It’s midnight and I’ll just light this cigarette and walk aimlessly around my quiet neighborhood because that’s what I feel like doing. I have no route. I will follow the musty, yellow lights that hang over the streets like wraiths until I decide to return home. It’s cool, dark, and one of those rare nights when I feel satisfied. Kami Heights’s silent streets are comfortable, or at least not loud. I am the only motion. The world feels small and manageable and I’m a confident and fulfilled man in this standstill. It’s because of Jane. Is this what an absence of anxiety is like?

Jane doesn’t like cigarettes. Hates them. Calls them a dealbreaker in fact. So after I dropped her off the first thing I did when I got home was unfurl a White Pearl and light one up. I don’t know what it is. She’s too eager? Too interested? Too nice? So I pull on this blast of nicotine and tobacco to remind myself of a couple of things. Of edgier, more troubled women who preferred to send mixed messages and make me think I loved them when instead they made me suicidal, women who made me work for their affection and rewarded me with silence. It’s funny how obvious interest isn’t all that interesting. I also just needed to relax, to think clearly, to master myself.

Some melody from a twenty-five year-old video game plays in my head like a death march. A tune from Sphinx’s Maze I think. Why is that thing always in my head? Because it hit me at the perfect age, caught my imagination and kept me in its song for a little too long. Sometimes I think these childhood hooks stay in my brain because they remind me of a time when my biggest concern was defeating Lord Gloom and DoomTower and NOT wondering whether I’ll disappoint somebody because of who I am. I blow out some smoke and am reminded of Miranda who likes to exhale right in my face for some reason. I take it as a sign of affection.

Jane’s fun. I like her. She’s important. I flash-forward several months and see myself apologizing for having no answer to why I can’t return her feelings. Maybe she doesn’t see me. Maybe I have walls up. She likes drugs too much. I thought I wanted to date a drug-lover but like a religious fanatic the conversation gets tedious, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, tedious, impersonal, like listening to someone tell you their dreams. I can relate to every story which is kind of nice. I don’t feel alienated or excluded when listening intently to the harrowing details of an acid trip on the brink of hell. I’m right there with her. I can relate. I have a feeling some of my friends can’t when they hear my own stories which is one reason I don’t bring them up much anymore. And also I’ve outgrown the psychedelic sphere, am no longer captivated by that beguiling world I inhabited for the last few years. I always knew being able to relate to a beautiful woman’s drug stories was important to me but I don’t need them recounted if I’m not in them. I don’t know. There’s more to her than this, but I still cannot return her feelings. Her name isn’t even Jane.

Dealbreaker or not, this is a good cigarette.