The strip comes in every box. Foil packet. Vitagen green. I peel it out. Fold it twice, drop it in the trash before I’ve even boiled water.
I go out back to smoke my Graymont, with a cup of coffee I won’t finish.
My daughter sends me links all the time. Respiron plans and pricing tiers. Before-and-afters. I don’t open them. She knows I don’t open them. She sends them anyway.
The wall behind my building is gray concrete. Dark with damp. A crack runs down from the second floor to where the render starts. Same crack was there when I moved in. The wall’s familiar like my hands.
I drag. Hold it. Cold takes the smoke apart.
Reclaimers talk about freedom. Coming back after Respiron landed, lighting up in stairwells. Look on their faces like they’re teenagers again.
What’s stopping you now?
I get it. I do. But that’s not this.
Nothing is stopping me. Nothing has ever stopped me. That’s not the point.
The strip is under coffee grounds and last night’s take-out.
I smoke the Graymont down to the filter. It’s a cold, gray, entirely ordinary day.
My lungs do what they do.
I go inside. I don’t open the links.
Tomorrow there’ll be another strip in the box.
A story from the Static Drift universe.
Article photo by Gerrit Fröhlich on Unsplash.