Challenge #21 - Altered Photography
[FIONA is laying in the grass and smoking a cigarette while looking at pictures. She occasionally holds the lit end of the cigarette on a picture, burning the face of one of the pictured people. DREA comes over and lays beside her.]
DREA
Hey.
FIONA
Hey.
DREA
I hope I’m not the one you are removing from the pictures by fire.
FIONA
Nope. Not you. Not yet.
DREA
I’m sorry.
FIONA
It’s not your fault.
DREA
It’s not not my fault.
FIONA
This isn’t about you.
DREA
Okay, okay. Sorry.
[Beat]
Can I bum one?
FIONA
I thought you didn’t smoke.
DREA
I don’t. It’s an awful habit.
[FIONA rolls her eyes and passes DREA her pack and a lighter.]
It’s been a long time, though. I quit when I was a little older than you.
FIONA
So when Lincoln was president?
DREA
Something like that.
[DREA lights a cigarette and takes a drag]
It’s like riding a bike. If bikes gave you cancer. How did you get into smoking anyway? I thought your generation was like sober and didn’t do drinking, smoking, sex, anything fun.
FIONA
Don’t believe everything you read.
DREA
I don’t. Not since I read that my generation didn’t learn how to write longhand and only cared about getting drunk. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll drink a bottle a wine as fast as the next millennial, but we did learn cursive in school. Still. Don’t see a lot of smokers your age.
FIONA
Most of them I know vape. Which is “so much healthier, you should try it.”
[scoffs]
I don’t do it because I’m old school or anything, I do it because I don’t want to lie to myself. Smoking is bad for me. I know that. Vaping would also be bad for me.
DREA
How’d you get into it in the first place though?
FIONA
I know this is crazy but… I like the smell. It reminds me of my grandpa. He was a smoker so the smell just makes me feel safe.
[finishes a cigarette and lights up another.]
Plus, when I started at George’s the only regular breaks that were allowed were smoke breaks. If I wanted to get off the floor for a while I had to pick up the habit.
DREA
That is just…
FIONA
A recipe for creating young smokers? Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marlboro gave George a cut of sales in the 2010s.
[starts burning a hole in a picture]
But it’s also nice to always have fire in your hands.
DREA
I hear that.
FIONA
Does Garrett know you still smoke?
DREA
No. I don’t think he’d care all that much but I usually only do it when I’m drunk and that’s normally when I’m out with friends so… I haven’t bought any since I was 18. If I did buy a pack I’d probably tell him.
FIONA
Sure.
DREA
What?
FIONA
That just seems like one of those arbitrary rules you tell yourself that if you break you set a new rule. Like, if I smoke more than one a week, if I smoke more than one a day, if I smoke alone, if I smoke sober, then I have a problem. Then I’ll tell my therapist, or partner.
DREA
Another one of the ways you don’t lie to yourself is your don’t make those promises to yourself.
FIONA
Not to myself or anyone.