And The Man Smoked

10 Nov 2025

And The Man Smoked

Prologue

Madhav sat across from me — uninvited, as always — in that quiet hour when the world feels like it’s running out of breath. He didn’t speak. He just watched, eyes glimmering with that infuriating mix of knowing and indifference. I broke the silence the only way I knew how.

With smoke.

Monologue

And the man smoked.

Not for pleasure. Not for pain. But because silence demanded punctuation. The world had grown too loud, too insistent — and smoke was the only language left that didn’t need translation.

He drew the fire close to his lips, felt it bite, then fade into surrender. Each drag, a question. Each exhale, an answer he didn’t believe.

He’d seen too much of time’s crooked humour — how it gave, only to take, how it smiled while twisting the knife. He had stopped chasing meaning long ago; now he merely kept it at bay, like a stray dog that once knew his name.

The ember glowed like a dying sun in his hand, a tiny apocalypse contained. He thought of the people who once tried to save him — how they mistook his smoke for decay, when it was only his way of praying.

To what, he no longer knew. Gods? Ghosts? Or just the echo of a man who once believed he could change the ending?

The wind came, soft and uncaring, and the ash drifted down like tired snow. He watched it fall, and smiled — that crooked, weary smile of a man who’s made peace with his own undoing.

And when the last curl of smoke rose and vanished, he didn’t mourn it. He simply lit another.

Epilogue

Madhav finally spoke. “Still searching for salvation in smoke?”

I laughed, hoarse and hollow. “Not salvation, Madhav. Just… companionship.”

He smiled that quiet, cruel smile — the kind gods reserve for fools they secretly admire.

And for a moment, the smoke between us looked like mercy.