Saturday, Sunday

I'd like to say it began with the rain, but that would be skipping ahead. I'd like to say that all this looking back followed a path, went from incident to incident in a slow meandering stroll. Instead it was me sitting outside, Saturday trending cold and gray, smoking a cheap cigar, reading a very good book. Rain was forecast for the evening, and it certainly arrived once night had fallen. But as I smoked and read I felt the barest flicker, something small and delicate touching my bare shin and knotty ankle. That feather's breadth feel of a mist so fine I couldn't see it as it fell. I realized its gentle pursuit only after thinking for a moment that the texture of the paper had suddenly changed, delicate flecks spotting the text. I moved to the porch, and smoked and read until dusk.

The whole cigar thing started for me as a strange sort of affectation, something I did as empty gesture, though one I largely kept to myself. So I would finish a cigar outside, long after midnight, trailing smoke towards the pixilation of stars. Sometimes drinking a bourbon, sometimes just staring into the sky. Instead of the swagger and indulgence of the business sorts or the tone-deaf victory march of those that are declaring to the world their raucous joys, my affect was more aiming along the lines of the Borscht Belt comics or Bender from Futurama. A sort of obnoxiousness of ritual, a coarseness of form. Now I smoke in part for the nicotine, but mostly because smoking is one of the great techniques for embracing the raging loneliness I can not seem to avoid or escape. I smoked Saturday until the real rain arrived.

It rained through the night, falling hard past midnight, tapering into a spatter come Sunday morning. I fell in and out of ragged dreams well into Sunday afternoon, reading another book, finishing it a little after night had begun. Cold wind and icy stars, drying the tears of the weekend. Biting at my weary bones. I skipped writing that evening, figuring everyone who reads me has enough stories in their head for the both of us. I would have skipped it again, but this writing is like smoking, a nasty habit without noticeable benefit. Just another habit to indulge while I wait for the rain to come. Just something to do while the lonely aches aloud.