Cigarettes Killed Reality

These girls, they would go on a holiday, during the spring, to a cottage by the sea where they would sit on the grass, under the stars and drink champagne out of teacups. They would go for bike rides down to the store and buy orange juice, milk and cigarettes and talk to the old man at the corner about how he has rolled his own cigarettes since he was five. In the mornings you'd always find a girl sitting on the verandah, taking one last drag of her cigarette before breakfast, and watch the last bit of smoke fall away to nothing. The bedrooms were littered with pretty clothing and floral nightgowns and on the window sill there would be a teacup stained with tobacco and butts and the faint smell of death lingering around its rim. Dinner times were lovely and full of homemade meals, followed by tea and cake or even ice-ceam and strawberries. Some days the girls would walk into town with only their pretty pyjamas on and bare feet laced with the earth. In the Evenings before the stars came out, before the spliff was to be spliffed, the girls would play scrabble and make pots of tea laced with gin, by candlelight. Then the evening would set in and a glow would be about the house and the garden would be alight with faeries and the girls would dance among the flowers and butterflies hoping that they would never have to awaken from this dream.