Calla was not one for planning. She wanted to smoke this foreign drug, so she did it. In her mind, obstacles would just sort of move out of the way. Don't know how to use a waterpipe? Wing it. No mortar and pestle? Use your windowsill. No matches? Use...use what?
The woman put the pipe down and looked around her room. Not a single flame of any kind was in sight. Her hearth lay cold in the corner of the room, and her lone candle sat extinguished on the table next to her bed. The pipe was small and fragile, so Calla figured it needed a small flame. The hearth wouldn't do, but she figured it was a start.
Calla crossed the room to her hearth, tripping over no less than three things as she did so. Her flint and steel sat on top of the hearth, and the woman picked it up. She looked at the stone and metal in her hand, wondering if she could light the pipe from that. Looking at the pipe from across the room, though, convinced her that plan was a dud; flints sprayed the sparks everywhere. She'd probably set herself on fire before she'd set the herb on fire.
So she returned to the original plan. She crouched and swung the small door to the hearth open. She poked around the inside of the hearth halfheartedly. It was dead. Calla had let it run out when the weather had started to get unbearable. She didn't need the extra heat, and cooking wasn't something she did too often. She preferred to stop at the Inn or just use up her ration chip. The hearth was redundant.
Just because she didn't have a lit fire didn't mean she didn't know how to start one. But it was getting late, and the woman was impatient. She didn't have the time or energy to sit there and nurse kindling into a flame just so she could light a pipe and then extinguish it all before bed. No. There had to be a better way.
Shutting the door to the hearth, Calla stood and leaned against the cold metal box. Slowly, a plan formulated. She needed to light a small flame. Candles produced that sort of flame. So she needed to light a candle. Calla crossed back to the other end of her room and picked up her candle off the table. Now that she had a candle, all she needed was a flame. And if she couldn't find a flame in here then she'd have to go elsewhere.
Calla didn't bother putting her boots back on as she exited the room. She looked up the hall, then back down. The building was mostly quiet as people prepared to turn in for the night. Upstairs, there was laughter. Calla noted that as a last resort. Her neighbor to the right hated her. He always slammed on the wall whenever she made the slightest noise, so she figured he wouldn't take kindly to her knocking on his door. The woman began to walk down the hall in the other direction, peering under the doors. Finally, she reached a door with a warm, soft glow reaching out from underneath it. She knocked.
Another woman answered the door. "Hello?"
"Right, yeah, hi. I'm Calla from down the hall." She pointed her door out to the woman, who, in turn, leaned into the hall to look. "My fire's dead. Can I get a light from you?" Calla lifted the candle, placing it between the two.
"Oh, sure. Hold on." The woman took the candle, shut the door, and returned a chime later with a lit flame. "Here you are."
"Thank you so much. Night." Calla nodded and the shuffle-ran back to her room. She continued to shuffle after she entered the room, moving her feet in sweeping motions so that she wouldn't trip over anything. She needed a light, but she wasn't in the mood for burning her whole room down. After re-situating herself in front of the window, Calla breathed in a sigh of relief. "Finally."
Calla lifted the pipe and examined it. She knew the basics of a fire: air plus embers equals fire. In this case, she figured the herb was the kindling. It just needed air. So, Calla placed her mouth on one opening and the candle on the other. She began to suck in--because blowing out would get water everywhere--as she moved the tip of the candle to the herb.
It took a while for the plant to catch fire. Calla tried tilting the candle, but as she did this the wax dripped off the candle. Luckily, it landed on her pants. The shock of almost getting hit with hot wax caused her to break her connection, though, so she had to start once more. Again, she began to suck in while hovering the candle around the bowl of the pipe. The leaves began to catch fire. Slowly at first, but, after a little bit of effort, a decent amount of the herb was turning ashy-black.
The problem was that the smoke wasn't coming out of the pipe. Calla continued to inhale, but nothing happened. Even after she stopped lighting it, the pipe kept its intoxicating secrets to itself. Calla was beginning to run out of breath, so she had no choice but to pull back. She lifted her face from the pipe and smoke wafted out.
"Oh, now we do the thing, hm?" She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Round two." She was optimistically calling this her second try, but at this point she was definitely in the double-digits. Smoke built inside the pipe's chamber, but still refused to escape into her lungs. Maybe if it came out when I cleared this hole... Calla thought as she eyed the second hole. She stopped lighting the herb, placed the candle on the windowsill, and pulled the bowl out of the hole.
Bubbles erupted inside the pipe as the smoke rushed into her. Calla continued to pull, watching as the water turned inside. To her enjoyment and dismay, the smoke kept coming long after she had decided it was enough. Her body convulsed, her eyes bulged, and her lungs rejected everything they had just taking in. Calla cough violently. She put the pipe down as she rocked back and forth. She couldn't stop coughing--she couldn't breath!
Her throat was on fire. Clearly, her body was upset with her. This is nothing like poppers! Poppers went down rough, but a toddler could get used to them in a matter of chimes! This, on the other hand, felt like it had the potential to kill. Calla scrambled for her bag, continuing to cough the whole way.
"Get over it and die already!" Her neighbor screamed as he pounded on their shared wall. "Some of us are trying to sleep!" Calla coughed right through the witty reply she thought up. Speaking was completely out of her realm right now.
Finally, she found her flask. Thank Priskil for ya, Flops! Calla saluted the dead man who she had pilfered this flask from before beginning to chug down water. A never-ending stream of water rushed down her throat, temporarily soothing it. Some coughs fought through the water, but for the most part they subsided. Calla fell onto her back, breathing heavy as her body began to calm down.
She didn't know what kind of sick petchin' joke this was, but she was sure that her father was rolling over with laughter. "Petch you, dad. Some petchin' gift." Even though her insides hurt and and her clothes were now wet, Calla found that a part of her was happy. Somewhere out there, her father would be proud, or disappointed, or entertained. It didn't matter, because, at the end of the day, it meant that a sailor was out there thinking just as much about her as she was about him.
