AN: Just a short one-shot of introspection sparked by boredom.

Cigarette Break

The weather was horrible, a shower of rain that blended with the night and was highlighted by the two streetlights that lit the circular road alongside the brick three-story building. The sound of an ambulance siren was nearly deafening as it came up the mountainside and to the other side of the hospital, the lights causing the darkness to draw back for a moment until they rounded the corner.

The spark of a flame gave away the presence of a person standing just under an awning, the lighter raising to light a cigarette held loosely between unpainted lips. The flame died and left only a pinpoint of light from the end of the tobacco. With the first inhale of the nicotine, Mariel closed her eyes then looked out over the hillside.

Two floors up her husband of two years was watching his mistress have his child. The child they –she- should have been having. She still didn’t know why she was here. At first she was angry and then resignation had set in. The divorce papers were sitting in the glove compartment of the car, placed there in haste after the phone call from the other woman.

And now it was she and a cigarette in the cool rain backed by a big honking reminder of infidelity dressed in worn red. A deft flick of her wrist to rid ashes from her savior and another inhale, holding the smoke in her lungs long enough that when she exhaled and took a breath a wave of lightheadedness swept over her.

Leaning against a pillar she stared sightlessly outward at a scraggly tree that had seen better days. It was placed in an oasis of green in the center of the drive, surrounded by a low concrete wall. A few leaves clung to the branches in bundles that only served to highlight the decrepit appearance.

Mariel felt a kinship with the tree that was just barely hanging on. She’d had that feeling from the second her husband had uttered the word “divorce”. Adding the words “mistress” and “pregnant” had just cemented it. Her first thoughts after murder questioned herself. Was she too fat? Too plain? Too overbearing? Not overbearing enough?

Mirrors had become the bane of her existence. When her husband, ex-husband in a day, moved out (thanks to all his belongings being…helped out the door and windows) she’d taken down the ones she could and become adept at avoiding the ones she couldn’t. Taking a shower had become a circus act with running and dodging and a few stubbed toes until she learned the layout with her eyes closed.

And then she’d realized that it wasn’t her. And it wasn’t him or his new girlfriend, despite how much she wished it was. It was no one’s. Just a misstep of fate. A bad throw of the dice. She’d stopped running around blindly, both literally and metaphorically, and took up a new coat. Mariel had begun writing short stories and was even in talks to sell one for publishing.

She wrote about life. Not her own but events she imagined could happen to anyone and often did. She’d also returned to playing piano, which she’d given up because she lost the spare time to practice after she married.

A man walked past her toward to entrance and glanced at the figurine of darkness whose cigarette was nearly finished. Mariel wondered what he saw. A soon to be divorced smoker or an attractive middle-aged smoker. And realized it didn’t really matter. She had finally learnt who she was. An independent woman who could survive on her own again.

She took one last draw then dropped the cigarette to the curb, the ember dying instantly as the rain hit it. Releasing the smoke she grabbed her keys from the pocket of her jacket and headed to her glove compartment. Tonight would be the end of one life and the beginning of another.