Women Who Smoke Cigars…..

Sharon put “The United States and the Origins of the Cold War” into the packing box she had taken from behind Food City and closed the lid.  It was a nice, even fit.  She taped the box shut, took a black magic marker and wrote U. S. DIPLOMATIC over the Kellogg’s logo.

She stood up and glanced around the apartment.  With all her books boxed up, it didn’t really look like her apartment any more.  After Friday, it wouldn’t be hers either.

She stretched and looked at the sun starting to dip beneath the brim of the mountains outside her window.  She turned and counted the boxes she had packed this afternoon.

Time for a treat, she decided.  She walked over to the cigar box she kept on her counter and took out a churchill repeater.  After collecting her cutter and lighter, she lid open the glass door and stepped out onto her postage stamp sized “back porch.”

I’m going to miss Corinth, Sharon thought as she looked at the mountains.  Still, I’m lucky to get that teaching appointment in Springfield.

She lit the cigar and relaxed.  This is the only reason to become an adult, she thought as she watched her smoke rise up in front of the view she had come to love these past few years.

The doorbell rang.

“I’m on the back porch!”  Sharon took a quick puff before setting the cigar down in an ashtray.

Hurrying through her apartment, she could see that it was Rob who had rung the bell.  Dr. Hunter’s seminar must have broken up early.  Well, Rob would just have to sit around and wait while she finished her cigar.

She opened the door.

“Hi, Rob.  How was Hunter today?”

“Bloodthirsty as ever.”  Rob bent down and kissed her.

“I just started a cigar on the back porch.”  Sharon indicated the boxes.  “I packed all afternoon.  You can stack them if you want, while I finish my smoke.”

“I’ll join you, if you don’t mind,” Rob said.

Sharon’s eyebrows went up in surprise.  “Great.”

She hurried back to her cigar before it went out.  Rob was a sweet guy, she thought as she puffed, but he was a prick about smoking.  He had signed the petition to make Roderick Hall smoke-free, and he had asked her to quit several times.

“A man is only a man,” she had told him in her best ‘Masterpiece Theater’ accent, “but a good cigar is a smoke.”

To tease him, she had given him a cigar when he finished his Master’s Thesis last quarter.  Sharon was sure he had never smoked it.  He looked so distressed when he took the gift wrapping off and saw what it was that she almost felt guilty about giving it to him.

Sharon closed her eyes and drew on her cigar.  Too bad Rob couldn’t appreciate cigars.  He was a great guy in all other respects.  Even her mom seemed to like him, although Rob’s mom couldn’t stand Sharon.

Remembering the horrified look on Rob’s mother’s face when she said she smoked cigars, Sharon expelled a stream of smoke and laughed.

Rob stepped out on the porch and stood next to her.

This was unusual, Sharon thought.  Usually, Rob preferred not to get close to her when she smoked.

Thank God I don’t smoke in bed, she smiled to herself.

She looked at the view again.

“I love this.”  She indicated the mountains.  “I don’t think they have a view like this up at Springfield.”

“No, I don’t think so.  It’s pretty flat up there,” Rob said.

Sharon drew on her cigar again.  I know it’s flat up there, she thought.  I’m going to be up there, and you’re going to be down here for the next few years, and what’s going to happen to us?  Tell me about that, not the geography of the state.

To be continued…

By Mike Samerdyke and posted in Mike’s Creative Thoughts

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