Outside the bar, people smoked cigarettes that smelled like memories. With each drag they experienced a snippet from their past. I buzzed through the looming cloud, holding my breath to avoid catching a whiff of someone’s first day of school.
Two blocks later, I pondered what memory I’d choose to live if I had one of those cigarettes. I had to shake off the temptation. Smoking the past is a vicious addiction. Everyone who’s tried it is in a perpetual state of trying to quit, always telling themselves the next cigarette will be their last. It’s too easy to keep saying, “Just one more memory.”
e-marginalia 