Her

She loves to smoke.

Everything she does involves smoking a cig or two. Maybe even three, if she can afford.
She’s enwrapped in smoke, her second skin; even her clothes smell like smoke. It’s become her scent, her perfume; and no matter how much perfume I spray onto her, no matter how much I tell her to scrub herself off, she always reeks of smoke. So much, my room seems to be infected, always reminding me of her existance. Her – that strange woman that appeared in my life, one day, like a moth is flying towards the light.

Just like now, sitting beside me, reading every word that I’m writing while taking a deep breath, smelling like something that has been set on fire. A light smile trails across her face, distorting the cold mask she puts on the whole time.
„Writing again, eh?“ – Her voice a cold, hoarse whisper, telling about the years she’s lived on this earth. As a child I used to be afraid of her voice, but now – now… it sounds pleasant. It’s a ringing in my ear that reminds me that I’m alive.
„Eh… Your penmanship got worse. I can’t even decipher what this word is.“
Another deep breath. Exhaling. The smoke enshrouds us both. I suck in any clean air that is left and hold my breath, squinting, trying to see through the gray mist she’s put us in. It’s her favorite game – „Finding out where you are.“ Finding out who you are.
She loves to put me into strange situations.

I’m not sure who she really is, from where she is – how she grew up, who her parents were. The times she cared to talk about herself were the times I got her drunk, getting her to lie on the couch, making her feel like the king of miseries. That person – she loves to talk about trivial things. Things that happened to her, long time ago. Things that happened to her before we met. Things that make me ask myself why she even let go of her former life.
„My hair’s a natural color, y’know?“ she’d babble, her voice a lengthy slur of syllables and whimpers. My gaze wanders, to her hair – to that flab, that mop of white hair that covers half of her face. White, white, white. Snow white.
„I’m an albino,“ she continues, wriggling around with a stump of cig, eyeing it, trying to find out if it’s lit or not. Of course it isn’t. I put it in her fingers to still her unnerving demand „for a fag.“
„Josef told me that Mama got white hair too. So it seems to be in the family. Haha, so we’re family after all! That bitch… after selling me to that guy, haha!“ – She rolls to her side, continuing to laugh, shaking that strong body of hers. A body just like a man’s. Guess it’s his fault; that man, Josef. The one that took care of her after her mother abandoned her.
„Josef, that manwhore… I wonder if he still trains little girls who can’t say no…“
Josef, that guy. I’ve heard a lot about him. Someone who trained her, trained her to become a soldier, to become a strong person – someone who protects, who kills. I wonder if that’s the reason she came to me after all. If that’s the reason why she’s hiding in my head now.

That time, a thousand nights ago. When I was a little kid, just like she used to be; when I was a little girl who couldn’t say no. Did she feel pity? Was it empathy? Did she see herself in me? Or was it simple boredom that drove her to talk to me?
„- Little girl. What’s your name?“
My name? I can’t remember. I cast it off once I met her.
„See, this hair? White. Snow white. It became my reason to be a new person, you know?“
White, white. Snow white. „Snow“ – her name. As cold as snow. As gruesome as snow.
„So, if you don’t mind… let me take a place beside you, alright?“
Her name is Snow. Someone who is cold, cold; mercilessly cold. Her smile, her eyes, her gestures and her words – everything is cold, cold. She told me once that she wasn’t always that cold, that she once knew how it was to smile, to laugh – to be someone who lives.

But now she’s just Snow.

Ever since I took care of her. Or is it the other way around? That she’s protecting me?
„Hey, hey. Got any smokes, huh? Got any?“
That woman. Dressed like a man, but still so feminine. Someone I accepted as my mother, or my sister – or even as a watchdog, always there, always smiling. Smoking.
„I don’t smoke. Ask my dad.“
„Did you forget that you’re the only one who sees me?“
A laugh. Her or me? Maybe both.

She loves to smoke. Every single day, every single day. She loves to light a cig and inhale that drug, to fill my room with that unbearable stench. So unbearable, I got scolded many times by my parents, got told to stop smoking – but how can I smoke if I don’t even have any cigarettes? It’s not me. It’s her. That ghost in winter, warming herself up with drugs, with alcohol. That ghost in my head that reminds me every now and then that I’m still alive.