Ditching the smokes / Hal Hetchemburgersonwaldersheim

He always found Christmas shopping to be one of the more underrated New York City experiences. Sure the lines were long and stores were hot and crowded. Sure the crosswalks were often submerged in slush and filth and the places he needed to go widely spread throughout the city. But still, the satisfaction of dropping a load of shopping bags inside your front door after a successful excursion in the city far surpassed the same feeling after pulling into a driveway with a trunk full of gifts after a trip to some mall. The glory was in the endeavor itself. Why anyone would prefer to drive to a mall in a single trip when one could navigate their way through numerous stops in various neighborhoods of the greatest city in the world was beyond him.

He only had one stop left. The place that gave the foot massages his wife enjoyed was about twenty blocks southeast. He could take the R or N to 23rd street or he could head over to Grand Central first at the oft chance that he'd happen upon a side store selling the "Welcome to New York. Duck Mother Fucker" t-shirts he knew his brother-in-law would appreciate before hopping on the 6 train.

He had just decided to skip the subway altogether and complete the final leg of his trip by foot. This would allow him ample time to enjoy a single forbidden cigarette, certainly one of his last before he quit his dirty secret for good with a single determined new year resolution. With an unlit smoke hanging from his lips he was perusing the passersby for likelihood of having a light when the scaffolding he was standing under suddenly collapsed, trapping him beneath two tons of metal, snow, wire, and ice. His back broken and his lungs filling with blood he reached into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes he wasn't supposed to own. He managed to retrieve them and with a flick of the wrist they were now laying closer to an older woman with a white hat who appeared to be dead. In his life's waning moments he found relief that although Christmas was ruined and his daughter would grow up without a father, at least when his wife came to identify the body she wouldn't have to claim, amongst the bags of gifts found 'on his person', a pack of smokes.