metal of the bench beneath me is mighty cold. My thigh is already stuck, and what’s more, through my jeans. If I were to stand, it might tear the jeans, then the skin beneath it. I’d rather be fused to the denim.
She pulls out a pack of cigarettes and I hold my hand out. She shakes her head and drops one into my waiting palm. It rolls off — I was too convex in my palming technique. It falls on the floor and the ants swarm.
Each chitinous boy and girl takes one shred — surely a scale bale to them — of tobacco.
Soon, all I’m left with is the crinkling paper shell and the rather unsatisfying filter. When they disperse I pick it back up and put it to my lips. It will be a quick smoke.
I’m about to light it when I realize there’s still one ant at the very tip of the paper. He’s standing on his hinds. His tiny antennae are swaying left and right. He puts his little arms into motion. Soon, his whole body is lost in the rhythm of some song I can’t hear.
Ah.
I pray for him.
He prays for me.
I set the cigarette back on the ground and he positions himself under the filter. He hefts (I think that I can hear him sigh) and begins the long, arduous journey to the end of his life. He understands that we all have our cigarettes. I wonder what kind of man he’ll become.
When the little guy and his new burden disappear into the carpet of the massive lawn, I look at her. She says, “I won’t give you another.”
I nod. I knew it. It wasn’t even worth asking.