Kissing An Ashtray

• Alyssa Meli, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2015

Smoke escaped his smouldered pout. Behind it revealed something more fleeting than itself. It’s no point wondering what life would be like if reality let him stay that serene forever, reality is harsh and doesn’t do favours for fools, so let’s not.
Again, he pressed the cigarette to his mouth; trying to harness beauty of something already drifting. His devoted darling glared; anxious. Her face sank in that old, familiar way that had lost its signature sting. She was a mere spectator, really only there to stare from behind the glass and make arbitrary observations. She should have just stopped looking.
Through the haze of the smoke he made out her face. Her eyes were now directed downwards to “avoid confrontation” and glazed over with the threat of tears. She would cry - if she had the energy. He refused to accept the blame for his sweetheart's grief and instead deflected the responsibility.
“Don’t start this again.”
Too late – it was as good as done. A scowl tarnished his movie star good looks, leaving him appearing repulsive. She neglected to see his ugliness, but none the less sensed his enmity like a steady hand driving a dagger into her spin just to see the blood spill out. She swore he only held her as an inventive way to remove the weapon from her back. So she matched his choleric nature with her melancholic fits and together the pair formed the worse half of the four temperaments.
“Sorry.”
She made amends meekly. Was she really sorry? God no! Not really anyway – she just didn’t like that cold kind of distance that grew an inch every time she threatened to rock the boat.
He flung his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. That was what he was supposed to do, wasn’t it?
I can’t remember how long they’d been doing it; chasing that siren call that enticed them to follow it’s illusion to the ends of the earth whilst tripping over their own two feet the whole tedious way. I guess it didn’t matter now anyway – they weren’t going anywhere fast.
At least she wasn’t, she was pertinacious towards a love that was fabricated. He, now he could take it or leave it. In fact he often asked why she didn’t just shut up and leave it herself, if he was all that bad. She went mad! Then again if someone asked why he didn’t quit smoking after coughing up his blood into a Kleenex he would have a polemic.
Funny isn’t it, how it worked out? Both of them, “doomed”, to a destiny of kissing ashtrays…