catching yawns

He sat. Chain smoking. Cigarette after cigarette. Smoking, smoking, smoking. "I think I'll do another cigarette." Just seconds after fidgetingly ashing out the prior. The new stick hanging from his mouth in the nonchalant manner that smokers use with unlit cigarettes, his lips slightly askew and the white paper wrapping of the cigarette just miraculously stuck to top and bottom lip and not touching any teeth - not to mention the lips so dry and pale and sort of stuck together themselves. He striked the match - 'fitlt' and the tiny roar of yellow orange. Staring then for just an instant at the fire atop the lit match. Entranced and oblivious to everything - absolutely everything else - eyebrows involuntarily lift ever so slightly. "Eh. The anticipation of a com- a coming peace. A minor consolation, I know, but like a sort of solace anyway." He spoke quickly through the stick. Tightening his lips' grip on the stick, he brings both hands to his face, the right - holding the lit match - more slowly. Inhaling no, sucking, hard to ignite...a 7mm bright red circle. The stylus had just begun to touch 'Hyacinth House'.

He had this way of rubbing the top right side of his scalp furiously with the inside of his right thumb as he held the stick extended away from the head with the two first fingers. Closing his eyes when he made his points, "the thing is...". His face was just a desiccated cow's hide. "The thing is...why, what do you think about it? About all this?"
"..."
"I think I'll do another cigarette."

Have you ever really watched someone smoke? Closely? The ridiculous battle with the slightest of breezes to keep a lighter or match lit long enough to ignite the cigarette. Or even worse, the putrid tip-to-tip use of another's already lit cigarette to light. The manner in which the stick smolders in between index and middle finger in the downtime between inhales. Emitting black/yellow/brown smoke all over hand and shirtsleeve, staining also the fingernails. The spasmodic flicking of the bottom of the stick with the back of the thumb to ash the tip - an uncontrollable tic. That eyes-closed instant after inhale where they rhythmically hold the inhalation lungside for a single beat before release - near orgasmic, you'd think by watching.

"...I want to tell you about Texas radio and the big beat..."

I cannot possibly even pretend to know what demons tear this man's heart out. What ruinous thoughts have control over him and have demolished his composure and self-esteem. He has started to dip tobacco at work now. It's a riot. In an attempt at surreptitiousness, he carries a worn paper coffee cup around the office. Faking sips whenever he has to spit. The guy stinks.

And how quickly we learn the ease with which we can swerve out of control. And how painful it can be to reflect back on our former manageable selves...while the memory still lasts. I guess that's the killer - being able to remember the feeling of composure but know that it's fleeting...just after the pilot aborts but while flight is stable for a short time, stable by momentum only.

"The fucking ants...crawling all over my skin...gah! My back just kills, you know? And like my neck, aahhh. Don't you get like this? I have like this yawn in my chest - you know what I mean? I can't get it, I can't catch it. No matter how deep I inhale...no inhale is deep enough to turn the corner to climb over this yawn."
"..."
"I think I'll do another cigarette."