Smoke and Ashes

As he stepped outside, the ache returned. A nagging ache, a dull fire smoldering in his chest. The ache of too many people having disappeared too quickly. He blinked slowly, purposefully against the brightness. The first sunlight he remembered in days. Only fifteen minutes before he had to retreat back inside the concrete bunker housing the project's offices and labs. Back to a contentious conference room filled with people pretending nothing had changed, while he directed a team whose eyes and hearts were vacant.

A year ago, he and Jim Hunter had stood here twice a day, noting the color of cars as they passed, betting on which color would pass most often. Some days at lunch, they would wander around the park across the street discussing news from the morning paper or investments or whatever else came to mind. That was before Jim had left for his next assignment, one from which he wouldn't return, before he'd started smoking again. Alone, he stared through the newly erected chainlink into the green now out of reach. At least it still looked alive, unlike the faces of the people he'd left inside. Most were tired now, always tired. A few, the ones who still cared, were tense, waiting for the next disaster to negate their current efforts.

He squatted with his back against the stucco, his legs sore from the undercurrent of tension in the meeting. A cigarette would numb the ache, if only for a little while. Later, it would return, only worse. In an hour it would grow into a pounding. A pounding that would kindle a new fire that would burn through his chest with every breath. A pounding that would echo inside his head, coloring his world with a flashing red haze around the fringes of his vision. A pounding need for another cigarette he wouldn't have time to roll or smoke, only crave as an escape from the endless discussion over choosing a new direction that had droned on and on for days.

Without looking down, he pulled the tobacco pouch from his back pocket. He lifted its flap, pressing its sides until the cellophane crinkled into a familiar position and it remained open. He balanced the pouch on one leg, unbuttoning his shirt pocket and extracting the packet of cigarette papers with two fingers. He flicked the cover open and thumbed one out. One hand returned the thin package to his shirt pocket while the other sought the tobacco pouch, setting the loose paper within it. Instinctively his fingers steadied the pouch until his other hand finished tucking the papers away. His focus remained forward, soaking in the quiet green, not wasting a moment outside the gray and angry conference room.

With one hand he folded a crease into the paper to receive the loose, shredded leaves. How many days had he felt like that paper? A thin wrapper, nearly worthless for what he added to the final product. His only value in holding it all together. Like the paper, most days he felt thin, translucent and easily torn.

A crooked finger scooped a clump of brown leaves into the waiting crease, then worked it down its length. Index fingers and thumbs gently rolled the paper back and forth between them until the tangle of leaves smoothed themselves evenly within it. Then his fingers tucked one edge beneath the other while his thumbs exerted a steady pressure as they rolled the bundle up. He wasn't sure which was more satisfying, creating a cigarette from a flimsy paper and an untidy tangle of cut leaf, or savoring what it offered under a slow fire. Was that the same satisfaction his superiors felt as they issued the company its new directives? He was sure the paper felt none as he pulled a few stray leaves from its ends and dropped them back into the pouch to await his next craving. The lucky few.

For over a year he'd felt an unseen hand loading up his team with inexperienced recruits. The company had lost most of its veterans to the last debacle and the uncertainty that had followed. For months they had counted on him to hold the new people together, to guide them while they were rolled back and forth from task to task. Inevitably a few stragglers fell from his grasp back into someone else's pool. A constant pressure transformed the ones remaining into a tight, uniform team, sealing them together with the merest bit of spit or sweat or blood, ready to be burned at someone else's leisure.

He examined the newly formed cigarette in his hand. Perhaps he would sit and roll a half dozen more until the ache disappeared on its own as sometimes happened. He entertained the lie for a moment, though he knew he had little time. They would expect him back in a few minutes. It was either smoke this one now or save it until he would need it less. He rubbed a finger against his thumb and felt the slight drag from the resin that faintly stained both their tips. The oil that trapped the nicotine he now craved. If he raised his fingertips to his nose, he knew the scent would destroy his tentative calm. There was no saving a freshly rolled cigarette from its fate.

His fingers automatically flipped the cigarette between them and raised it to his lips. He fished the matches out from behind the papers in his shirt pocket, rattling the box even though he knew there were plenty of matches inside. The tray rasped as it slid against the cardboard cover. A fingernail hooked a wooden stem, pinching it against his waiting thumb. The tray complained again dryly as he slid it back into its protective cover. More pressure as a finger guided the match along the striker. It started in fits, sparking but not catching. Wisps of smoke trailed from each individual grain until one caught, consuming the others, willing or not. The match flared to life. A whiff of sulfur burned his nostrils, reminding him of his impending return to purgatory after this brief, smoky respite.

He held the flame to the cigarette poised on his lips, drawing steadily, evenly. A cool, refreshing breeze filled his body with that first breath. He savored the sensation, then let the tension flow out of him with the smoke he slowly exhaled. He sat without breathing for a moment, each cell of his body reveling in its satiated need. As always, he was tempted to crush out the remainder, knowing the next breath would turn to stale smoke that only tasted of ash. He wondered if his superiors ever felt the same impulse after they lit a team with a new assignment. Had they ever been tempted to crush one out after their initial enthusiasm was exhausted? He wondered if, like him, they were only driven by habit to complete their tasks, not knowing how to turn away from the possibility of a second first drag, however remote, and the renewed burst of pleasure it would bring. Just as he could never turn away from his mission.

He leaned against the rough concrete, watching the smoke crawl up his fingers into the still afternoon air. A narrow, gray pillar rose undisturbed until, caught in its own heat, it swirled with a flourish then disbursed into a thin, gray haze. How like his efforts of the past several months that smoke seemed. Even under the best conditions, he had no control over where events took his team, or how long they lingered. As people got caught in the turbulence of their day to day, their morale and motivation scattered until only a smoky film of either remained.

Another slow drag. He watched the red glow burn its way up the cigarette's shaft, leaving only delicate gray-white ash behind. Ash as fragile as the people who remained committed to the mission. A careless twitch of someone's fingers and they, too, would tumble to the pavement below. Hunter had disappeared after the last such twitch, like dozens of others before and since. At least half a dozen more were waiting to finalize their next assignments before they too fell away. Soon he would have no team left to hold together. Then what would he be? Just a burned out, empty shell.

Another pull drew the coal closer to his fingers, his reprieve now timed in breaths. Four breaths before he had to re-embrace the chaos within quickly became three. A long trail of smoke drifted up into two. His time was burning down whether he made use of it in or not. The ashen cylinder grew longer, more delicate. Individual cinder chips peeled off and floated away, just like the remnants of his team soon would. Finally, a single breath remained before his own time expired. Like the ashen paper, he realized he no longer held anything together except the fragile remains of what had once been called a team. They would drift off slowly, one by one with the slightest disruption. One more flick and he would join the others floating on air, settling back to earth only when the breeze allowed it. The possibility excited him in a way that patiently explaining an uncompromising reality to unreasonable people no longer did. His gaze lifted back to the park while his mind focused on the potential of something new, something meaningful. Something different.

When the unattended ember finally brushed his fingers, he dropped the unburned remains, crushing it beneath his heel as he turned and walked away.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III