Without

“Just like the tide out at sea, We lower and rise again.”

I am writing from my bedroom flat in Cardiff, where it is 3 am and I am awake drinking tea and smoking cigarettes and writing from my bedroom flat. I remember how I got it, but I don’t understand why. What had happened there, that day, has without any doubt, changed the course of my life. I have been writing from my bedroom flat since then. This lighter... It’s a brick wall ten hundred miles long that I have been perfectly comfortable with. The stairs to this room have gathered dust. The post isn’t delivered anymore. I miss the voices...I miss the eyes, the kaleidoscope sun and their eyes. I used to despise that condition, my utter reliance on them and what they had. And this lighter here, this lighter I’ve been lighting with all night...all year...has for a time stunted my growth, that much is clear, but now I think I understand a little better, I can make choices more consciously. I am going for a walk.


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“Ooh yes. Now, see, there are lots of different types of lighters”
He said, with bayou tongue,
“Y’can get your throwaway kind, they’re a lot cheaper. You can get your Clipper lighter, which has this neat pokey gizmo thing- I don’t know, its quite useful. Then you can get your Zippo lighter. Now these are the best lighters of them all.”
And he leaned into me; sweat running down his red face, the whites of his eyes. He whispered.
“Whilst these may not carry the pokey do-wah which the Clippers proudly bear, these beauties can-“
And he got up from the porch bench, walked down into his swamp garden and motioned for me to follow. When I reached the bottom of the porch stairs, he indicated for me to stop. He glowed with excitement. The evening grew moist and lazy. I could hear the hum of the creek. He flicked open the Zippo and struck it. It lit.
He pointed, laughing to himself a little. He shouted.
“These things can withstand the strongest gales! Ain’t that incredible?”
I realised to myself then how windy it was out here. We headed inside.



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This morning, I went for a walk out to the beach. While I was there, I had to ask this old man if I could use his lighter. I knew he had a lighter because I saw him lighting his own cigarette with it. He obliged and I lit up, looking at him, and how he looked at the lighter. There you are, I said. Thanks. I walked away. We left it at that.



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It rained for hours, like a thousand darts on the corrugated roof of this lousy motel room. The wind howling through the air vents, blowing my smoke about me like a ribbon. A candle and a match gave me light enough to roll a cigarette and lie with this intolerable bed and the punishing cold, puffing clouds into the still room.
The curtains upset, the candle went out: a wind tore through the room. The last of my matches gone. I saved the remainder of the cigarette on the dresser, half-off. Disorientated and uncomfortable, I moved from the bed, across the room. I pulled back the curtains and straightened them. Outside looked miserable. Just cars, to-ing and fro-ing from the car park and the main road then ran adjacent to it.
I shut the top window. It was bitterly cold, and felt fragile, tense- like the storm could shatter it. Rain had collected against the pane, and my hand was made wet. I brushed it against my trousers, and returned to what should have been the warmth of my bed. I shut my eyes and, eventually, went to sleep, pining for a lighter. I had a sleepless night, and left town again that next morning.



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You know, I can’t remember the last time I had one. I’d like to think that I had one once, but it must have been a long time ago, because I can’t remember it...



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Tokyo is a strange place. The sun is bright and white and...Everybody shines. Standing in a busy street in Tokyo, with a skyscraper in front of me. The city, with life of its own, breathes over my shoulder. Across the road, I notice a Zen water garden. It looks lovely. Quaint Japanese businessmen shuffle past me on either side, forever checking their Blackberries. I stand, briefcase in hand, confused in the middle of this techni-colour hi-fi vortex. Business, go. I see this child across the street, through the suited men. She’s got red hair and a bright green t-shirt. It has a panda on it. There’s a black and white cat hugging her legs. She disappears, and I realises she’s pulling at my trouser leg, and talking, mouthing inextricable Japanese. What am I doing in Japan? And she’s still pulling, she’s looking at me and smiling and going ‘Hey Mister, hey Mister...’



