Christian Lee Hutson - Northsiders | [Editorial] The Cigarettes We Never Smoked Together

Cinematic Soundscape Review

The Cigarettes We
Never Smoked Together

Northsiders

Christian Lee Hutson

Official Audio — Experience the Atmosphere

Listen to this reflection

Some memories don't fade; they just lie dormant, only to suddenly come alive in a song you hear by chance. You were new, draped in dark clothes, trying to carve out a definitive shape for yourself in the science quad. There is a specific kind of bluffing that belongs entirely to youth—lying about trying things at a cousin's house, pretending to carry the heavy weight of the world, following a stranger up to some hidden spot to pass the time. We tell each other we are running away, claiming different sides of town as if we could simply rewrite our own histories on a Tuesday afternoon.

Same Old Tree

Then comes the era of earnest pretension. We all believed we had invented rebellion, calling ourselves communists, and psychoanalyzing our friends with the confidence of amateurs. We fell in and out of love, moving from one person to the next, convinced our tragic understanding of the world made us uniquely important. But all that posturing fades when it's time to pack up for different colleges, leaving behind a much simpler reality: after all, we are branches on the same old tree. We spend our whole lives stretching away from the trunk, leaning into our own empty spaces, but whenever memories of those forgotten days suddenly surface, we realize we are still connected.

Life is a drama. Or it isn't; Anyway, it hands us a mundane shift at the smoothie shop and a manager who refuses to give us the weekend off. And the weekend never came through. The smoothie shop got its last shift, and the countryside got postponed again. Then, on some unremarkable morning, the accident was just there in the newspaper, tucked between the weather and the listings.

A momentary distraction, a hand reaching blindly for a pack of cigarettes, a split second where the brake lights went unnoticed. You just hope it was quick. That is the only thing left to wish for someone whose phone number is still saved in your contact list. Just a sudden stop.

Letters Sent to an Empty House

Years later, I sometimes walk past the corner where that smoothie shop used to be. It’s a dry cleaner now, smelling faintly of pressed shirts and chemical solvent instead of crushed strawberries and kale. I still don't trust the government, though I stopped wearing all black a long time ago. Last week, I bought a pack of the brand you used to smoke, just to keep it in my coat pocket. I don't smoke, but feeling the sharp cardboard corners against my fingers while waiting for the train makes the countryside feel a little closer, as if we are still keeping our clumsy promises in a world just out of sight.

Sometimes, when the day slows down, it is easy to picture a parallel world where none of this happened. A world where we simply grew older, getting comfortably heavy somewhere out in the countryside, living a slow life together. It changes nothing, of course. But I keep my hand in my coat pocket anyway, feeling the edges of the cardboard, until the train doors open and I step inside.

The Next Turn on a Quiet Road

01

"Empty Shell" by Angelo De Augustine [ play the archive ▷ ]

Watching the dust settle in a room someone used to occupy

02

"Fade Into You" by Gregory Alan Isakov [ play the archive ▷ ]

A tender surrender to the night, where two souls softly blend into a single quiet breath.

03

"Changes" by Eileen Laverty [ play the archive ▷ ]

A quiet reflection on the shifting tides of life, reminding us to breathe through the spaces in between.

Archive // No. 032