Smoke

Dear Dad,

The cold seeped into my fingers like an injection.

The skies were already black. Two figures at a distance could only be made out

by the glow of the yellow signs from the Chinese restaurant behind me. My breath made ash as I packed ice crystals stained gray by bits of dirt with stiff hands. However, even as my teeth chattered, I continued to squeeze the snow until it became as solid as the gray parking lot around me. I would ease the blackness of my dad’s lungs even if I had to break the rules.

Today was the day that my dad would stop smoking.

I aimed at the yellow light held between his index and middle finger.

I hurled my gray snowball.

My excitement bubbled like a balloon as my snowball headed toward the flickering end of the cigarette. It shone brightly in the dark almost like the stars, but that burning hole in the sky is the cause of all my frustration. Extinguished. My sense of achievement was undeniably sweet, but in moments, it deflated. Through the glint of his glasses, my dad glared at me. Turned his back on me.  and simply relit the stick that shortened his life span. I stared at the blue tinge in my hands and wondered what I was so excited about. Helpless.

Once I broke open a Marlboro cigarette and touched the brown shavings. Arsenic, nicotine, rat poison all in a flake. They crumbled under my fingers and clung to my dad’s alveoli. The yellow light burned on as I breathed in secondhand smoke, tinting my father’s face gray. Helpless.