Devon Redmond

The Church of Lorna

They didn’t scare me. It’s kind of hard to fear anything when you’re already dying. The chants of the protestors were growing louder by the second; I could barely hear myself think. You might think stage two lung cancer would get anyone to stop smoking but, that’s quitter talk. I smoked my first pack when I was thirteen and I hadn’t gone a day without a cigarette since. It had become the principal ritual of my religion, the Church of Lorna.