Ash On An Old Man's Sleeve

This was one of my first attempts at writing, when I was 13 or so. I hope you enjoy it!

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It was cold and frigid in the room. A pale blue stream of moonlight cut through the shutters onto Bill's face. Thick fog poured from his throat onto the window, misting the glass with droplets of water. A tiny ember of light glowed in the room, a cigarette, rolled with old newspaper and a rough tobacco. Bill pulled on it, closing his eyes as the smoke curled out of his lips to stain the beams of light that pierced the room like blocks of ice.

He sat heavily down on the ragged armchair by the window and brushed the ash off his lap. He relished the simple pleasure of smoking whilst looking out onto the silent city, watching the cars roll past. Simple pleasures were all he had now; he had sold his TV, his plates, his furniture, all but his old armchair, so ancient and ripped that nobody would take it. He ran his hand down the side and felt the hole his cat had left, before it had abandoned him. He was alone in the world. His children had been driven away by bitter words, arguments that had once seemed so important. The bare room seemed to shrink as he thought of all the people he had let drift away. His eyes began to mist over with memories.

Suddenly he jerked as the bittersweet pain of the burning cigarette ash fell across his sleeve and onto his frozen hand. The cigarette dropped to the floor and fell to pieces. Bill saw himself in that cigarette, burning briefly in happiness and success, before going out. All that remained was an empty husk, waiting to be swept away. He went through the long process of rolling himself another cigarette, tearing a strip from the old newspaper that he had read countless times and pinching a clump of tobacco from his almost empty pouch. There was a flare as Bill lit a match, then darkness once again. The remains of his meal lay on the floor next to his armchair, an empty box that once contained a sandwich, with an empty can neatly stacked on top of it. Bill took a long drag on his cigarette and breathed it out, the smoke mingling with the fog. He fell into a coughing fit, his body heaving and convulsing as he choked and hawked. Eventually he calmed and was still once again.

Bill remembered the nice girl who used to come and see him. She had been a pretty girl, always wearing jeans, who had brought him food and talked with him, sometimes helping him eat and wash. He remembered berating her, because she made him feel old and helpless. Eventually she had left him too, driven away. He missed her.

He pulled his jacket closer around him, his hands too numb to do up the buttons. The doctor had said for him to stop smoking, told him he was ill. The girl had brought him to the hospital, Bill remembered being pushed along yellow-walled corridors and then prodded, poked and scanned. Smoking was all he had left now. He hoarded his tobacco like treasure and would scrounge it off the tramps outside his building in exchange for the food he was brought each day by the old lady. 

The old lady and he had an unspoken arrangement. He would open the door and let her in and she would wheel her trolley through the door. She would then give him his food and would nod to him. He would then nod back and wheel the trolley out for her. They would nod a final time, before he closed the door. She had stopped coming now, instead the fat lady would come and simply knock on the door, leaving his food on the doorstep. He didn’t like the fat lady.

His son had knocked on the door a few days ago and called for him. Bill had sat very quiet and still, barely breathing. His son had then said he would be back in a week and that Bill was going to go “somewhere nice”.

Perhaps he would come tomorrow. Bill sighed and slid the window shut, his eyes heavy. He twisted the shutters closed and burrowed deep into his jacket. The warm darkness of sleep overwhelmed him.

Bill’s son arrived the next morning. Firemen surrounded the apartment block. He jogged over and asked, “What happened?”

“Fire started on the fourth floor. Some old bloke fell asleep with his cigarette lit,” answered a red-faced fireman, “Poor sod was down to his last dime and his fire alarm was broken. Guess he had nobody left that cared.”

The son looked up to the fourth floor and watched as a body bag was brought out on a stretcher.  “ No,” replied the son, “I guess he didn’t.”

If you liked this story, please look out for my book, The Novice, which will be online now and in bookstores in May 2015!