He had spent countless days looking through the window, the one that opened, the one he had gone through just the once. The people that had brought him here from a life before tried every day to get him to do other things, things he did not want to do, things he had never done, he hated doing other things!
All he wanted was the chair in front of the window, the one with the little table beside it and with his bottle of whiskey and a small glass into which he could pour the whiskey, the small glass that he drank from. The little table that had his tobacco on, he loved smoking and made his own cigarettes to smoke when he drank his whiskey from the small glass. The little table that had a lighter to light his own rolled cigarettes with. The little table that had cigarette papers to make his own rolled cigarettes. The little table that had the ashtray on it, the one he flicked the ash into from his own rolled cigarettes when he was drinking whiskey from the small glass.
The small glass and the ashtray are not the ones he used to have, he wished he had the old ashtray and small glass. He liked the patterns on the ashtray he used to have. The small glass he used to have also had patterns on it, they were different from the patterns on his old ashtray but he liked the different patterns. The ones they gave him, the they that brought him here to the chair in front of the window. Those ones are plain, plain glass ashtray, plain small glass, no patterns on anything! He still used them but did not really like them much.
When they first brought him here, they said he could not have his whiskey, they said he could not have his tobacco, they said he could not have a small glass, they said he could not have an ashtray. He had just sat, not eating their horrid food, not drinking their horrid tea, not anything. He had even refused to be taken to that horrid clean toilet, he wet and soiled himself in the chair!
One day he was brought to his chair in front of the window and there was the little table next to the chair with a whiskey bottle on it and the small glass. He looked at them, not speaking. Still he did not eat, still he did not drink, not even his whiskey. How could he drink whiskey from the small glass without smoking one of his own rolled cigarettes? They insisted he could not have tobacco!
The next day they brought him to the chair and he noticed all the other chairs in the room had gone. The room had just his chair with the little table beside it, the bottle of whiskey and the small glass were on the little table. Beside the bottle of whiskey was a pouch of tobacco, a packet of cigarette rolling papers, a lighter and an ashtray. He felt full of happiness inside to see these things. He let them help him into his chair and sat and rolled a cigarette as they watched him, he then opened the bottle of whiskey and poured some into the small glass. He lit the cigarette with the lighter and puffed so deeply he nearly coughed. He did not let the cough escape, he drank whiskey from the small glass savouring the taste of the fluid on his tongue.
Now he would eat their horrid food, drink their horrid tea, he put whiskey in the tea as he thought it made it taste better. He would let them take him to the horrid clean toilet, he had all he needed. He still would not do other things. They did try and talk to him, he just sat drinking his whiskey from the small glass and smoking his own rolled cigarettes and flicking the ash from his own rolled cigarettes into the clear glass ashtray. He ignored them. He looked out the window that once opened.
©Trevor Litchfield
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