gaman

a fast food restaurant with cigarette opportunity. the smoking room is inside the electric-smoking room. smoking inception. in the middle of 5 square meters an ashtray holding a little pool of water. it gives a faint hiss as a woman tips her cancer stick on the pool’s stainless steel edge. her eyes are fixed on her telephone screen, looking through a pair of black narrow glasses resting on the tip of her nose. smoke rises almost linearly upward where it gets sucked into the air conditioner’s vent over our heads. the man next to me fumbles in his pants for a lighter. i strike mine and reach over. he bows a little and lights up. a “thank you” escapes his lips. the woman changes to the electric-smoking room. the sliding door closes silently behind her. the length of ash of the man’s cigarette makes me nervous. hiss makes the ash pool. traveling? he asks. we both have finished the tobacco portion. he suggests we sit together before i can answer properly. we sit down at a small round table…