Smokes: Saint and Scent

by Shedrack Akanbi

Laura Vinck

1. Take a minute to examine your wrist, the left one. Wonder why you have made it an ashtray. Think of the white tiles in the toilet as large flat eyes. Wonder if they’ve kept count of the number of times you have put the end of a cigarette on your wrist. Then consider doing a self evaluation — are you going mad? Decide you are not. But you should still wonder why you are not going to stop darkening your wrist, at least you know you won’t stop today. Wonder why you have come to enjoy the pain more than the smoke you love to blow out of your nostrils.

2. You know why you are here. So, don’t waste your time regretting why you have chosen to live a life of routine prayers with other men who have cloaked their desires inside monochrome habits. Remember you were under no pressure to be a priest. Map out a blame, attempt throwing your guilt through a needle’s eye so that it can hit someone else, anybody. But when you succeed at failing, accept the truth. You thought this was an escape route. Now the road to freedom turns out to be made of quicksand.

3. Remember Daniel, Brother Daniel. Remember how you held his hands to pray and your groin warmed up. Remember that you were both new here. Remember you had never been in a conversation with him except the usual greetings and blessings. Also, remember how you know that he knows that the two of you are running away from yourselves. Tell yourself it is true that he is like you, tell yourself it was written in his eyes, say it louder, it will make you feel un-alone. Whisper it, repeat it again; faster, in short sharp successions until you feel the rhythm of your heart pumping louder than your sobs.

4. Remember that Mass when you first saw Brother Daniel. Remember how you wished to be in a den with him, you don’t mind the lions watching if they play to their script accordingly. Remember how it took only the smell of the incense to distract you. Remember what you told yourself after the smoke of the incense caught you off guard. Take this hint: it was something about being a sweet smelling sacrifice, always.

5. Remember how you start to yearn for smokes in the dormitory because you cannot stop looking at Brother Daniel’s hairy chest. It didn’t matter if the smoke was scented or not. Remember how frustrated you were because incense is only burnt during the celebration of Eucharist. Try to remember how you became friends with the night brothers at the last corner of the dormitory. Fail at it. But remember the night one of them handed you a stick and lighter. You know how you kept going to them for sticks.

6. Now, before you put this cigarette on your wrist again, before you make the pain chase the insomnia away, why not imagine yourself as smoke, the way you see yourself in your dreams. Think of yourself as a thing that wouldn’t stay for long, something that is always trying to fill up the room for as much as its short life allows. Something that is free and ever reaching for the skies. Or, have you ever seen smoke descending?

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Shedrack Opeyemi Akanbi (He/Him/His) is a Nigerian, believer, and dreamer. He studied History and International Studies at the University of Ilorin. His writings appear in The Roadrunner Review, Kalahari Review, Chestnut Review, Olongo Africa, Salamander Ink, and elsewhere. He was shortlisted for the 2020 Eriata Oribhabor Prize for Poetry (EOPP), and won the 2021 PIN Poetically Written Prose Contest. His short story “Mr. Tunde’s Moments” was second runner-up in The Bolaji Abdullahi Prize for Literature, 2021. He reads fiction for CRAFT Literary and Little Patuxent Review. Find him on Twitter @ShedrackAkanbi