A Breath

So it happened again. Feeling the skin of his face burning with fear, he bent his head trying to avoid eye contact. She passed by. He smelled her. No one knew.He guided her beloved to pain figure until it disappeared in the city’s twilight. He took a cigarette from the right pocket and fired up. A deep breath of smoke. Another. And another. His motionless figure was alone in the street now. He murmured Her name. Thoughtless. A state of desire and agony. Agony of a dream that is doomed not to come true.

‘What am I doing here? I hate You, bitch’

He turned willing to take his way home. Made a step and stopped. Then turned back. Took another cigarette and sat on the low edging of a playing ground. A deep breath of smoke. So tasteful this time. He counted the second storey from the top and found Her windows. A flashback. Then again reality. He forgot about his cigarette. It had reduced to dust.

Smoking the third one he remembered the day he first came here. He swallowed the taste of that reminiscence. The taste of happiness.

‘Smoking kills’, - he read on the packet of cigarettes and took one more. Cupping his hands against the wind, he set the cigarette alight. Threw it and went home.

She never knew.