I'm at the billing section of a supermarket. It is one of the two in the neighbourhood. Both are close to my house, but the other is closer. I take one last look at everything that's going to deplete my savings account by a couple of hundreds today – dog biscuits, man biscuits, curd, kitchen tissue, two Cornetto butter-scotch ice cream cones and two packs of my regular cigarettes. I keep the shopping basket at the counter trying to think of all the things I could have forgotten. I always forget something. The three girls at the counter giggle. I am a regular. We have a strange kind of conversation going on between us every time I stop by to buy something, which invariably is almost every day. Our chit chat is always short and always on the same topic – cigarettes.

“No cigarettes today?” One of them asks, smiling shyly.

“Are you not going to give me any?” I beam.

We all laugh. I buy my cigarettes and walk off. Feeling pleasantly touched. I don't know why.

Another day, as usual, after picking up grocery I am at the billing counter once again. The three girls are giggling.

“No cigarettes today?” I notice it is the same girl who speaks to me every time I am at the counter. She is a small, young thing. I would suspect child labour if I didn't know better.

“If I didn't buy cigarettes these guys won't be able to pay your salary.” I said. That was really stupid of me. Maybe, even mean. I didn't have to say it at all. But well, sometimes, I do make an ass of myself trying to be funny.

“I don't want to be paid if you have to pay for it with your life.” I was ready for her clever retort and stretching my face muscle, warming up for my laughter but was surprised. It was the same little girl. For a second, I didn't know what to think. What did she mean? Was she so anti-smoking that she would risk her pay cheque for it? Was she just entertaining me with her cleverness? Or was there something more? I look into her eyes trying to make up my mind.

One of the other girls extended the bill. I took it and headed to the cash counter, and in the crowd before me lost thread of that feeling I was trying to untangle in my head.

The first time I had met her, she was fumbling with the billing machine. I kind of had a feeling she was new to the job. Plus, when I told her that the carton of cigerettes in my shopping basket was complimentary for having bought all the other stuff, and not to be billed she believed it. Instead of checking with someone senior, when she blushed and said to me most sincerely, 'Oh! I'm Sorry,” I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

“Is this your first job?” I asked.

“Yes.” She answered, bewildered at my unexpected reaction. Plus, it looked like she wasn't used to all the attention that my laughter had gotten her. Everybody in the store was looking towards us now. She looked like a lost lamb. I realised she was trying to make up her mind on the appropriate response to my behaviour.

I liked her immediately. She was naïve in a ridiculously simple, and likeable sort of way. She was small, almost like a high school kid, although much famished. Her big, wide eyes expressed a sad innocence that, I believe, usually became a talented artist's inspiration to paint unsetting sunsets over quaint village scenes. She was so frail that it was impossible not to feel protective as one would towards a kitten or pup.

“I was just joking. There's nothing free in this shop. Except maybe your smile.” I paid and left that day but carried her in my mind. I kept thinking of her smile. It felt like I knew her. Like I have sat with her on the banks of a silently flowing river and talked about things I never speak to anyone else. Like how I dreamt that the moon was actually the love of my life who one day became so angry with me that she cursed me to live forever in her presence but without her and turned into the moon. We both laughed like children, freely, without another sound from the world outside staining the purity of the moment.

I don't know who she is or where she come from. I don't find the need to know. I wonder if she thinks about me. Does she think of me as a good guy? Or a stupid man who is hell bent on killing himself with cigarettes? Is her smile a sad and early farewell, a mourning flower on my tomb?

I make it a point to buy from her store instead of the other even when it is closer to my house. I carry no intentions, good or bad. I don't think about having intentions. It just feels good to see her smile, that's all. So I walk 3 minutes more, cross the supermarket closer to my home and stop by her store. And buy cigarettes. She smiles, asks me one of her usual questions. I answer, and smile back. I go back home, feeling a little more alive. I feel that the world is not fully bad as yet. I wonder at my own stupidity. Then I smile, knowing that what I call my stupidity is nothing more than my desire to appear proper and civilised. It is at best a skewed response to life. At worst, an outright lie to maintain the semblance of respectability.

As I walked back home today, with her unguarded, kind and expressive smile lighting news paths in my mind, I tell myself, 'I need to smile more.' Nobody smiles like that in the city. I guess there must be enough reasons to be happy in life.