Nicotine

There was a woman who smoked. Smoke was an escape, an interval of time carved out from its magnanimous continuity, for her and her alone. Often drowned in wisps of the white cloud, she would pick up pieces of reality between her fingers, neatly and throw them, as far as she could. If they found their way back to her again, it was time to light another one. Long bouts of such vague hours, spent in between consciousness and unconsciousness filled up phases of her nights. The woman who smoked.

As the nicotine filled her nostrils and lungs, flowed through her blood for a while, the nerves in her head went off to snooze. An artificial high of sorts dictated her thoughts. Though sometimes she cried too, she laughed hysterically, inhaled and exhaled. Looked back at the past, looked down at the past, mocked at it thick-skinned, unaffected, immune.

When overwhelmed, like said, she cried. Drops of tears, scanty though, wet her lashes and slipped out when she closed her eyelids. With every such drop removed from her conscious were stashes of regret, failure, wrongdoing, like undone. And the woman sighed in relief, short-lived though.

This was her one chance to take control of the things that had for long been evading. One chance to renounce all imposed myths of inferiority. Emerging from behind the shadows, and flying away like an angel. She laughed, like mad this time, lighting the next from the present, trying to stretch her escape into deeper hours of the night. Not letting any truth loiter around her being for a radius mile-wide.

12 comments:

Ana said...

Wow, you really unravelled the darkness of nicotine in this post. Very well written :)

The Sage said...

sad...

Priyanka said...

I came to the post lured by the addictive name... and was forced to comment on this brazen act of camaraderie. Kudos, wildflower!

Blasphemous Aesthete said...

All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down

Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse


~Verve

One question, How long?

Blasphemous Aesthete

Hopelessly Flawed said...

the last line is beautiful

wildflower said...

Ana
Your name reminds me a German friend I once had, so Danke! :)

Rishi
What is not?!

Pepe
:) You saying this means a lot, I assume there is an underlying understanding between us in this regard!

BA
As long as my life makes it. What is it worth anyway!

hopelessly flawed
I am beginning to appreciate the total dearth of grammar in writing ;)

The Sage said...

quite a lot is sad... and yet, quite a bigger lot is not... :)

Miss D said...

I am going to look forward to that one happy post whenever it comes.

D2 said...

Very sad. I could say that nicotine does help cure momentary relapses of discomfort; when the smoke reaches the head, it all goes away.

wildflower said...

Rishi
Hmm.. that realization is the tipping point of life!

Enchanta
Some people just do not know how to be happy! They put in a constant effort to be unhappy.

D2
Yup, cigarette smoking is injurious to health. I wouldn't want to be guilty of even trying to justify it.

$uch! said...

i loved dis post

wildflower said...

Babe, I know