Before reading this memoir, you may find yourself wondering what this will entail. This is my story, myself being a cigarette butt, about the life I’ve had the pleasure of living- the whole 4 hours of it. I’m writing this memoir as a way to provide you with an insight on what it’s like to start as a fresh cigarette and eventually burn out as a butt.

My day starts out normally as I sit with all of my other cigarette brethren in a home we call a ‘carton’. As the day progresses, my fellow cigarettes are taken out of the carton, never to be heard from again. I was the last one to be taken out of the carton, and as I was placed up to the lips of the person who purchased me, they sparked the flame, immediately making me warm in my torso as I farted smoke into their lungs.

As the minutes passed and I grew shorter and shorter between their fingertips, I began to fear the moment was coming soon: I would be tossed to the ground to die a lonely butt.

Sure enough, a few seconds later I didn’t have any more smoke to give, so I was thrown to the ground and stomped on. Did it hurt? You bet it did. I sat there for a good minute or two trying to wrap my head around what had happened because it came around so quickly. I knew that I had 3 hours until I finally burned out for good, so I decided to use those 3 hours as adventure time.

I felt a nice breeze that soon started pushing me towards the grassy plains, landing on some leaves when the wind finally let me down. I caught a glimpse of the setting sun, driving away the thoughts of my demise. After a while I drifted into a puddle, and I
thought to myself that if I’m lucky enough, I can dissolve into the water, which wouldn’t be a bad way to burn out. But I thought wrong; I had heard from another cigarette that due to a type of plastic in my filter, I would never be able to degrade in soil or in water.

As I conclude my journey through my life as a cigarette, I would like to thank everyone for reading these words I’ve thought up as a way to remember my short-lived life and to influence other cigarettes out there to use their time before burning out wisely and to expect anything and everything outside of the carton.