Status: To be completed.
Comfort.
The beginning and the end.
I sat on the backporch, inhaling rhythmically from the dying cigarette loosely hanging between my fingers. In, suck it down deeply and out, let it go like a dead leaf caught in a winter updraft.
He watched me, seeing if I would do or say anything before taking the cigarette away from my fingers and into his mouth for his turn of the same display. He looked more natural when he smoked than I did, I almost looked robotic whilst to him the cigarette was nearly an extension of his yellowing, coarse fingertips.
"I can't hang around forever, you know," he told me as he exhaled the final puff of toxicity from the now snuffed out cigarette.
"I know. I just need you around for the moment," I replied and he nodded, observing me before pulling himself up from his cross-legged position into one standing tall above me, looking down as I pushed my hair away from my face and pulled another cigarette from the carton.
"I'm not even him. I'm just here instead of him, because you know you could never really have him," he stated in the bluntest, most obvious manner he could conjure.
"I know that. But it's nice to have someone to comfort you when you need it, imagined or otherwise. Wouldn't you agree?" He simply nodded in defeat and walked around the porch, his footsteps not making a sound.
The back door opened and my mother called out to me that dinner was ready. By the time I'd answered her, Matthew was gone again and the cigarette still lay unlit in my hand.
He watched me, seeing if I would do or say anything before taking the cigarette away from my fingers and into his mouth for his turn of the same display. He looked more natural when he smoked than I did, I almost looked robotic whilst to him the cigarette was nearly an extension of his yellowing, coarse fingertips.
"I can't hang around forever, you know," he told me as he exhaled the final puff of toxicity from the now snuffed out cigarette.
"I know. I just need you around for the moment," I replied and he nodded, observing me before pulling himself up from his cross-legged position into one standing tall above me, looking down as I pushed my hair away from my face and pulled another cigarette from the carton.
"I'm not even him. I'm just here instead of him, because you know you could never really have him," he stated in the bluntest, most obvious manner he could conjure.
"I know that. But it's nice to have someone to comfort you when you need it, imagined or otherwise. Wouldn't you agree?" He simply nodded in defeat and walked around the porch, his footsteps not making a sound.
The back door opened and my mother called out to me that dinner was ready. By the time I'd answered her, Matthew was gone again and the cigarette still lay unlit in my hand.