Smoke

We were close to my hometown; we used to play in this tunnel as kids. It was dark as the coal back then but we would run down there to drink, to get high or just disappear. It was a long tunnel but she was right, people held their breath through it believing if they could last the entire length, their wish would could true. I would watch the kids do it on the morning route and I’d seen old women try to do it in secret, their faces growing red before they gave up and stared off at the past. It was on top of us now, the first cars already deep inside the moss covered blackness, Hailey’s chests rose, eyes grew wide; she took her breath and smiled-wishing for love, for forever. Hands held, he mimicked her. The couple in the front continued snoring. I closed my eyes but still I heard it, faintly, over the hum of the wheels, over the echo off the walls, I heard him, Hailey's new fiance, head turned to the aisle, I heard him exhale. I walked out the back door of the train into the screaming wind and lit my first cigarette in three years.