Smoke

The jokers gathered for a few laughs smoking in Farmworth Park and then scattered while the sun was still high enough to navigate them to far-flung districts, like spiders legs from a central collective, to commit their separate capers, intoxicated on weeds, and latterly settle tired into sleeping bags. They came together like this and then separated on a daily basis, smoking themselves into an indistinct adventure that was becoming tiresome and the laughs fewer and fewer. Still they came until the giggles dried up entirely and all they were left to do was smoke and stare at each other and just think themselves into smaller and smaller spaces, then leave straight for their bedsits where they’d forget to eat and brush their teeth and squirm in their minds, thinking, smoking in isolation, until thinking was all they did, in streams, then loops and knots, then nooses. They no longer met and only long ago, forgotten now, remembered that they were the jokers, their coloured suits frayed, tattered, torn, and were now the taunted bums, the scraggly men and girls who wandered and mumbled but never spoke, wittered into windows, peered into open spaces, seldom left their bedsits. Secretly, intrepid and daunted into a paranoia they crept along, sightless to life’s object, cursed as they were into the delusions of their minds, to walk streets more furtive, tormented, to wither in shadows, and, in time, go unseen, unknown, and to all purposes disappear into that haunted presence known only to themselves; to smoke through, their salvaged haze of existence, the comfort of the familiar, scraggly, in never-replaced shoes, unwashed, beards to their toes, teeth sacrificed to the laws of neglected physiology, stooped and crippled they hobbled, sticks with sticks, broken men, taunted by a world of their own miscreation, smoking themselves to smoke, blown distantly and forgotten.

 

Kelvin Hellman sat in his room pondering all this and more besides, much more, smoking his third, or fourth, hopefully last of the evening, but who knew. Kelvin could only hope that after this one his fingers stopped doing it and he could sleep.

 

Kelvin Hellmen turned 26. He’d been smoking since 14 and continued smoking straight through the birthdays like they weren’t there and he wasn’t growing up at all, just disappearing. Weren’t we all? And he was right, his perspective all wrong, if he wanted to continue for much longer in this life but, reliant on the plants for sustenance in retreat, succour in regret, uncourageous in a stupidity of persistence, he smoked and smoked, lived and breathed, thinking and smoking himself into his hole.

 

He thought these thoughts, too, and more besides, much more, in his room, absent from the camaraderie of his housemates, who guffawed in malevolence of his sensitivity. Silent, solitary, all his accoutrements in there with him; safe from the violence of the high spirits, the menace of the thriving household beneath: food, kettle, mini cooker, growing his hair, calling his folks less and less, engaging with humanity on a scale of reduction, detoxifying from society into an impurity of chemically cursed subjectivity.

 

A student of literature, in an apathetic fight to complete university year three, a gifted student, but lost years ago to the notion of romance his genre instilled. Lamentably his artistry was limited to the quixotic concoction of character, devoid of any discernible creative talent, more a reader and critic than great source, though, too, his skills here were ebbing to third class perdition. This was his grief, a grief teased and tempted through smoke, consumed to jump start his juices. Alas, no joy, just stubs and nothing to show, save a few early and forlorn self-indulgent sentiments, the shells, a husk before sunrise, rejected from every forum of endeavour, taking to paints, pen, and dramatic performance equally maladroit, so into a dependence of plumes, his back flat against the wall, hair growing into an artwork of weaves, tying itself to the woodwork of floorboards, dragging him into it, into the prostration of last rest.

 

 

Reviews

[R J Askew]

There are some cracking dabs in this. Esp like: 'and squirm in their minds .. until thinking was all they did, in streams, then loops and knots, then nooses' and 'sticks with sticks.'

This is a great dab also, I love this: '.. continued smoking straight through the birthdays like they weren’t there and he wasn’t growing up at all, just disappearing.'

Great writing, mate. And for what it's worth I never noticed the commas as I was inhaling the meaning.

[Beck Louise]

Pretty grim, but very well written, so it really gets to the reader

[Yheela]

Very sad, depressing even.

[3rd Chance]

Consistently produced literary marvels that terrify and amaze with equal fervour.

[bill]

A grim story well told. An interesting little story of decline, addiction and despair which the faint of heart and the despondent should avoid.