A Smoking Gun

A cigarette burns in one hand. Smoke slowly rises. He gestures angrily with the other. A careful balancing act. The ash grows and I watch attentively to see when it will fall. He won’t put it out. A good distraction for me. A timer.

I can smell his breath. I can feel him spitting on my face when he speaks. I watch tonight’s pick-me-up fall to the floor in little scattered droplets. Blinking nervously, I cautiously roll my head downward. They seem to land indiscriminately, but could make a circle if I connect the dots in my mind. I wonder if his strong words could actually ignite a ring fire around me, protecting me from contact.

The ash grows longer now and I know that I have only a few seconds before time runs out and the bomb detonates. It always does. Time seems to slow down, my eyes widen and I watch the ash bow and then break off from the stem. My eyes follow its path as it descends gracefully like an old branch at the end of its life returning to the place from which it took its first breath. It is my last sight of freedom in this moment. A split second after it smashes against the cold hard bedroom floor, now only a fraction of what it once was, I look up and see the rage filling his eyes.

In one fluid motion I watch him swinging one arm high into the air and swiftly plunging it downward towards me. I am cut down like a tree limb that succumbs to the mighty ax. All my breath leaves my chest. I spin like a raging tornado until I lose my footing and the side of my face cracks against the floor. The impact blows the ashes away reducing them into ever smaller pieces of themselves. I blink. My eyelids get heavy. Motionless on the ground, I hear warped voices. They fade into the distance and it darkens. Just before the darkness constricts me with its tight embrace I take a moment to laugh at myself for thinking that I’d be so lucky to be surrounded by a protective ring of fire. With a smile on my face, my eyes snap shut and there is peace.