Darling Clementine

One

Google once told me that every cigarette you smoke, it’s seven minutes off your life. Today I had easily shaved twenty minutes off my life clock today alone― save for the thirteen other packs I had smoked before then.

That’s a thousand and ninety two minutes I won’t get back. I should have been vexed or even scared, but as I inhaled another long sip of nicotine into my mouth, I easily came to terms with damage I was doing to myself.

Clearly, the wants out weigh the needs.

I tipped my head back and blew the smoke through my lips. Watching the wisps smoke swirl up and dissipate into the black sky above, I heard shuffling from behind the front door before the porch light flickered on. I quickly flicked the cigarette over the railing and leaned against the wooden post with my head craned, pretending to watch the stars.

Vivian said my name evenly from behind me. “it’s time to come in.”

I spun on the heels of my boots, shoved my hand in my jean pocket—grasping my plastic BIC lighter in my fist—before padding across the porch and stepping inside the house.

My smoking habits were known by Vivian. To make a rather long and boring story short, she had gone through my belongings one afternoon when I was out on a delivery run and she found my old altoids tin that reeked of cloves that I kept in my ornate jewelry box.

When I arrived home, she threw the tin at my feet and did what all disappointed Grandmothers do. No she didn’t cook me a homemade meal, give me a hug and give me a calm lecture about the dangers of smoking. Instead she screamed at me. She asked all those cliché and inane questions you hear in bad drama movies: “What is the matter with you?!” “What would possess you to do such a thing?!” “I am so disappointed in you!”. And me being the “defiant”— as Vivian called it— teen that I am, I screamed back cliché and inane responses. In the end my smoking addiction was far from cured. I ended up smoking more to curb the anxiety Vivian gave me.

Vivian was my drill sergeant of a grandmother . She and I stood on uneven ground― never seeing eye to eye. Constantly, we were always at each other’s throat. We were practically thrusted into one another’s life with no forewarning or room for adapting, and I will admit I gave her a hard time. But was I remorseful about it? Not at all. But Vivian never took my shit. She always had the upper ground, the last say. It made my life that much more miserable.

With the personality of a military general and the sympathy of a brick, it’s clear to see why we clash. Her face was carved with wrinkles and her skin was blotched with little brown marks that signified her age was beginning to catch up with her. Her eyes were always dark, a hard rocky brown that could bore holes through the strongest souls.

I kicked off my converse and padded across the carpeted foyer and into the dining room, taking the chair at the end of the six seater rectangle wooden fossil of a table. I eyed the plate of food in front of me with a raised brow: a green salad, a slab of baked chicken breast, corn and a steamed buttery bread roll.

That was strange. Vivian hated to cook. My first guess was maybe she was bored. Or maybe she was trying to poison me. Either way, I was suspicious.