text: Cigarettes are a little deal. I trade a single bit of nicotine for a little bit of life. And I would like to think that it isn’t such a bad deal if done in moderation. But today, I know that I feel generous about my side of the bargain. I’ll trade it all for some nicotine, and I want a cigarette and some water, so I walk to the Exxon near the Red Roof Inn. It’s raining, and walking along the suburban landscape, on overgrown grass, and across the crumbling streets of Michigan feels forlorn into itself. The sidewalk is for walking, but it isn’t meant for walking either. No one walks here. I walk into the gas station, and the older eastern European man stops mopping and goes behind the counter. Why does he need to sit behind the counter at all? You could keep mopping I think to myself. I grab water, and then at the counter, I ask for an American spirit blue. The gas station is ultra-compact, and each inch on the wall is packed with some convenience good. Shampoos, ramen, everything you could need. Somehow gas stations with less space fit even more than a sprawling store. The man hands me the packet of cigarettes. “Blue and blue, heh,” pointing out the matching lighter I picked. I didn’t mean to. I am faced with two PoS and wonder what that’s always the case at these kinds of places. He points to the older-looking PoS, and I swipe for the cigarettes. I want to smoke; I need to smoke right now. Anything to “calm my nerves,” as they say in the books I’ve read. I don’t even know if that’s how it works for me, I’m kind of a novice and poseur smoker. I thank the man and walk outside. It’s still raining, and I light the stick and walk back to the red roof inn. Something about holding the stick makes you feel inherently cool, even when you feel depressed. I am at one moment thinking about how my family would be shocked if I killed myself, especially after the family wedding two weekends ago, where I seemed so happy, and on the other hand, thinking how I must look cool when I exhale. I try to think more about the cigarette than the other thoughts and how I can placate that want of a big death with this little death. If there’s cancer, it will just be the will of that first, but until then, I smoke, inhale, and take each little death one breath at a time. Does this calm my thoughts? I don’t know. I think of Miyazaki, and how he said this cigarette tastes like it has extra arsenic. How can a man who makes happy media be so sad? Can I taste that or does the ashen taste of tobacco taste like how it does? And I mean, I fucking hate the taste of American spirit blues. I don’t know why I smoke them when I can, maybe it’s because of what some of my friends do, and it’s what I know. I don’t know. The taste is starting to be much, and I put it out early. I mean, I’m a novice smoker, and It’s a whole pack; smoking it all would be heroic. I walk back to my room. There’s something so sad about it. I am alone in this sad room, one that feels like any other roadside motel I have stayed at. There are all the things you expect from a hotel, a fridge, a mediocre shower, and a microwave. It feels like everywhere I’ve stayed before in one room, yet it feels like nowhere at all. I push my key into the door, and I step inside. Is this a cage? Do you think this is a trap? Or am I tucked into the netherworld, a pocket space different from any other? When I cross the threshold, I go to a place away from the world I know. I have the blinds closed, and I cannot see outside. I feel tucked away into myself, unto the world, and the cold air of the hotel is of little comfort. I am in a place I have never been before, yet I have been before in so many different times. On road trips with my parents, alone in another state, together with strangers on a journey. But in this state, in this room, I am somehow more alone and more gone from the world than I have ever been. I am tucked into this pocket universe and might as well be the only one alive once I step across the door. I have my little backpack with me. The way it’s packed, it could be a business trip if I knew it was not. Is this how every man feels when he’s not welcome home anymore? I want to die a little death again, but I pause instead. What would she think, or hell, is she even thinking of me at all? I want to think so, but I know that maybe I am the one flattering myself. Like the little deaths I’m craving right now, our relationship, too, died many little deaths along the way. And maybe I wasn’t paying attention when the final breath was taken, and I have just been playing corpse instead. And now I’m here, wishing for my little death to happen to me much faster. I decide to go for another smoke. It’s not like she or I would care, for that matter. I open the door, and it’s still raining. Is it the same world I left, or maybe this pocket universe opened to another one, just like the one I knew. Maybe one where things are okay, and I don’t need these little deaths. I sit on the bench near my door and light another cigarette. The cigarette still tastes all the same in the rain.