She is dressed casually but carefully, her jeans and red blouse precisely creased. Her nails and hair speak of frequent applications of color, again considered and tasteful.
Alone, she sits at the small aluminum table, an extension of the café into the Plaza San Lorenzo next to the Basilica de Jesus de Gran Poder. Stacked and shuffled in front of her on the table are three packages of unfiltered Marlboros and a lighter. She opens a pack, slides out a cigarette and places it between her lips where it remains as she lights it and puffs continously on it with deep but rapid draws, the oily dark smoke clouding the air in front of her and bathing her tanned face.
When the cigarette is one-quarter ash, she anchors it between the fingers of her left hand and begins the rhythmic sweep of hand to mouth and down to flick the ashes on the rapidly shortening cigarette.
As the cigarette sweeps downward, her lips move in a silent mantra. To the mouth, long drag and then down with a flick to punctuate the cigarette´s upward sweep. Again and again.
This meditation on and of death continues through five cigarettes with only infrequent pauses to glance at her watch and a retrieval of four more packs of cigarettes from her purse in her lap.
No surcease, no redemption with Spain´s banning of smoking in interior public spaces. Each sweep of her hand is a prayer to nicotine's balm and a kiss to its faustian bargain.
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