🙇 Fogconfession: A Last Ciggy with Mom

[Old Goat]

Forgive me, Ohm Lord, for I have sinned.

It was the day my mother passed. The air was heavy, the house silent, emotions foggier than any RDA could ever manage.

I stepped outside with my sister. On the patio table, like a ghostly reminder, lay her cigarettes — the last of her worldly vices.

And in that moment of chaos, grief, and memory… I did the unthinkable.

I picked one up.
I lit it.
I smoked a ciggy.

Not for the buzz, not for the flavour (good heavens, what flavour?), but for the ritual. A final hooraah, a farewell in smoke, shared silently with the woman who once filled this patio with laughter and ash.

It burned like hell. My lungs rejected it like a bad dry hit. But for those few minutes, it felt like I was closer to her — like I was sharing one last cloud, even if it was the wrong kind.

And then I put it out.
And then I wept.
And then, I picked my mod back up, because Mom would’ve laughed and said, “You idiot, stick to your bloody vape.”

So here I stand before the congregation, baring my shame and my heart. I smoked a ciggy on the day my mom died. Not out of weakness, but out of love.

Forgive me, Ohm Lord. For I have sinned.
A-ohm.

 

[Hellena]

Forgive me, Ohm Lord, for I have strayed from the righteous path of coils and clouds.

It was a Friday night, the kind where the Guinness flows like holy water and the jukebox is stuck on 80’s power ballads. My mate leaned across the table, grinning like the devil himself, and slid me a ciggy.

“Go on, just for old time’s sake,” she said.

And like a feckin’ eejit, I did. Out we went, two middle-aged rebels huddled by the pub door, puffing away like we were twenty again, giggling and gossiping, ashes blowing into our hair.

Did it taste like heaven? No. More like licking an ashtray after a bonfire. But in that moment, with her arm hooked through mine, it wasn’t about the flavour. It was about the mischief, the ritual, the little rebellion against good sense.

Then I coughed my lungs out, swore off “the stinkies” all over again, and begged a drag off my vape to save me.

Forgive me, Ohm Lord, for I have sinned.
But Jaysus, it was worth the craic.