Semi-Transparent
		“The walk in the park probably wore you out,” Mia said to her Grandfather, “why don’t you take a short nap before we get ready for dinner?” Mia thought the old man (as she affectionately referred to her Grandfather) looked tired and that a nap was probably the best thing for him, but, more importantly, it would give her the opportunity to sneak out on the front porch and smoke the cigarette she’d been craving since she arrived the previous evening. “That’s a good idea,” her Grandfather said, “you can go ahead and turn the television on, if you want.  It won’t bother me any.” He winked at his Granddaughter as though they shared an inside joke as he popped out his hearing aid and disappeared down the hallway to his bedroom.  Mia waited until he had closed his door, turned on the t.v., and then went out on the porch.  Mia liked visiting her Grandfather, and felt obligated to do so, since he and her Grandmother had raised her.  She tried to get down to see him at least once a month, but taking the train was always such a pain in the ass, and she couldn’t afford a car to drive. Mia pulled her pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and noticed that the pack was almost empty.  She always surprised herself with how many cigarettes she smoked on the train.  There was something about the boredom and the availability of a whole train car just devoted to smoking that drew her to it.  She pulled one of the last three cigarettes out and made a mental note to pick up another pack at the train station before she headed back. The thought crossed her mind that she should just finish the pack and then quit altogether.  She knew that she should, she’d seen the horrible pain that smoking caused first hand when her Grandmother clung to life for several months after lung cancer should have taken her life.  It wasn’t a pretty way to go.  Both of her Grandparents had smoked for her whole life, but her Grandfather had given it up cold turkey the day that her Grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer.  He was a strong man, and her role model that she couldn’t always live up to.  She knew that he’d be disappointed in her if he knew that she smoked. She fired up her lighter and took a deep drag off the cigarette.  She knew she wouldn’t quit; she enjoyed smoking too much.  Somewhere in the back of her mind it angered her that a stick of tobacco held such power over her, but the truth was that even though she knew she should quit, she just didn’t want to. Her mind wandered as she smoked.  She thought about where to take the old man for dinner; what time she had to leave the next day to get to the train station; things she had to do for work the next week.  Before she knew it, she was done with the cigarette.  It occurred to her that she wouldn’t get another opportunity to smoke again until the old man went to bed that night.  She could have one more now, one at night, and then get another pack at the station the next morning. “Besides,” she thought to herself, “the old man will need to sleep for at least another twenty minutes.” She lit the second to last cigarette and sat on the stairs on the front porch.  She was amazed at how little things had changed in the neighborhood since she was a kid.  Her Grandfather’s front yard looked exactly the same as when she used to play there with the other neighborhood kids.  They were all gone now, but the old man was still here.  She knew that it wouldn’t be long before he wouldn’t be able to take care of himself on an everyday basis, and she didn’t know what they would do then.  He was too independent minded to ever consider moving into a nursing home, but the reality was that he couldn’t stay here by himself for too much longer. Mia was pondering the alternatives that she knew would come sooner rather than later when she realized that she had been done smoking for several minutes.  Deep in thought, she had absent-mindedly extinguished her cigarette and had been sitting on the stairs zoning out.  She figured that her Grandfather had slept long enough and headed inside to wake him for dinner. Mia walked to the door to the old man’s room and knocked on his door. “Hey Gramps, you ready to eat yet?”  She called to him. There was no response, so she knocked a little louder, more insistently.  Still no response.  She remembered that he had taken out his hearing aid, so she assumed that he probably just couldn’t hear her.  She cracked the door slightly and peeked in.  On his nightstand she saw his hearing aid, so it was no wonder he hadn’t heard her.  But then she realized that his bed was empty.  She opened the door further so she could look to the other side of the mostly-dark room and gasped at what she saw: her grandfather was sitting at his desk, with his back to her, smoking a cigarette.