Hourglass
Cigarettes and Familiar Places
Thirty-five, and my life is over.
I take another drag from my cigarette, watching clouds of smoke puff out the open over the bustling Champs-Élysées. The afternoon sun is filtering in lazily.
I uncross my legs and turn away from the open window, surveying the spacious room. It’s a good apartment, I decide, although I’m certainly paying through the nose for it. Dented cardboard boxes dot the walls. They are filled with old photographs, magazines, VHS tapes. I sigh and turn back to the window. A fat tourist is gesticulating wildly at a zooming taxi, while a tall trench-coated woman clutches her cell phone to her ear and walks briskly down the wide sidewalk. Paris. I feel myself smile.
Something out in the city is calling me, an odd, familiar pull, slinking in little alleyways, shying away beneath umbrellas in the street cafes. However, the thought of going out does not appeal. Every now and then, someone on the street will recognize me. A hushed whisper, a pointed finger, a shy question.
“Look,” they’ll say as I pull my sunglasses down over my eyes, hunching my shoulders, “look it’s Natasha Steel.” I correct them in my mind. Was Natasha Steel.
However, the constant hunger pangs in my stomach seem less appealing than a few odd stares. Winding a green pashmina around my neck, I step out into the Parisian afternoon.
I take another drag from my cigarette, watching clouds of smoke puff out the open over the bustling Champs-Élysées. The afternoon sun is filtering in lazily.
I uncross my legs and turn away from the open window, surveying the spacious room. It’s a good apartment, I decide, although I’m certainly paying through the nose for it. Dented cardboard boxes dot the walls. They are filled with old photographs, magazines, VHS tapes. I sigh and turn back to the window. A fat tourist is gesticulating wildly at a zooming taxi, while a tall trench-coated woman clutches her cell phone to her ear and walks briskly down the wide sidewalk. Paris. I feel myself smile.
Something out in the city is calling me, an odd, familiar pull, slinking in little alleyways, shying away beneath umbrellas in the street cafes. However, the thought of going out does not appeal. Every now and then, someone on the street will recognize me. A hushed whisper, a pointed finger, a shy question.
“Look,” they’ll say as I pull my sunglasses down over my eyes, hunching my shoulders, “look it’s Natasha Steel.” I correct them in my mind. Was Natasha Steel.
However, the constant hunger pangs in my stomach seem less appealing than a few odd stares. Winding a green pashmina around my neck, I step out into the Parisian afternoon.