It was your last smoke. You watched the cigarette smoke dissipate into – where? You always wondered that, a toddler on your grandfather’s bed, as you tried to catch the silk of it in your hands. Rafiki-deft, you would swing between the vines of your imagined mental jungle and craft paints and cackle gleefully as you prophesized the return of your king. You must have watched Lion King not long before.
You asked him if clouds were made of cigarette smoke. He laughed, and you asked if Allah was made of clouds too. He said Allah was made of light. You wondered why the two couldn’t be reconciled.
You still thought Allah had a bit of cloud to Him.
Nicotine-lunged, you exhaled. Your grandfather had passed, breathing God with every light. The silk poured forth from your lips like a wayward libation, a thread between today and yesterday.
It was your last smoke. You watched the thread break on its way heavenward and smiled a secret smile. The clouds shifted to show a glimmer of sun, and you heard your grandfather tip his head, and Gold Leaf, toward you.
Neiha Lasharie 