A light. Simple pleasures of life. At the end. At the end.

He watched the flame flicker. He thought that it looked tender. That it felt like it longed for a touch. He looked at it flickering. The match burning its life out. A moment's hesitation, and then he bent down and touched the end of his cigarette to it and felt that red hot spark start burning. Ah, the first drag. How good it feels. Flooding his mouth with the smoke. The tobacco was light. Almost sweet. A swig of coffee and he could feel it begin to course its warmth through his body. Spreading through. At the end.

Contemplation requires a calm. A calm that is difficult for all but those with a clear conscience and a happiness that requires little outside of the moment. Hmm..is that really true? Not really. That happiness is something more wholesome. More than that from a moment. More than that from the nicotine or the caffeine. More than to do with the warmth on a cold day. It is the warmth that comes from being content. From a laziness born out of exhaustion. From looking out on a city that he felt that he could feel a connection with. From a security that he had never felt before.

He was always an alien. Even in his own country. Maybe more so in his own country. He didn't understand them. Nor them him. What does it feel to be regarded an alien in one's own land? Among one's people? A deep-rooted rootlessness? At the end...

ubergeek, the