Snow White
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - May - June 2014

Iliana adjusts her crisply-laundered lab coat, gleaming in the always-summer fluorescence of the ceiling lights, as she re-seats herself upon the tall stool before the laminar flow Biohazard hood. Her hairnet, face mask, blouse, hosiery, and walking shoes are similarly a vision of shimmering whiteness, although not quite as bright as the lab coat, which fluoresces from the embedded whiteners. Iliana’s short-length hair nestles beneath the porous tea-bag paper of her head coverlet, and her hair coordinates in platinum. Only her skirt contrasts with that arctic look, but Iliana’s lab coat leaves but a narrow strip of her tweedy grey visible.

Chattanooga Before Dawn
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - September - October 2012

Her fingers are fatigued after hours of gripping the steering wheel; and at intervals, sporting a cigarette that glows like a smoldering spoke. A two-stemmed film of translucence unfurls up and away from the Winston’s constant ember as a reminder that it awaits another of her anxiety-tinged kisses. Weary from this night driving, she’s been fighting sleep by clouding her GMC Acadia with bored, mechanical chaining and singing smoke-blended ballads along with her CD companions Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift.

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.

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.