My love for cigarettes lies not in their consumption, but in the complexities they represent. Like a tragic character on the stage, they possess a captivating duality. Cigarettes, in their brokenness, symbolize human frailty.

The very act of smoking embodies our imperfections and vulnerabilities as mortal beings. And yet, within this brokenness, there is a strange beauty that draws us in.

For in the company of a stick of tobacco, we find solace in our shared miseries. The trials and tribulations of life are whispered through the smoke as if these fragile leaves hold the collective experiences of countless souls. They become a conduit for our pain, our sorrows, and our longing.

Love and love lost, find refuge within the embrace of a cigarette. The puffs of smoke carry with them the stories of passionate romances, unrequited infatuations, and bitter heartbreaks.

The smoke curls and dances, painting pictures of longing and despair, as if the very essence of our human emotions takes shape in its stoic form.

This was moving🥺. Played at every heartstring 😭💐but its ending, however tragic, has a hidden beauty👏

A Tiny bit of Hope

My brother Alfred had gone crazy in 1999. And he had been Sectioned back then and they were never able to let him out of the ward, for his own safety.

I would go and see him now and then. Sometimes he was chuffed to see me. Other times he didn’t remember who I was.

Alfred still thought that he was in the 90s, as in, he had lost sense of time and thought that he was still a young man who was living in the 1990s. And when I was with him and he was in a good mood, he would sing songs by Radiohead (from The Bends and OK Computer, and nothing beyond the latter) and R.E.M., Blur, Oasis … sometimes even the Spice Girls. Ha.

His musical knowledge hadn’t gone beyond the 20th century.

The doctors weren’t sure how this had happened in his mind. Alfred attracted curiosity from psychologists and other scientific people across Europe, as they were keen to figure out what exactly had gone on his brain. They gave him scans to see if he had brain damage. And they couldn’t find anything physical. Nor could they place him within a certain criteria using the DSM.

So they had to keep him inside. Because he would have these episodes where he would self harm. He tried to hang himself once with his bed sheets and another time he hurled a chair through one of the windows because he wanted to jump out of it (the windows had locks on them so that the patients couldn’t open them, so that’s why he used the chair).

And there were times when I went to visit where he would talk with this manic intensity. Go on these monologues whereby it was hard to follow what he was saying – his thoughts and feelings were all jumbled up. He didn’t know that he wasn’t young anymore or that he had grey hair and moved slower. 

They gave him sedative drugs, and sometimes they totally knocked him out and he could barely speak at all.

But there were also moments when he was Alfred, again. My big brother. I used to play in the woods with him near our home and he had these long shoulders and he’d make me laugh. Him and the other lads from the neighbourhood. I was a bit of a tomboy. The other lads from the neighbourhood were all in their forties now, like Alfred, and they didn’t come to visit him anymore. But, yeah: Alfred still had the gem joke in him.

One day in January 2023 I got a call from my mother. He had passed away in his room. He’d managed to steal a knife from the canteen and had cut his neck and his wrists in there and bled to death.

I recalled, a few years previously, that he said he wanted the R.E.M. song ‘Electrolite’ played at his funeral. He wasn’t being morbid about it or anything, he only mentioned that if there was ever a funeral for him he wished for that track to be played. So that’s what he did. In the small wake he had for him back at the old house where mum and dad still lived.

It’s such an uplifting song that it gave me a tiny bit of hope.

HOPE?

(Her Letter)

I thought we were on a break the last time we talked. We agreed to take a minute, a bit of space to allow us to breathe and think things over and maybe after we could come back, talk and become one. I considered reaching out but refrained. I figured you still wanted some breathing time. Now I realize my mistake. I read you're marrying someone who understands your soul. I have a lot of questions but my heart won't amass the courage to ask them, for fear of knowing the truth... With you, I believed we would be one. With you, I thought we were to walk the aisle. What went wrong? Did I lose your heart to another?

HOPE.

