Tucked Behind the Ear

*Note: This was written for my college-level English course. It was required to be a literary fiction around 500 words with three intended grammatical errors. Please review for the content, style, etc and not minuscule grammatical errors for this particular piece. Thank you.*

The lights went out when the sirens stopped and the man with the cigarette tucked behind his ear slouched against the molding pile of picture books. He figured it wasn’t a bad place to die -- if it came to that -- buried among the excess books the librarians had stored in the fungus-ridden basement. He would have classified it as a fantastic place to die, if he hadn’t forgotten his matchbook.

“'Ey. 'Ey, kid,” he nudged the boy dozing beside him underneath the rotting dictionaries.

The boy rubbed his eyes as they adjusted to the dim light from the street-level windows. Moonlight scattered across the books, casting jagged shadows along the floor.

“Gotta match or light?” he grinned as an attempt to appear friendly, exposing his nicotine-stained teeth.

The boy shuddered as the light caught the man’s sagging, wrinkled face. Reluctantly, he drew out the lighter he kept in his chest pocket.

“Thanks, kid,” sparks fluttered about in the man’s hands, as he held the lighter to the end of the cigarette he had wedged between his teeth.

The cigarette ignited and the stench of fumes mingled with the sour scent of mold and stuck to the humid atmosphere of the room. Darkness consumed the basement once again, besides the glowing end of the burning cigarette embers. The man sucked in the bitter-sweet smoke, relaxing as the nicotine eased his anxieties of the bombs raining down outside. Books rattled off the shelves and splashed onto the puddle-flooded floor as a distant explosion shook the earth. The boy gasped, but choked on the smoke twisting around his nostrils and filling his lungs. The man chuckled, causing the medals pinned onto his uniform to shake with the rise and fall of his chest.

“Never had a drag?” he asked the boy, exhaling a cloud of smoke into his face.

“No, sir.”

“And ya how many years ole?”

“Twelve.”

“Kid, ever hear of a ‘last drink?’ This is the only one I got. Every day since I, uh, was excused from the frontlines, I pick one out of the box each morning, just one ‘case the sirens start up and they run a drill or they fly over ‘cause ya never know when it’ll be the last one,” the man held the cigarette between his fingers and offered it to the boy.

The boy shrank away from the flickering end of the cigarette. His father smoked everyday and filled their ramshackle house with the rancid scent. He said it relaxed him and filled the cracks of his mind, but his throat had gone dry and he could never breathe properly.

“C’mon, kid ya never reach your manhood properly without taking a puff at least once,” the cigarette quavered in the man’s hand as another explosion closer than before rocked the basement’s brick walls.

The boy reached for the cigarette and welcomed it into his hand. He rolled it between his thumb and middle finger, just as he had watched his father do while they listened to the news on the radio. Warmth seeped through the paper into his frigid fingers and the burning end pulsated as its oxygen supply quenched its thirst with each gulp. The actions that should follow were all the more familiar to him. Bring the cigarette to his lips, breathe in the chemicals like he drank his chocolate milk, fill his lungs with the fumes, and ease the fracturing of his mind. His cheeks would suck in and then puff out with each inhale and exhale.

“Let’s share the last breath, shall we?”