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My friends are always saying that I should invest in a lighter, seeing as how I never have one, and so am forced into asking strangers, asking them. They say I should keep one around my neck, like a crucifix, or an ornament displaying a faded photograph of a late wife. Forever running out, to be replaced. I don’t know. It doesn't seem relevant. I don't have much of an idea what it is, what it feels like. How would one keep such a thing?



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It was the first night of October. We were set against a cafe in evening time. My eyes followed small candlelight to the walls, the deep red of Sanguine Oranges, adorned in simple wood frame by inoffensive chalk and oil offerings of rock conquistors Hendrix and Clapton and, in the Men’s Room, I discovered, Fidel Castro.

My male friends and I debated over the supposed painting that hung in the female toilets. Were the occurrences familiar to that toilet carried out Castro’s name too? To what overall narrative did these disparate portraits belong? We’d never know, we knew this much. So, we guessed openly, with the inevitable conclusion that one brave soul would venture into the Ladies to discover the identity of the portraiture, if there were one at all. We took turns in our guessing: Bono. Trotsky. A figurative Picasso. One of those paintings by the young girl from the end of Fear and Loathing. God...

None of my present friends cared much for smoking. It was after much liquor, and my having just returned from having a cigarette outside, where I had seen local boys on their scooters and Hawaiian shirts, that Gustavo lost a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and in he went, where no man had gone before, and returned not 10 seconds later, visibly suppressing fits of giggles.

“It’s Yoko Ono.”

“What?”

There she was, opposite the mirror, in all glory, Yoko Ono, standing atop a hill. A beam of sunlight bathed her, but you weren’t sure whether she was reflecting it or shining outwardly herself.

We decided to leave the bar then, and head into the centre of town. On our leaving, I called over to Agõstín, who was half in his car. He'd voted to adjourn, and was due home to a girlfriend for whom favours and apologies would be forthcoming. We wished him the best of luck as a group, and as my friends strolled towards what they thought was the direction of the nearest bus stop, I called over to Agõstín, fumbling in my pockets.

He hesitated. Looked at the floor, sighed, looked up and wiped his forehead. He replied that I could. With thanks. As I walked home, my cigarette went out, and I couldn’t re-light it at all.



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It can be so frustrating. I feel like I’m living this life but I’m not entirely in control of it.... I can’t remember the amount of times I’ve asked, been forthright, assured of self... Breaking that silence. Meeting this new person, new entirely. So many faces, so many I’ve touched fleetingly. Excuse me? Whats up, could I... This is a curse, if ever I knew one.



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“Thanks. Yeah, could I have a lighter as well, please? Oh, ok, that’s ok. Nevermind. Just that, then. Thanks anyway. ”



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So we're sat at the breakfast bar waiting for my breakfast bun at the breakfast bar and I'm drinking my second coffee. It's about eight thirty in the morning, say. I got tobacco and papers in my jacket, but no lighter, see. So, I'm looking around the room for possibilities, you know. Anyone smoking? Damn. I hate this waiting...This pointless obstacle which...Anyway, so there I am. And this guy across the diner can see I've got a cigarette in my hands and I'm not doing anything about it. He starts coming over. Yeah, thanks, I say.. I gets the lighter and I'm about to spark it, and it's yellow but... when you turn it in the light, it shines green. Cute. For a minute there, I was lost. What? Oh. That’s better. Thanks again. He doesn't look at me again.



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It was right I left my old girlfriend, whatever. I was around her place, her flat near the cathedral outside town. She’d phoned that afternoon and asked that I come over. It wasn’t the nice kind of ‘come over, baby’ resonated in soft voice; the kind where you would wake and think 'How did this happen, again?' and shafts of sunlight through your curtains illuminate her face... no no no no no no no no no no no no. You could tell by her tone. Anyway, perhaps this was best.

