College Years

Inside the elevator, I played a game called Guess the Smoker.  Then, there were four possible players.  I never revealed what the prize was, but I promised myself that it would’ve been great, magnificent and well worth the nine floor wait.  This game and I had history.  It started twelve years ago when I was a young duck around the age of six. Back then, my hair was still a coconut brown and I was no higher than four feet.  The birth of the game occurred on a winter’s afternoon and I was bundled like a swaddling child in a Hello Kitty scarf, jacket, and hat. From my reddened nose, I smelled a peculiar odor singing in the air that burst through my tiny nostrils. Lightly, I coughed and my eyes stared at the man. He looked down at me and he smiled, and that smile was the foundation of the game. Smoking was not the sin that it was then. It was nothing but a choice and whether it was good or bad was left to the smoker and the smoked cigarette.  I loved the smell of tobacco as it lived within clothes or walls. The aim of the game was to discover the life in the walls and the clothes that was induced by the buds, the ashes, and the marks of a cigarette.

The elevator’s rusted doors closed and the mechanical wheels below us began turning. My heart fluttered with excitement—the game was about to begin. As we all waited to arrive at our predestined room, the clock ticked by. I only had nine floors, a couple minutes to reach the ultimate conclusion of who was the smoker. First, I looked to a boy on my left. Of course, I looked to the boy first like every other girl. The lessons Cosmos taught me were no different from any other girl—you always checked the room for a boy. I checked. He had an erect posture and the wisps of his balding hair stood in uniform. The boy’s tattooed arm, ratted shirt, and dirty jeans screamed so loudly like a forgotten rock star was trapped in the weakening hems of his clothes.   But his body though mildly revolting didn’t reek of tobacco; therefore he was disqualified from Guess the Smoker.  Though he was a worthy candidate of minty menthols, I had to abide by the rules. No one was an exception. If I started guessing around saying that he was a smoker then the validity of the test would’ve been destroyed, and Guess the Smoker wouldn’t have been able to continue.

The bell rang and the door opened for the second floor, there were seven more to go until the game of Guess the Smoker was over. That was the one problem with the innovative game—it was wholly dependent on the location. On a good day, the elevator version of the game could’ve lasted for five minutes. But, the best location that I always campaigned for was a classroom, there the game could’ve lasted for hours if I needed or wanted.  It was time to open door number two. Turning to my left, I saw a janitor. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit that hung loosely off his body. He was skinny and his hand was barely able to clutch the broom resting in it, and he leaned like the suitcase pressing against my legs.  I smelled him. I smelled the crumbling calcium in his bones. He lingered of coffee and candy, sweet strawberry candy. He wasn’t the smoker.  He smiled, he laughed, he coughed; he did a lot of things, things that allowed me to see his yellow and cracked, decaying teeth. I thought that possibly in his past life he could’ve been a smoker that lived through his cigarettes but I wasn’t interested in his past life. I just wanted to know who the smoker was.  He decided to abandon the life of a smoker. He was excommunicated from their kind. The excommunication couldn’t end until another ciggy was in his hand, and that couldn’t happen till he went to the store and bought another pack. Since there were no floors that could’ve possibly contained drugstores, he couldn’t have been the possible winner of Guess the Smoker.

That was disappointing.

He was the best bet and I was truly rooting for him to come out strong but the game hadn’t ended and there were still some hopeful contenders. The bell rang again, and we were on the fourth floor. Stumbling back, I gently fell into the little teen resting against the corner, and a piece of her blonde hair landed on my leather jacket. That piece of hair was fucking annoying because it looked like overgrown hair from a wild cat. Then her big green, lily-pad eyes stared at me and she couldn’t have been any older than thirteen.

Around her, I smelled tobacco, I congratulated the little teen with lily pad eyes and cat hair—she still was in the running for Guess the Smoker.  Even people who were fucking annoying could’ve been the winner.

  There was one more lucky contestant in the game. Behind door number four was a tall, vivacious red head with too much time on her hands as observed by her homemade vf^2=vi^2Ÿa(t) turquoise knitted sweater.  Her homemade sweater was freshly pressed and she smelled like spring.  Maybe she didn’t get the memo because it was nearing fall and spring was months away. Steadily, she stared at the dull numbers as they barely light up. She was patting her hand against her plaid skirt.

She smiled.

Her teeth were pearly white like a layer of melting snow in springtime before her puppy, Sprinkles, pissed on it. Her nails were neatly filed down. Of course not too short to look like she had a nail biting problem, but not too long to look like she had too much free time.

This chick was not even in the running for Guess the Smoker.

I didn’t know how she got into this game.

 It was a shame that she was even allowed in this elevator.

It was a shame that I judged her in this contest.

 By the rules of Guess the Smoker, I couldn’t disqualify any man, woman, or child. They all had the equal right to be the winner.

It was down to the little teen; the weight of a game rested on her misshapen shoulders. She carried the weight of Guess the Smoker, thus carrying the weight of two minutes of my purpose. Without this game, I had no reason, no excitement for that dreaded elevator ride, making my purpose in this two minutes non-existent.

Why did two minutes matter?

Well there are thirty, two minutes in an hour, sixty in two hours, and if you kept taking away two minutes, time kept slipping away.

I looked to the little girl, she looked to me, I smiled, she smiled and revealed her pointy teeth, I smiled and revealed my jaune teeth, she covered her nose, and I chuckled.

I remembered the best part of Guess the Smoker—I was always the winner.