Last cigarette

The Last Cigarette
Lena pulled her worn coat tighter, the late autumn air biting at her cheeks. The old park bench, where she and Michael had sat every evening for forty years, felt cold and empty tonight. She fumbled in her pocket for the last cigarette, her hands trembling. It was a habit she was trying to quit, but tonight, the grief was a heavy presence beside her.
She lit the cigarette, the small flame a fleeting light in the deepening gloom. As the smoke curled into the dark air, a figure began to form on the other end of the bench. It was translucent, a pale blue outline against the night, but she knew those wide shoulders and kind eyes instantly. Michael.
A warm, familiar scent of stale tobacco and old spice drifted towards her, a smell she had missed terribly since his passing three months ago. She smiled through her tears. The caption below the image read: “The cigarette smoke floated softly in the air, as if the grandfather’s soul had returned.”
She took another drag, desperate to keep the comforting vision alive. It was the only thing that eased the suffocating loneliness, the only way she could feel his presence again. When the cigarette burned down to the filter, she lit another, then another, the smoke growing thicker around them.
She never stopped lighting them, a constant plume swirling above the bench every night. The figure of Michael grew clearer, stronger, until he seemed almost real. One night, he smiled and reached out a hand, a hand as solid and warm as it had been in life. Lena took it, an immense peace washing over her.
The next morning, the park keeper found her sitting on the bench, lifeless and grey. The air around her was cold, carrying the faint, sweet scent of tobacco. The ghost of Michael sat beside her, now fully corporeal and smiling, finally free from the smoke that had trapped him in the space between worlds.