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March 14, 2003:

Room 322, Westin Hotel, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A smoking room, polluted, impossible. The smell of old death, the tang of ash. You left a glass of water by the bedside; when you drank it two hours later, your tongue burned.

Cigarettes as American metaphor. We kill ourselves with indulgence, with addiction, mass-marketed, glossy, big. So big that along with ourselves we kill the world, with poison, and fire and ash.

Fire and ash. Your tongue burns. Next week, a country will burn. When they do, they'll leave behind them the smell of old death, the tang of ash.

Your tongue burns.

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© 2002-2012 Mark Phillips. All rights reserved.
This writing is fiction. Please don't confuse it with reality.