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It 's his last cigarette and he doesn’t even have a match stick to light it. He tried to make a fire once from dried leaves and twigs, and he knew that it was better to wait for lightning to strike than to try that again. Frustration. He better get used to it since it will be his only friend for the rest of his days, provided that he were to survive. He stashed the cigarette back into his breast pocket; civilization's souvenir.

He leans back onto the leather couch he salvaged from downtown. It used to belong to a pastor who was now rotting under the Baptist church he used to go to whenever he felt the need to be enlightened. For a moment, he wonders if he could have really changed his life completely had the outbreak not come. He blows imaginary smoke rings in the air and closed his eyes. Things were not that promising back then no matter how hard he tried. Maybe it was better that it all ended.

Aside from his cigarettes, he could recall nothing that he missed from before. If nothing else, he was thankful that he had no more responsibility to society: no need to take a bath regularly and look presentable, no need to look for a job that doesn’t make him look like a tramp next to his high school peers, no need to pay for the rent, no need to impress people he never liked anyway. The only tradeoff were cigarettes. He heaves  a loud sigh and try to fight it off with sleep. As they say, the only way to go is cold turkey.