“I envy the cigarette,” she said. I chuckled, thinking, “I’ve written so much about cigarettes; why didn’t I think of that before?”

I was 14 years old, vividly remembering not inhaling the first puff, my friends laughing at me.

I envy them too. I envy that I shared with them what I wished I shared with myself. They knew. They knew too much at times because I smoked through every feeling I ever felt. Those lonely nights when I was pondering alone, considering ending it all. When I tried to hide that thought from the rest of my soul, the cigarettes always knew.

Winters and monsoons. Diseases. Suppressed emotions. Puddles of acid. Mindlessness. Love. Madness. I smoked through it all.

One cold night, on an empty train station, I smoked and thought, “What made me so cruel?” It wasn’t the people in my life, the books I read, how I was raised, the effortless lies, the hidden truths, or the risks I took. If anything, I think these made the man I am today, excluding the cruelty.

I stopped, put out my cigarette—I needed to light another one to go through this thought.

“What made me so cruel?” I went on to think that I was always dressed up for the storm, ever since my adolescent depression. I was always attentive. I always thought too much and felt too little. I was always surrounded by and fostered between cunning wolves.

That’s what made me cruel. The labeling of every feeling, seeing through people, knowing what to say at any point, most importantly, when to say nothing at all. That is what made me cruel—And my first victim, naturally, was myself.

I already finished another one—I looked at the box, I have two more left. Brought out my favorite black metal lighter and lit another one. “Where was I?” I clinched my eyebrows while I let go of that puff.

“Aha! First victim.”

My first victim, myself—I labeled everything I felt, hoping to notice patterns. I saw through people, even the closest ones. I studied their intentions, picked up their habits, experimented with their behaviors. And hurt myself along the way. I knew what to say at all times, and I said it; well, I made sure to say it if it was important enough.

I stayed silent when everything depended on what I was about to say next. There exist only a handful of urges more difficult than staying silent when everything is attacking your ego. I hurt myself doing that, as well.

“So what am I really trying to say here?” I thought—hastened to light the last one. Because I was running out of patience to reach a conclusion. I took a big drag, and this was the first time I made that quick inhale.

Suddenly, I pulled back. I looked at that cigarette. I looked at the empty box. I gazed over the trees and the dusty benches across from me. It was as if I had an invisible mirror in front of me. I tried to stare into it aggressively. I saw every innocent contemplation I pondered through the last few minutes. I felt that foreboding urge again, that hole. That fucking hole. Unknowingly, as I took another puff—I did that quick inhale again.

Observing that it gave me a little buzz, I looked up at the dark sky, smoke coming out of my mouth from the last puff—and thought—”I choose mercy on my soul. Not today.”

As I heard the sound of the train coming, I noticed I didn’t have cigarettes. I envied the last few ones in that box. They saw what I couldn’t see.

They saw me.