Smoke, Highs, and Fire: A True Story

Smoke, Highs, and Fire: A True Story

It's morning. I blink a couple of times, then sit up off the couch. I'd been much too lazy to move to the room, having wanted only the darkness of sleep. The sun shines brightly, and it's a bit hard for me to look at. I take a wild guess that it's from the aftereffects of last night. I can't help but smirk as I remember the previous events...

"Zelda, breathe in!"

I lean over the bottle and suck in, trying to inhale the smoke. The makeshift water pipe is hard to work with, and I, frustrated, can't help but think how much easier joints are to use.

I manage to suck in a second time and the water from the makeshift pipe bubbles. I cough a few times.

"You got it that time," my aunt, though only 2 years my elder, congratulates.

"No fucking kidding. I better get high off this. I hate coughing like that." I grumble as I cough, before voicing my preference for the joint version.

She tells me this is better, that it's not as dangerous because you inhale the smoke, without the cancerous chemicals from the rolled paper.

"Maybe, but shit..." I continue to grumble profanely as I sip some soda.

We switch topics, discussing school- which becomes a bit easier as the high kicks in. I find my anxiety easing, talking becoming a lot smoother of a process. We laugh at nothing and munch a bit, letting the night pass until early morning.

I'm pleased that, for once, I don't pass out as soon as the THC kicks in.

At one point, she tells me: "You should really try a month just using weed. Try it instead of using your meds. It's good for not only depression and anxiety, but seizures too."

While that offer is incredibly tempting, I know I can't. My mom would flip out if she knew I were using cannabis. While I know she used it when she was my age, and I actually have even better reasons than she to use it- medical reasons- I highly doubt that will matter. My mom and I are already on horrible terms, and I'm sure her looking at me as a drug user, despite that NOT being the case, wouldn't help AT ALL.

But I don't say this.

At about two in the morning, my aunt goes to bed, and I fall asleep on the couch, not bothering to move to a more comfortable location.

I shake my head from my thoughts and stretch. I go into my aunt's room.

"Hey, girl! What's up?" she asks.

"Nothin' much," I shrug for emphasis, and look around. I feel an uncomfortable, and all-too-familiar, sense of awkwardness overcome me as she begins to look at her phone. I'm horrible at keeping up conversations, and I don't have my own technology to occupy me.

"Hey, can I borrow a cigarette? I'm going to smoke."

"They should be in my purse."

I nod, and bend down to grab her purse. After finding the pack, I take one out (leaving the rest in its pack in her purse), and head out to the balcony.

I close the door behind me, not wanting to let the smoke in, and look around the bench for a lighter. When I don't find one, I decide to use the matches available.

I remember what Leila, my aunt, has done, being able to keep the cigarette to her lips and light it at the same time. Normally, I'd hold it away from me and light it.

Normally, though, I'd have a lighter.

Normally, she'd be out here.

This wasn't a normal case.

I lit two matches (as a previous one quickly fizzled out) and held it to the cigarette to my lips.

There was a split second.

There was a FWOOM.

And that's when my hair caught fire.

I numbly thought about the "Stop, Drop, and Roll," tactics I'd learned as a child, but all my body could actually seem to do was send signals telling my hands to pat myself out quickly.

When the hair was out, I saw, with horror, the front pieces of my hair had become blackened. Heart pounding, I threw down the not-lit cigarette and raced inside.

I stared in the mirror.

A small front bit of my hair was gone, and my forehead was an angry red, making my now-faded pink hair seem laughable in comparison.

There was no pain, but fear.

My mom was going to kill me.