New novel I started on...
Smoke curls lazily into the air from the end of the joint. Unaffected by drafts or gusts of wind, it is free to make its own path, rolling in upon itself as it climbs to greater heights and, inevitably my ceiling. It’s hard not to admire the beauty of smoke, especially when the light hits it at the right angle. It drifts upward in a path its own; so free, so calming, so magnificently beautiful. It takes a road of twists and turns until it inevitably reaches my ceiling and dissipates.
The glowing ember is drawn slowly, eating away at the herb and paper to sustain itself. Eventually it becomes too hot and starts to burn at my fingers; I have to lift my balls up from the seat to drop it into the toilet. The embers’ last hisses of protest are quickly silenced as the water claims it.
I wipe my ass real quick and flush everything away, stepping directly into the shower afterwards. The blast of water is arctic cold and I have to adjust the hot and cold in a hurry. The water doesn’t take too long to move to a more comfortable temperature and I am able to just stand there and zone out for a while.
I reflect on what I’ve just done and start laughing when it occurs to me that I just took single the most spiritual shit of my life. And now I am going through the cleansing process. It’s all very funny; to me anyway.
Man, I’m such a fuck-up stoner. I didn’t used to be like this, though.
After I got out highschool I stopped smoking weed when I met a girl. I had fallen quickly in love with her. We were great together. She asked me to stop smoking and I did. Just like that I quit, cold turkey.
It wasn’t even a big deal. I didn’t go through any withdraw and I actually started to lose weight. I didn’t have the munchies all the time anymore and I wasn’t too lazy to get up and actually do things. My friends were all really disappointed with my decision, mostly because they used to get their weed off of me. I was the hook-up.
When I stopped smoking I realized that all those guys did was smoke weed. Getting high was fun and all, but it shouldn’t be smoked all the time. I didn’t visit them all that much anymore because I didn’t want to watch them all smoke pot and lose the ability to form coherent thoughts.
I spent all my time with my girl. My every thought was of her, she was everything to me. She actually believed in me. I asked her to marry me and she accepted. We moved in together, got an apartment and I started working while she finished up school.
I made decent money fixing computers and had a savings account growing for the wedding. The plan was to be married when she finished up school. We would live the rest of our days as husband and wife.
Then she started acting real distant and I heard that she had been sleeping around. I didn’t believe it at first, but one night I followed her to a school event bonfire thing and found out for myself. Maybe it sounds creepy, but I had to know. And they were right.
I saw her making out with some muscle bound jock mother fucker and left the party fighting back tears. I made it back to the apartment and starting packing her shit up and setting it by the door. I had plenty of time to write out a note, since I figured she be fucking for a little while. “I saw you at the bonfire but didn’t say hi. I packed your things for you.”
Then I stormed out of the apartment and went to drink the night away at some sparsely populated tavern. I didn’t return home for three days, staying in little motels and wallowing around in misery. I treated my condition with alcohol and tears.
The night has been replayed over and over again in my head countless times. There are many things that I wish I had done differently. Sometimes I think I should have walked up to her at the party and let her know that we were through, the verbiage of that fantasy varies from time to time. In other recounts I walked up to the guy, punched him across the face and knocked him over before telling her to fuck off. Other times I act as though I don’t know anything, then fuck her one last time and let her know afterwards; to use her as she’d been using me.
But it doesn’t matter how I play it back; it all comes out the same. I didn’t do what I should have done. I didn’t do anything, in fact. I just ran away. And when I got back she was gone. Gone from my life forever, for the most part anyway.
She called a few times, left messages on my machine; said she was sorry. She made some excuses, but I could tell in her voice that she didn’t believe that any of them would be effective in getting through to me; none of them enough to make me forgive or excuse her. Towards the end she actually a threw out a “we weren’t married yet anyway”. She said it to the machine anyway of course, I didn’t pick up. I just played the messages back. Over and over. Eventually she stopped calling.
I started drinking on a regular basis; started hanging out with my friends again; and started smoking weed again. Because I was smoking weed again, I realized that my friends smoked some swank shit, so I contacted my old sources and started hooking them up again.
Between the pot and the computer repairs I made enough to cover the bills and save up more cash. I added a bit here and there to the apartment, shit I’d never have been able to have had she still been with me.
I ran away and never got over the break up. I’m still not over it, really. It happened almost a year ago, and I’m still not over it. I haven’t seen anyone since; lady-wise. I haven’t even tried. I’m the fat kid again that everyone likes but no one believes in.
This is what my life has become. I’m just treading water sometimes, and more often than not I feel the undertow trying to pull me under.
Labels: novel, smoke, story, writing
