Smokeless

As I was sitting at the kitchen table, swirling my spoon in the cocoa drink I was supposed to be drinking, this is what came into my head. I didn't know the direction my thoughts were going in but in the end, this is what I was with. You don't have to like it if you genuinely don't like it.

Watching the cocoa powder and the milk swirl with each other in the an unbreakable and languid dance, stimulated by my spoon whenever they returned to their places, all I can think about is smoke. His smoke. He always said he would never stop smoking. The tendrils of smoke, lean and purple, curled and drifted around him as he spoke. His mouth, his smokers' mouth, spoke with such a solid and self-assured tone, but his eyes... his eyes were green and hidden behind his thick frames... They told a different story.

His mouth was resilient and his nose was proud. His tongue was stubborn but his eyes, the windows of his soul, always told me to stay hopeful. I never thought he would stop; I knew he would. Smoking was his pleasure but it was also his pain. Nothing else in the world brought him more pain. (He never knew his pain until he stopped). Being a strong man, he would never admit to being under the control of anything, but he knew was under the control of the White Stick. It was torment.

Every memory I have of him is infused with smoky spirals, dancing shapelessly, shadowing the pictures in my head. It was always how I knew him; but not always as I saw him.

Finally here he is and I can happily say he's the man I always saw; corrupted, and frustratingly stubborn but at least he's smoke-free.