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Between the terrace and me is a canal where pleasure boats pass by. Across the street, an old cigar shop flaunts itself. It tempts me. But I don’t go. I won’t take those big leaves rolled on woman thighs anymore. I don’t want to be a copy of him. My bio dad.

He procreated and moved on. Smoked and shredded from place to place like a real businessman; a bragging man. Where he is, I don’t know. He disappeared without saying much. But on those days when everything seems to go well, the sun is shining softly, couples parade hand in hand, young leaves are playfully seduced by smooth talkers, while I watch mindlessly from behind bitterballen and water-flavored pints, then I see him like popcorn popping up in my mind: why the hell did you do that? Was that typical for man of that century? Or were you just too young and wanted to move on without all that stuff? Do you regret it now? Or have you forgotten me a long time ago? Questions I would like to ask him. According to my mother, he had someone else, had a short fuse on top of that and lived only for his work.

I had to put up with that. But I don’t fight anymore, not with you dad. I’m not trying to copy your style. Yet I feel it’s hard, because that absolutely je m’en fous of his calls to me and I want it so badly. I have been living myself to death for the last 20 years, under the strict watchful eye of my mam and stepdad. Square and at the same time not, because it storms inside. It costs me terrible efforts. You were allowed to go wherever you wanted, and me?

I stayed well behaved, with occasional bursts of petty rage and then a sneer at me: “you got that from your dad”. But I am not him. Dad, I may have features from you, but I will never be like you. I will not leave a child behind.

I will dance and let go of everything that is not necessary and search for what can heal, maybe it will be that beautiful muse, whom I run after like a madman. Or no! Does that make me like him? Or is it just typical for a man in these times, a fast-food neo-romantic looking for easily digestible love? And the one I won’t run away from, where is she? I miss them, unless I sit at my writing desk and type, type like a savage, like possessed, for you, for me and that fucking planet in this fucking age in which you and I have landed.

Just this morning, I thought I came from another world when I woke up. That they had cast me here as a punishment and I had actually lived long ago in a land surrounded by water. It could be, because I love water and when the good boy in me turns into a wild man, swimming or fleeing to an island, surrounded by water and simplicity is what helps. Yes, that’s where I unwind.

The only thing that bothers me is that cigar shop here.

It looks warm and cosy. It smells old and familiar, which I don’t want to embed, a hole in my memory that is filled when I smell cigars. His? Mine?

I guzzle the last of the leftover beer and decide to have a look around. A man with balding head and a pluck of hair in the middle, peers from under his glasses and thinks: what is such a young guy doing here? I nod and look around, lighters of all shapes and colors, the plain metal ones with a big wick appeal to me. Next to them are the guillotine cutters, which you use to cut off the front tip of the cigar. Something they use in gangster movies to punish failed deeds. And then those big and small unhealthy smoking sticks that lie bulging in brown wooden boxes, they smell of South American beautiful women curling them on their legs sweating under the sun. The romance of destruction calls to me too often, because I don’t engage with it.

I step up to the man and ask what he can advise me.

“I am a beginner,” I say.

“Well then I’d rather recommend thin cigars, not those thick ones, try a Romeo Y Julieta, Hoyo de Monterrey or San Cristobal. These are a bit lighter. But I am not allowed to sell them to under-aged people.”

I take out my identity card. I’m used to it already, I still look like a teenager, nothing to do about it. Here, twenty, and a half.

He shuffles over to a large chest of drawers and shows me some boxes. I go for the Romeo Y Julieta, which sounds nice and fatal. I pay, go outside and light a cigar. I inhale and blow out large circles, after which I have to cough for a moment and then quickly recover and inhale another puff.

Ah no, not again, why am I doing this? Because I love the smell, it takes me back to an unfamiliar childhood. When everything seemed fine. If only that’s it.
That old monster must have a place somewhere.