A Sacred Ritual

There’s that smell of gas again. It had been coming off and on for a few days now, and he hadn’t been able to place it. All he knew was that it wasn’t his. It was something else…or perhaps, someone else.

The odour was peculiar; it had a very synthetic tinge to it, and was over-powering at the same time, like something you’d smell at a hospital. Thankfully, due to the lack of an air conditioner in the car, the window was open, and hence, it was bearable.

But it was there. There was no doubting that.

The cell phone rang. Sir, this is the Citibank car leasing department…click. As he cut off the call, he wondered how and when would he be able to pay off his car loan…and his home loan, and the monies he owed to the kiosk guy who gave him cigarettes on credit.

Cigarettes.

He hadn’t had a smoke all morning. Maybe that’s why the smell was there. Inside the glove compartment, lay his pack of Marlboro’s, and that Zippo lighter he had kept so carefully over the last 12 years. Every time he used that lighter, it brought back a flood of memories: that special someone who gave it to him who was now but a vague memory, the place, the time…he remembered everything.

He slowed the car down as it neared the traffic light, and once at full stop, he reached into the compartment, pulled out the pack of smokes and the light. Ahh, Marlboro’s, smoke these and you’ll never become old, you’ll just get lung cancer by your mid thirties and die, but it’ll feel good all the way.

He popped a fag into his mouth, like an Indian movie star, and looked left, and then right…the light had turned green, the other cars were slowly moving away, oblivious of the sacred ritual which he was enacting…a ritual he enacted at least 35 times a day.

The Zippo didn’t light the first time he struck it…there was a slight flicker, and then nothing. He remembered reading in its manual that for it to light properly, there had to be an upward movement, and then the flick. He moved his hand upwards, and struck the lighter…and in a split second, the flame ignited and caught a whiff of the gas that had been wandering in the car for many a day….out of nowhere a huge ball of flame alighted itself inside, and made its way to the back of the car where the gas cylinder was situated.

Three seconds later, there was huge blast, and the sacred ritual was now over, never to be repeated again.