“Sure,” David said, not knowing why.
They waited.
“Go on, take it.”
“Oh.” He took the cigarette poking out furthest. The pack retreated into the man’s pocket. He held the thing in his fingers, looked around, then stuck it between his lips as he’d seen the others do. A flick sounded from inside the device, flame danced just before his face.
“Now suck in,” the stranger said playfully.
David glanced at him, did as he suggested. And the constriction gripped his entire chest. He coughed and gasped, carcinogenic misting in front of eyes welded shut.
“I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s your first.” The stranger chuckled. David heard phlegm in it. “You’re a virgin.”
He coughed until his lungs no longer stung. “What did you mean?” he asked when he got his breath back.
The stranger puffed lazily. “What?”
“What did you mean? When you said this was a cautionary tale, what did you mean?”
“Oh.” He laughed again. The phlegm had thickened. “Well, you saw the smoke from out there, right?”
David nodded.
“Anybody who thinks about starting up, they just gotta take one look through that window there to know what’s waiting for them.”
“Oh.” It came out as a gasp.
David puffed again. It was easier than before once he followed his rhythm. Slow, easy drags. The nicotine stroked his lobes, put him, oddly enough, at ease. The stars blurred until they began winking out, one by one. Vertigo tipped him.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in the stranger’s arms. His heart thrummed at the physical closeness.
“You all right?”
David came to his feet, closed his eyes, shook his head. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I forget how strong these are.”
“No, really. I’m fine.” David was straight again, poised.
“You sure?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. When he opened his eyes, they stung. But no tears came. He exhaled several times, the cigarette’s battery light winking out its slow death between his fingers, unheeded. The stranger smiled at David, sympathetically, and turned to leave. “My mother has dementia,” David said.
The stranger stopped, turned and looked at him. “Well, shit,” he said, and puffed on his atomizer. “Is that so?”
“WANNA butt-fuck?”
David had worn an ashen blister into the polyurethane of his thumb, trying to get his jammed atomizer to work. Occasionally, he’d been told, a concentrated enough external heat source could help stimulate the thing. Like jumper cables. Now, heat rose in his cheeks. He faced away from the man in the leather jacket—his smoking jacket, he’d called it—embarrassed. “What?”
“Your lighter. Seems you’ve got a bum lighter.”
David kept trying. Sparks, but no flame. Aggravating the bituminous swelling until the silvered oval had filled out completely.
“Here, let me.” The stranger took the cigarette from David’s lips and held its end to his own while he inhaled. The tips of both kissing cigarettes glowed orange. He handed it back to him. “There you go.”
David turned the thing over in his fingers, in minor awe.
“Butt-fucking,” the stranger said, smiling.
“Oh.” He put the thing to his mouth and puffed.
The stranger watched him for several seconds, smirking. “Not all the way gone, are you.”
“No,” David said between mechanical puffs.
The stranger turned his gaze to the stars. “Yeah, after my dad died, my habit picked up.”
They smoked for a while in silence.
“You know, they only put us here to give us an unobstructed view of the Ring.”
“The Ring?”
Dying atomizer between his index and middle finger, the stranger pointed at a floating band far in the distance. It flowed horizontally until the walls blocked their view. “It’s all junk out there. Trash. Shit we throw out. I mean, it has to go somewhere, right?” He shrugged. “The people in The Viewer, they don’t have to see all that stuff. All they see are the nebulae and the zodiac signs. Diana, the silver-footed queen, and all that. Get to stare out there and contemplate their existence.” He chuckled, and there was bitterness in it. “Us? We get to look at what we all shit out.” He smoked, angrily. Finished his cigarette, replaced the small battery with one out of his pack, and lit up again.
David’s lungs no longer burned the way they had before. Even augmented, they weren’t built to withstand this genre of intentional damage. Now, they only ached whenever he returned to his apartment. And the vertigo had been harder to chase. But he quietly rejoiced in the man’s unassuming company.
“You’re in shock now, but it’ll pass.” He turned to David. “You got people to talk to? You know, friends and all that.”
