Flash Fiction Friday: The Smoke-Stained Drapes

Yes, I know, I know; it's been a few months since my last entry. Life has gotten in the way and I let of writing for little while, but I have a new flash fiction story for today.

Smoked-Stained Drapes

Jennifer E. Miller

 The two women laughed at a joke as Marissa rolled up weed tightly in its paper and pinched the ends. She grabbed the lighter at the end of the chipped wood table and flicked open a flame with a calloused thumb and took a drag.

Puffing out an exhale she said, “Trudy, wouldn’t be so nice not have to worry about a thing? We wouldn’t be sitting in this dumpy flat with dingy motel-like furnishings and smoked-stained drapes.”

Trudy plucked a skinny white cigarette from its box and put it between her lips. She reached over the table, grabbing the lighter Marissa had discarded. The end turned red and a soon a narrow tendril of smoke swirled up.

Answering, she said, “Yeah. Well, it’s all we got for the time being.”

Trudy watched Marissa suck her cheeks in with a noisy inhalation, nursing her joint. Cigarettes were so much easier and cheaper; she didn’t understand her roommate’s preference to pot.

“I don’t think I like the time being!” Marissa exclaimed.

“Ha! You keep on wasting your money on weed and you ain’t gonna improve your situation” Trudy said, puffing on her cigarette.

There was silence for a few moments while the girls worked on their habits.

Marissa giggled, “Wouldn’t it be great just to be sitting on a beach, smoking this shit right now? The sun burning our skin…”

“Instead of burning our lungs?” Trudy suggested.

“Whatever. My stuff doesn’t have those negative consequences.” She wrapped her lips around the joint again. It was clearly starting to take effect.

“Mine won’t land me in the county-sponsored motel,” Trudy said.

“Cause you’ll end up in morgue instead,” Marissa shot back.

The women laughed, then sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Why does life have to be so damned hard?” Marissa asked.

“Hell if I know,” Trudy said. “God, I wouldn’t have to share someplace to live—”

“Hey now!” Marissa interrupted. “I’m a good roommate.”

Trudy didn’t respond. She stared out the window through the narrow gap in the smoke-stained drapes. Being on the ground floor, she could see across the street to a pair of women smiling and talking. One pointed to the other’s shiny handbag who promptly showed it off. It was clearly a new purchase.

A new item of any kind would be a luxury. Trudy bought nearly all her belongings second-hand. She was usually behind with bills; one month it’d be utilities, the next rent. It varied.

The smoke-stained drapes surrounded the scene outside, outlining that shiny new handbag. It was like it was taunting her; comparing her life to others with luck and good fortune.

She held the cigarette between her yellowed fingers, letting the embers slowly burn the paper as the ashes floated to the table.

“Hey, girlie. Use an ashtray why don’t ya?” Marissa said, as she slid the crystal dish full of old butts across the table to her.

How many previous tenants had slid that very same ashtray across the very same table? Trudy wondered.

Her eyes left the scene outside to tap the cigarette over the ashtray but that was all she did with it. She didn’t bother bringing it to her lips again. Instead, she sat there at the table with the smoldering cigarette, with the smell Marissa’s pot floating around her, and pondered.

“God, are you thinking again?” Marissa asked.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“I’m telling ya, you should switch to these instead—” she twirled her joint “—makes everything disappear faster—”

“I hate living in that space between,” Trudy interrupted.

“The hell are you talking about?”

“Between the storm.”

“What storm?” Marissa glanced out the window, checking the weather. She saw the two women on the sidewalk who had begun walking away. “It ain’t rainin’.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Marissa. I feel like I’m between a storm behind me and clear skies ahead. As soon as I get near the clear skies, a wind gust blows me back to the storm. I work just enough so I don’t get caught in it, but I can’t ever get out of that space in between them.”

Marissa giggled. “Girlie, I got extra. Want one?” She twirled the herb again.

“And what do you think that’ll do for me?” Trudy demanded.

Giggling again, Marissa answered, “It’ll get you high…high above that damned storm path so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“As soon as I’m done with a joint, I’ll just coming crashing down to earth and that storm will be rolling above me still.”

“You’ll come crashing down all right. Like lightening hitting a dry desert, start a fire, and burn up your pathway,” Marissa said with a glassy-eyed gaze.

Burn up your pathway echoed in Trudy’s head. Did that mean destruction or blazing a new path?

“I don’t like those smoke-stained drapes anymore,” she said.

“Whatcha gonna do about it?” Marissa asked.

“Not be comfortable in that space between; that time being.”

“Huh?” Marissa asked.

Trudy snuffed out her cigarette.

“C’mon, let’s give those drapes a good washing.”