(His letter)

I got your letter in the mail. You didn’t sign your name but I recognized your hand. I felt your heart in every word. What went wrong? Did you lose my heart to another? I write this letter with a deep sense of guilt. I watched you slowly become a stranger; I never wanted us to take a break and I never wanted "space" to think or "breathe." I wanted to stay in the rubble and fight and find our way back to each other. But I respected your wishes because I love you… I'm sorry, loved you. In the weeks we were apart, the memory of you danced through my thoughts like a haunting melody of when we first met, on our first date, impromptu coffee dates. I remember thinking to myself during our dinner how I couldn’t wait to make you my forever. I loved you after our first date. Every thought of you after that brought a smile to my face. I couldn’t wait to be with you I couldn’t wait to show you off. I had found my missing rib. I laughed at myself at the mere thought of that analogy. So when you uttered those words about us taking a break, they filled my heart with an aching sorrow... I knew we had some stuff to work out, but I never wanted to work them out separately. I wanted us to work them out together. Did I not express my love enough? Did I not show you enough of my soul for you to understand? There isn't much I cherish in this life, but you were a person I admire and loved. Your love, your devotion to God, your love for life, your ability to bring out the best in me. Your beauty is mesmerizing, almost breathtaking and yet it paled in comparison to your finest quality. "How did I get so lucky?" I would think to myself whenever I looked at you. Maybe I loved you too much… too soon… too loud. Was I too self-absorbed in the love I had for you to not notice any pain you had buried inside? I wanted us to fight for each other and what we had, till death did us part. Not till fear did us part. It was meant to be for better, for worse, not for fleeting moments of convenience. I wanted to give you a love beyond measure and a future without boundaries.

HOPE?

(Her letter)

I thought we were on a break the last time we talked. We agreed to take a minute, a bit of space to allow us to breathe and think things over and maybe after we could come back, talk and become one. I considered reaching out but refrained. I figured you still wanted some breathing time. Now I realize my mistake. I read you're marrying someone who understands your soul. I have a lot of questions but my heart won't amass the courage to ask them, for fear of knowing the truth... With you, I believed we would be one. With you, I thought we were to walk the aisle. What went wrong? Did I lose your heart to another?

HOPE.

(His letter)

I got your letter in the mail. You didn’t sign your name but I recognized your hand. I felt your heart in every word. What went wrong? Did you lose my heart to another? I write this letter with a deep sense of guilt. I watched you slowly become a stranger; I never wanted us to take a break and I never wanted "space" to think or "breathe." I wanted to stay in the rubble and fight and find our way back to each other. But I respected your wishes because I love you… I'm sorry, loved you. In the weeks we were apart, the memory of you danced through my thoughts like a haunting melody of when we first met, on our first date, impromptu coffee dates. I remember thinking to myself during our dinner how I couldn’t wait to make you my forever. I loved you after our first date. Every thought of you after that brought a smile to my face. I couldn’t wait to be with you I couldn’t wait to show you off. I had found my missing rib. I laughed at myself at the mere thought of that analogy. So when you uttered those words about us taking a break, they filled my heart with an aching sorrow... I knew we had some stuff to work out, but I never wanted to work them out separately. I wanted us to work them out together. Did I not express my love enough? Did I not show you enough of my soul for you to understand? There isn't much I cherish in this life, but you were a person I admire and loved. Your love, your devotion to God, your love for life, your ability to bring out the best in me. Your beauty is mesmerizing, almost breathtaking and yet it paled in comparison to your finest quality. "How did I get so lucky?" I would think to myself whenever I looked at you. Maybe I loved you too much… too soon… too loud. Was I too self-absorbed in the love I had for you to not notice any pain you had buried inside? I wanted us to fight for each other and what we had, till death did us part. Not till fear did us part. It was meant to be for better, for worse, not for fleeting moments of convenience. I wanted to give you a love beyond measure and a future without boundaries.