pandemonium + d.m. & h.g. & h.p.

01

SMOKE | smœk |

He is conflicted. She always comes by his house and force herself within his reach, but she cannot. He locks the door when he hears her car door slam outside his house. When she climbs the fragile, wooden stairs to his home, he goes into his room, and she will hear the door shut close. The sound always echoes throughout the godforsaken neighborhood, waking the smell of death and his self-deprecation. The atmosphere, cold and unforgiving, is ofttimes irenic, but his mind works in a caliginous and assorted structure.

Regardless of their situation, she never gives up. In every conscious day and per lidless night, she parks her car in front of his house. And everyday, the spot between the lamp post and the mailbox of his home is inhabited by her unpredictable sojourn. She will ascend the dying strength of the stairs that leads to his front porch and sit, waiting for the suspiration that escapes his pallid lips and the thundering sound of his strides as he approaches the smirch next to her sylphlike soma. They would sit in silence, then she will twist her head, reaching over her bag and take out a box of cigarettes.

He appresses his eyes when he inhales the familiar scent of smoke and her perfume. It is ever the vanilla one she wears, and he wonders if he can taste the skin around her bones and finally come to a conclusion.

She is seated outside his porch now. She had came out of her car carrying a paper bag. He guessed that it was food, seeing as she had been eating on her way out. She is nearly polished on her part of their unspoken routine, and he knows that he should do his, to obviate her incessant sounding on his threshold. He can't afford to buy a new one.

He can't afford to let her in.

She gives him a once-over when he finally walks out of his shadowy house, not smiling-not even a lour, but her warm amber eyes told him a different story. She curtly nods at his attendance, and he squats to his knees and lands on his behind with a soft thud. A vellication of her lips breaks the facade she was displaying, and she turns to the spot he occupies, drinking him in.

They take a long look at each other. Her tepid, bright amber eyes and his cold, dark gray ones are an austere contrast from a different perspective, but both know that they are analogous; they are utterly inanimate.

She let her arms fall behind her, and her hands rest on the dusty cement. She leans back, moving quietly to not ruin the serene silence that surrounds them. She eyes the purple sky hastily as her thoughts allowed her mind to swim in her head, splashing into the emptiness, engulfed by her tortured mentation. An asphyxiating suspiration loosens from her lungs, slicing through the mass of dense ambiance.

Then, she turns. Twisting her body to reach her battered, ebony bag between her unclean, decrepit, achromatic boots. He awaits the well-known, cerulean box and she takes out two cigarettes. She stretches her arm and hands him one.

The glare he gives her is toxic, but she is used to his life-threatening expressions that she only shrugs it off. Returning the rejected cigarette, she alights the tip of her own with a lighter and breathes in the phytotoxin of the stick. He watches with apparent, yet chained enchantment at the visibility of her relief as the smoke paints a picture in the air.

She slenderly smiles at his exuberance. The one he fails to cover every single time.

He bends down and snatches her bag, taking out the cerulean box and unveils the lid. He picks his desired coffin nail and lights it instantly, taking a curt drag of his own.

When the absence of noise finally returns to haunt them both, he absentmindedly holds her hand and sees the tears fall on her cheeks.