Lousy cigarettes

Then my eyes opened. The cold temperature of the morning getting through the sheets. I hate the morning weather. Even if it’s 40ºC outside I’d still feel chilly. My mom loves it. The morning chill, the fresh air. It wasn’t as cold as usual, though. It was unusually hotter that day, and the warmth came from her body lying beside me, entangled in the bed sheets.

I was facing the wall. Green, with small black details. The window, alive. The armchair, red; the small round table, brown; the telephone upon it, beige; the lamp on its side, yellow. All so colourful, like those French films I got so used to, like Frida Khalo’s paitings. The French music that came along with the films, so peculiar, so typical. So. And then I turned to my side.

A vision different from what I had seen the last time I’d seen her. Last night. Her hair, spreaded on my chest, calm, steady. The last thing I had seen before my eyes close, before I stopped hearing her breath. I’m lying. The last thing I saw was the smoke. The smoke of her unhealthy, lousy cigarette. Oh, how I loath cigarettes and oh, how sexy she can be when smoking. I slept before she could finish it.

Now there were less smoke, even though the typical mist surrounding her was still there. Always. Her chest up and down, up and down, up and down, like my eyes, like my own. Her hair tangled, her neck, bare. Her eyes beautiful, so beautiful, even if shut. It was everything I could see. Then she opened it.

She frowned. Again, harder. Then she opened them slightly, vaguely, slowly. And saw me. The first thing she saw that morning, the first figure. Little did I know I would soon find I was just another number. She looked straight in my eyes, deep, so deep, so deep, so deep. Then she spoke.

- Please, don’t fall in love with me.

The walls were grey; the window, dead; the armchair, black; the round table, square; the telephone, mute; the lamp, broken. Everything like those American movies she liked so much. Too much. That American music, the sound of the engines, the cars. There was smoke. From her cigarette. That hatefully loved smell. It was cloudy. The mist was everywhere. The chilly mist mom loved. Mom loved. There were paintings, Dali’s. Her chest up and down, calm. Mine steady, desperate.

And then I felt it. The incredibly sharp, cold, senseless tool stuck right in the chest, deep, so deep, so deep, like the fragile, sensitive friends of friends have told me in our first meets they felt, their tragic love stories, their despair. They were ridiculous, I had concluded. Now it was me. The despair, the suffering. Now I’m sure, they are ridiculous.

All I could see was mirror. My face looking at me, analysing me, feeling me, scrutinizing me. I was ridiculous. My face steady, inexpressive, passive, mad, reasonable, hypocritically sober. Oh, how the ridiculing memories persist through time. I was condemned.

- O.K., I answered. I meant K.O..