Sweet Air, Bitter Days
Thick smoke still hangs in the air like a threat nobody knows how to answer. Canada’s burning again and it’s not poetic anymore — it’s just grim. Alberta skies are jaundiced, like someone spilled nicotine over the horizon. Step outside and it hits your throat first, then your eyes. Everything smells like old firewood and loss. I saw a kid wearing an N95 just to grab a Slurpee. Survival looks different now.
Speaking of Slurpees — I had one too. Something about walking through a smoky parking lot and drinking 60 grams of sugar feels perfectly dystopian. That’s how much is in a medium. Sixty. Like trying to bribe your nervous system into forgetting what year it is. I stared at the label while it melted in my hand, cherry-red and slowly turning clear at the edges. Sweet distraction. A ritual from when summers felt like freedom instead of fallout.
Life lately feels like a sequence loop. Wake, sell, walk, eat, check balance, overthink, repeat. Not bad, not good. Just… lived. The days stack up like duplicates with minor edits — a different customer, a different playlist, but the same ache under the ribs by 9 PM. I don’t know if I’m coping well or just numb enough to call it rhythm.
I keep telling myself that it’s okay not to be inspired every day. Some days aren’t about progress. Some days are about not breaking. Just keeping it stitched together with caffeine, playlists, memory fragments and maybe a Slurpee. The kind of survival that doesn’t make a movie — just quietly gets through the day without falling apart.
I know other people feel this too. The invisible weight. The repetition. The weird guilt that comes from not being “better” when the world is on fire and you’re still out here drinking sugar through a straw. But maybe this is what it means to keep going — not with pride, not with grace, but with persistence. Like smoke crawling across the highway. Like breath drawn shallow but steady. Like sugar clinging to ice as it melts into something you can still hold for a little while longer.
