It was a windy day and she shouted at me from the street, two stories down below, that she needed a cigarette. I would throw them down in futility as they were continually caught in gusts of wind and carried off into trees; cigarette bird nests building up like snow drifts on remote Canadian highways. She kept on making the signal to throw down more: two hands raised towards the sky before quickly flicking her hands down towards her shoulders.
“Throw more, Throw more.”
The pack was soon empty and I looked back into the hotel room, towards the end table, to see if another pack lay next to the bed. My eyes, however, were caught by the low quality carpet that the end table’s legs were plunged into. Each little, worn, tired loop of carpet seemed to be trying to lift the table up; I could hear each loop whispering about destiny and divinity as they believed themselves to be the foundation of all things; commands shouted among the loop groups at each of the four legs.
I saw a second pack atop the table, and gingerly walked over to pick it up, crushing as few of the carpet loops as possible.