A Birthday Party

Tell me how you got that scar. 45 minutes

“The way I see it,” Steve slurred, his eyes shining with the yellow of a nearby lamp, “all we are really left with are memories and this body of ours.”

He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar, blowing the smoke into the night air. He leaned back on the imported granite boulder, its unnaturally flowing curves cradling the curve of his back. He wiggled his toes in the lovingly manicured grass and looked around the lush courtyard of his moderately opulent apartment complex. He took another puff and smiled.

“This is a beautiful night. I have had good food and excellent drink. I am smoking the finest Cuban cigar the son of a customs officer could ask for.”

He puffed again smiling. It had been an evening of opulence, beginning with an aged steak, cooked perfectly, as only the Old Loafer can. The restaurant had been ridiculously sophisticated, the low chatter and soft clinking a crooning song of comfort in that softly lit redwood room. We returned to his apartment to gather cigars and a dusty bottle of bourbon before venturing into the night, our footsteps and banter punctuated by the occasional clink of heavy tumblers.

“A beautiful night.”

I said nothing. I agreed, absolutely. The woody taste of the old bourbon washed over the complex sharpness of the cigars to create a flavor and feel I had never experienced with lesser cigars and more common liquors.

He smiled once more, looked at his cigar, and pressed it into the inside of his wrist. The impressive stack of ash smeared across his pale skin and the sizzle was masked by his sharp intake of breath. He held it there, smoking, his entire body clenched in a silent shaking screams.

“Memories,” he gasped, “are buried, are lost, are forgotten. If we lose our memories, then all we are have our dying day…”

He tossed the shredded stub of tobacco into a stately clump of reeds and held up his wrist. Twisted black and smeared gray and vengeful red spun a jagged circle on his pampered skin.

“…is a broken body. Time will not rob me of this night.”


I wondered for a moment where the years would lead us. This man, my dearest friend, might become a memory, lost to recollection. If I forgot him, he may have never lived at all. The night was certainly worth remembering, but the friendship was a treasure I’d grieve losing.

I looked for a moment at my cigar, the smoke slicking softly skyward, the ember pulsing with the beat of my heart, with the hush of the wind. I nodded across the puddle of light to Steve, who was smiling with tears on his cheeks and a tremor in his shoulders.

I chose the palm of my left hand. It seemed to itch with symbolic perfection, and in a night of esoteric philosophy and drunken ritual, the symbolism was fully appreciated.

I drew one last sample of the smoke, and it tasted sweet on my tongue as the ember flared red, ready, excited to singe its moment into time.

I felt the heat of it on my skin before I ever touched it to me, and for a second, I was jerked away from the moment, fear of regret freezing my hand.

“Be the hero,” came his whisper, “in your story. Don’t let life happen, and don’t let it happen. Make your life. Make your memories, or in the end, it was nothing at all.”

The pain was excruciating. My scream was caught, crushed, rolled into a tight, deep moan. The fingers of my anguished hand locked into a twisted claw as my body fought to escape my resolve. I fell to my knees, my entire world locked into that inch of flesh. A tearing piercing, demon claws that tore into me. I pressed the ember harder, my body a knot, my shoulders tightly clenched across my back.

I couldn’t take any more. My will failed, my body took control and flung the cigar to the ground. Flecks of orange skittered from the still smoldering end. My entire arm trembled, and my lungs filled again, shaking.

I knew I would never forget that night, but I wondered if I would remember how beautiful the grass looked beneath my feet.

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