The way smoking a cigarette looks, that feeling

Flash fiction.

Catherine Lacey, a writer whose work I adore, has a writing project on her newsletter where she writes 144 words essays “taking random thought shards and paragraphs from the cutting room floor and forming them into something simple and direct. … To write an essay in 144 words is nowhere near as precise a form as a sonnet, sure, but I’ve still felt liberated and focused by the oddly specific (and arbitrary) word count, and so far it’s given a home to a bunch of ideas and anecdotes that simply don’t fit anywhere else— reducing the unusable into the complete. Form as refuge.”

I’ve decided to set myself a Autumn/Winter writing goal. Less than 500 word stories where I either succeed or fail at beginning, middle, and end. Here is the first attempt. 326 words.

The way smoking a cigarette looks, that feeling

Maria is tired, everyone is tired. Everyone says they are tired. Her colleague Katie suggests the office has a carbon monoxide leak, that’s why they all feel like shit. Maria once worked in an office that ordered an alarm. When they turned it on it wouldn’t stop beeping. The numbers on the digital screen climbed like bad currency on old ticker tape. That office all left work early the afternoon they realised they were being poisoned. The boss complained as they upped bags and coats. Someone said ‘be grateful we’re not unionising’.

But this time Maria suspects her tiredness is separate from everyone else’s. She is the most tired she has ever been, which must mean she is more tired than most people. Not that she would dare say that. She knows many mothers, and if you say you are tired in their company they curse you. Or worse, they expect an apology. 

Maria goes to the gym on Monday nights which is an insane decision considering what Mondays do to the soul. But Maria has a schedule. It is his schedule. Maria is tired but she needs to impress this man like it’s her actual job. She has never known a post-exercise high, but she knows how she feels when he is looking at her. Drunkenly, in a bar with loud music inside and picnic tables outside, she tells a friend about the man in the gym and how he makes her feel. Maria describes him as a Viking to her friend, but he isn’t really. She just knows how her friend’s mind works. The shortcuts. She hopes her friend forgets how silly she was. 

The next day, over messages and through painful slowly ageing bodies, they boast about the takeaways they ordered. Maria’s timetable doesn’t come up. This man at the centre of it. A pure metronome. Maria lies about getting pad thai. Instead, she goes to the gym where she waits to exist.