Saturday's Storyteller: "The very air you breathe is a lie."

by Belinda Roddie

The very air you breathe is a lie. It poisons you, bit by bit, until you feel yourself reeling, off-kilter, into the nearest coffee table with your lopsided drink spilling across your perfectly white shirt. Your perfectly pure, chaste white shirt.

Not to say that there is a better alternative. It is like drinking a slower poison. You would rather go with the carcinogen than the cyanide.

And in the end, it becomes addicting. You don't know when to quit the toxic binge. You know that if you stop, you will die. But you will die anyway, if you keep going.

You take a drag of the cigarette. Only the cigarette is not comprised of vicious chemicals. It is oxygen and carbon dioxide. It is car exhaust and tree exhalations. It is kisses, alcohol, and food. It is radiation. It is sunlight. It is the moon and the stars, All shining upon you and soaking your skin with all the stigmas of the universe.

And it is all so damn beautiful! But the most stunning elements of the cosmos are the ones that destroy you, slowly, on the inside. Ultimately, you are left with your white shirt and your bottle of bourbon. You survive, as best as you can, with smooches from your wife and raucous laughter from your buddies.

The party has arrived. You can perceive the thinnest scent of cinnamon. The spices allure you. They make you feel sharper, more alert, more aware. You believe, for the slightest moment, that you are invincible.

But then the air envelopes you, and you are lost in the impending natural smog.

This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.