I bought ten packs of cigarettes and hid them in all my bags.
After twenty years, I’ve fallen again into my favourite sin.
It feels so fucking good that I regret I ever stopped.
I hide and smoke while walking through the forest.
I smoke. Then I run.
Then I smoke. Again. Then I run. Again.
Training for a marathon while coughing every few meters.
After inhaling and exhaling the mixture of smoke and pine scent, I get home and sit at my laptop.
I write, with a cigarette in the corner of my mouth.
Staring at the blank page, I puff, choke, and type furiously.
The sound of the letters caresses my hearing.
If I could see his face right now, I’d grab him by the collar, I’d look into those green eyes of his
and ask him, “Did you screw her? Is that why you’ve gone quiet? Feeling guilty again?”
Damn you, stupid man, and the moment I let you into my life!
I’m tired of this story. I have to end it. Kill it like a smelly cockroach from every dusty corner of
my mind.
I suffocate. I breathe. Up and down, in and out. Lingering in the in-between. Into the almost, the
only place where I can breathe.
But I need to act. Step into the arena.
So, licking my wounds, I decided to quit smoking.
I take the cigarette packs and hide them in the bags I’ll never touch.
I put them on the top shelf of the closet. I won’t be able to reach for them there. I’m too lazy to
climb a high chair. And I know that if I change my mind, there’s always an open shop nearby.
I’m smiling, thinking it would be so easy to throw him up there, too, on the highest shelf.
But it doesn’t work like that.
He’s on another continent. In another life. And I can’t, damn it, I can’t get rid of him.

The calendar shows December 24th. Must be a mistake, and I choke on the fifth coffee I’ve had
this morning.
How can it be Christmas Eve already, and I don’t know anything? I turned off my laptop, put my
phone in my pocket and left, walking through the neighbourhood of houses I’ve lived in for over
twenty years.
Looking left and right, I notice the holiday decorations. Yeah, it really seems like Christmas is
coming.
The phone rings. My daughter.
– Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. No, I don’t have the flu. Where would I get it from? I’m either home or
in the forest. From the bears? No, love, I’m not doing anything for Christmas. You know I don’t
like the holidays. No-no-no, I will not go to your uncle’s house. Don’t even start that. Okay, fine,
talk later.
Annoying. She’s just like her grandmother. “Family.” “Holidays.” “Dinner together.”
Who cares about that? A boring waste of time filled with small talk and eating too much.
Her father left me for someone else, and I couldn’t care less.
She was younger and blonder. And I was not surprised.
Actually, I was relieved when he left, as I didn’t have to see his sour face every morning at
breakfast. He’d sit at the table staring down, puffing. If he saw that I wasn’t impressed by his
attitude, he’d grab his phone, arrange his big grey moustache, and watch some doomsday news.
He knew, of course, how much it pissed me off to start the morning like that.
I used to get angry, take my coffee in a metal mug, and go for a walk. I’d only come back once I
knew he’d left. I’d spy from behind a wild walnut tree at the edge of the oak forest.
When his silver BMW sports car disappeared in the distance, I breathed a sigh of relief, then
quickly headed home. Not to miss a single moment of freedom.
Now the phone lights up. New message. Green-Eyes.
I don’t need this.
A friend calls and bluntly tells me, "Delete him."
I check the notifications to see what he wrote. Oh… cute, he’s busy with his new girlfriend.
Cooks dinner with her. My stomach turns upside down. Oh, he knows he’s disappointing me,
sweet of him. Bastard. May the carrots be bitter and the coriander rotten.
I listen to Queen. “Another One Bites the Dust.” The soundtrack of my life.

He’s lucky he’s not in front of me. I swear. I think I’d absorb his lips and hold him against a
wall, reminding him that he’s mine. She can have the dust after the wind blows hard.
I close my eyes and feel like crying. Why did I let him in?
I should’ve ignored him. Fuck it. I just wanted to… never mind. I never cared about him
anyway.
Getting back home, I open a new file. “The Mistake of My Last Five Years.”
I start typing. Crying. Typing and crying.
Shit, I could use a smoke. Instead, I slap myself twice. Once on every cheek.
Then I get an idea. I go outside. Light the fire in the pit on the terrace. Breathe deeply.
When I see it blazing, I count to twelve, and I laugh, and I dance.
I grab the phone.
“I hope the food turned out well. With your little girlfriend, of course. Have a perfect little life.
Screw you.”
I press send.
I laugh, and I enjoy it so much I begin to shake, and I’m high from the relief.
Then I take my expensive phone, the one my daughter gifted me, and throw it into the flames
that rise above the ground-floor windows. Plastic curls, screen blacks, and those green eyes flare
one last time in the fruit-shaped glow before dying.
I don’t have his number anymore. And he’s far away, not like I can knock on his door.
I exhale. Fuck, I’m finally free!
A bit of weed apparently remained in my pocket, and I’m rolling one last joint.
Inhale deeply. Exhale. Walk away.
The doorbell rings. I let the children in and listen to their carols.
My yard smells like ashes, smoke and evergreen.
I feel a tight knot in my chest, and I rush into the yard.
Looking at the ashes, anxiously, I try to remember his phone number.
Then, my face lights up like a Christmas tree.
He always knows where to find me.
Don’t you?