Since childhood, Jabir had been smoking.
Because he had no money,
he collected cigarette butts from the streets.
And in his world, the best man
was the director of the meat factory,
because he smoked the cigarette halfway
and threw it away.
The person he hated the most
was the literature teacher:
the cigarette had burned his moustache
and had rotted his teeth.
Jabir also had a good plan:
for preparation for winter,
he would store the cigarette butts
in glass jars.
Because a cigarette butt thrown on the snow
becomes unusable.
Now I see that
the family budgets of the poor
fill up like Jabir’s glass jars,
and the state budget
is in the same condition.
But the officials who eat the wealth —
their bloody teeth
have become even whiter.
And there isn’t a single official
like that director
who would throw half of the wealth
to the people.
I saw Jabir the other day.
His moustache has been yellowed by cigarettes.
His teeth have decayed,
like his life.
He says this country is hell.
He says the fire of hell
lights our cigarettes.
But there is also one beauty in this —
it saves a matchstick.
A final note:
The cigarette had destroyed
Jabir’s lungs.
He had become unusable,
like a cigarette butt thrown on snow.
Shivering, Jabir died —
he went from hell’s local branch
straight to hell itself.
There he would not be cold.
His always-cold body
would warm up there.
This death also affected
his family budget:
he had been fined
300 AZN
for throwing a cigarette butt
onto the street,
and that money remained
for his family.
Sometimes even in
hell’s local branch
good things happen…