I had driven with haste, the weight of doubt in my eyes. A mist borne of my own mind. Driving. The Who playing a session on Radio 2. After I had arrived, and after I had said what I had, and after she had listened, and after we decided to separate... I decided to leave. Mutually beneficial. A short drive later. And I’m outside, and it’s raining lightly through the warmth in the air. Afternoon had given way to evening, evening to night. I leave my car where it is. I walk openly in the delicate shower to the Cathedral green, and there, a nice spot.

I stared at the pond, in the odd patch of moonlight, as the rain skimmed it's crystalline surface. I wasn’t hurt by what had happened, not in the truest sense, hurt lasts and reminds and aches. I knew this wouldn't last. It was nostalgia for the passing present, for sure. Or, the recently departed. The old cathedral, a proud monument to the efforts of men, enlightened or blind, or both, still stands.

Finding scant materials on me, I made a thin consiliatory cigarette to the future, and sat in that awesome place, as the rain eventually soaked me through. Not to forget, nor to remember. Something in between, if that were possible. I’d like to choose that. That this comforting cigarette renders me comfortable in my sadness. I placed my hope in that cigarette, and did I have a lighter? Did I fuck.



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I was travelling through Chiapas with an assortment of vagabonds and no-hopers I'd become associated with. I call them friends to their faces, and I'm sure they extend the same limits of courtesy to me. e arrived, after a morning hiking down from hills into a valley, at this quite beautiful little village that didn’t look in such a desperate state as the other places we’d seen. We reached a town square of some kind, small and informal but surrounded on all sides by houses in varying states of disrepair and poverty. In the centre of this was a circular area of grass, about 30 ft in diameter. We could see a local market further down the street. The others made themselves comfortable on the grass, sat against trees, and I walked to the market.

It was crowded, but not hectic. It reminded me of the hive of activity that is often found at the kind of Village jumble sales I’d been to as a child. Grabbing and taking and impatient unsharing. Comparitively, this was a colourful and yet well mannered place. Gentle bartering and genuine politeness earned me 4 cups of a red Tea. I returned to my friends after a little browsing, tea in my palm, a new poncho slung across my shoulder and a handful of bananas for a make-shift meal.

We were sat against a tree, amongst a group of trees. My friends had fallen into sleep in my absence.
Across from our tree, against another, sat another fairly Western traveller. His clothes gave him away. That, and the red of his sun burn. He was alone, and was writing into a pad of paper, barely concious of the lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. I sat and peeled a banana. Our eyes met frequently across this dusty road. I rummaged in my pockets and pulled out the half-smoked cigar I had been savouring, infrequently, since our arrival in Mexico. Rubbing banana peel off my boots, I walked across the road and introduced myself.

“Oh, don’t you have one?”
I stopped briefly and thought about that and answered his question “No, I can’t remember the last time I had a lighter.”
“Really?” He laughed, a little stunned...
“Well, It's not something I’m particularly happy about.”
“You can have mine.” He offered.

Our conversations were going well, and it seemed appropriate to express the overwhelming gratitude I felt for his kind gesture. We smoked together, for a while.



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The red and white pattern plastic tablecloth and the canary yellow curtains of the by-now familiar breakfast bar. The faux plants here and there around and about, about as real as the coffee. No, you parasite, get off me, get your own damned lighter. I’m trying to have my breakfast.



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I was walking through an area of London. It was quite expensive, very well kept. To my left were flats of the highest quality and to my right, a calm river, which I assume met up, said Hi, and kicked the bull with the Thames at some point. It was an evening in early August, the leaves were beginning to fall but they were still a lush green. I was here alone, visiting my parents. They had called me back after a summer without seeing them, I felt obliged but I’d rather not have been there. I'd quit smoking years ago, after meeting the woman who would become my wife. Two hours to kill. My parents had moved to this apartment to retire, it overlooked the park I was strolling through. I sat on a bench facing into the fauna, and pulled the first proof of my colleague's recent study from my briefcase. I pulled reading glasses from my coat pocket and opened the journal.