A cigarette

Bueno, hace mucho que no escribo, y de hecho rompí mi promesa de escribir al menos un post por semana. ¡Pido disculpas! Estoy en medio de la época de parciales, así que estoy muy muy ocupada. Espero poder escribir pronto, pero bueno, si no puedo, me tendré paciencia hasta que pueda por fin :D

Al menos puedo publicar esto, que es un trabajo que hice para la universidad, la clase de Lengua inglesa. Leímos un cuento llamado "Blackout" de Roger Mais, sobre una chica estadounidense que se encuentra a un hombre negro en la época en que la humanidad era tan idiota como para que eso fuera un problema. La consigna era escribir el cuento desde la perspectiva de él, ya que el original está contado desde el punto de vista de la chica. Acá está lo que me salió (no estoy muy orgullosa de él, pero bueno, lo escribí en media hora o menos, así que está bastante bien).

A cigarette

The city was dark and I was on my way home from work. It had been a long hard day. I felt like a cigarette but although I had a stub in my pocket, I was out of matches. Then as I turned up King Street, on the other side of the road, I noticed a young woman waiting for the bus.

I was surprised that, despite the fact that she was alone at night, she didn’t look scared, like normal women are. Probably it was because she was not from here. For one thing, she didn’t dress like women from here do, and she had an air… Probably it was an air of self-sufficiency; an American girl, no doubt. I thought I’d get a laugh and maybe teach her a lesson, so I approached her.

Seeing she was smoking, I asked her for a light, but she said she didn’t have any. Lying, I thought, because she doesn’t like the sight of a black man near her. I asked her for the cigarette she was smoking, and very reluctantly she handed it to me, so that I took it and lit my stub. But only for the sake of making her more uneasy I lit it off her hand, without taking it. She was visibly uncomfortable.

“Thank you”,  I  said. I didn’t like it, but she flicked off the cigarette when I wasn’t waching. I felt it an assault, but laughed in the inside and apologized for making her waste a whole cigarette. As I was expecting, she answered that it didn’t matter.

“There’s plenty more where that came from, right?” I asked, mockingly. She answered affirmatively.

She was fidgeting nervously and looking at me as if she wanted me to disappear. “This is the street, lady, it’s public” I said, rather rudely, but still enjoying myself. “It’s a good thing  you are a woman”, I finished. Evidently, I thought, we come from very different worlds, but here, we are in mine. Here there are only man and women, as I was telling her. For some reason she kept on asking questions with a smirk on her face; I decided it was because she would imitate and make fun of me when she was back home. Oh, fine, then, but you’re not home yet, so I will make the most of it while I still can.

We continued with the so-important chit-chat about society and ethics, until her bus came. I thanked her for the cigarette and she went away.

I didn’t pay attention to see if she turned around or not, I kneeled down and picked up her almost new cigarette. Despicable as her ideals may be, a cigarette is always a cigarette.