The Smoker

… my memories grew like a column of cigarette ash, laid down by the infinitesimal sliver of combustion that was my consciousness, marking the sequential present.

– Ted Chiang, “The Story of Your Life”

Unless I specifically inform you otherwise, I’m always smoking another cigarette.

– Martin Amis, Money

1. A lot of people hate their first, but I loved mine. Walking with friends at night, fifteen, the orange glow of embers like a gothic Tinkerbell, the ritual of standing still while others wait, lighter cupped in hand against the breeze.

2. My brand was B&H. They came in a crass gold box, high tar, decadent and deadly.

3. My parents didn’t know I smoked; perhaps they never knew. Before I went to bed, I would open up the window, leaning out over the sill into the garden where the cinders fell, exhaling fiercely. I would stub the cigarette out on the red brick wall.

4. Making out with a smoker is like licking an ashtray, so they say. But I enjoyed it: the aroma of dead campfires, charred taste o…