Model Vacation
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - September - October 2013

At Last!

That first day of vacation at the beach and Rachel wears her promiscuously tight bikini in this intense sunlight. The solar glare favors her medium-length blond hair as it glints golden-accent-streaked in caramel brown.

Her skin: urban-pasty-white: she will use more sunscreen than the others. Rachel brought three bottles of tanning oil in the canvas gym bag which she flung on the sand just before snapping open the rented beach umbrella and spreading out her just-bought-for-this-day over-sized beach towel. Within her gym bag she stores her cigarettes, lighter and keys and she also packs a cooler loaded with ice and cold sodas so that into that first hour, when the heat of the sun and the drying of the beach breeze creates a thirst that demands a drink, Rachel can tear off the tab and slug down her first gulps on-demand. That’s followed by the overwhelming urge to accompany it with a cigarette.

Release: Part 1

By Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - November - December 2010

The master of the topgallant crew sang out the command “heave” at intervals and thus the deck hands drew in bight after bight until the last of the sail was hauled in and made flat over the yard. To secure the salt-crusted bundle they wrapped it with hemp cords and “made fast” to the jackstay, that metal rod protruding a few inches above the spar for a handgrip and anchoring post.

Three on a Match
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2013

Lillian, in her blue jean jacket and tight-fitting denim pants, brunette straight-brushed shoulder length hair and knit scarf sidles thru a maze of Student Union cafeteria chairs projecting variously from their central tables, some supporting students slouched over them, others hunched atop the table at odd angles. Penetrating into the smoky, dense interior, she unhooks her shoulder strap from her canvas book bag, lets them crash to the linoleum and settles her coffee onto the sticky, beverage-stained table. Seated a few rows from the floor-to-ceiling windows, she glances despondently thru the windows at the patches of ice on College Avenue that signal that the wintery climate was overstaying its tenure into the spring months.

Her purple-yellow hands, numbed cold from changing classes outdoors, made it difficult to snatch the three quarters full pack of Marlboro Reds, peers up and around to see if her companion had yet entered the cafeteria, while her hands sightlessly pull up a cork tipped nico-promise. Janice slips it between her expectant lips without shifting her focus, and edges a Bic flame expectantly to its tip.

The Language of Bodies
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2012

Renée’s arm, pale as her satin sheets, extended past her mattress with her fingers relaxed in a lazy crescent, cradling her just-lit cigarette, which spends its down-time spindling ghostly risers from the edge of its ember. Renée feels serene, seeing her lover resting at peace. Only a few months ago they were strangers: she, a Columbia professor of Sociology and marginalized wife of a commodities broker; and Monica, a Master’s candidate at City College, part-timing as a bookstore clerk.