Sometime, a sequence of thoughts could come out of nowhere. Or, something totally unconnected will trigger them off. In my case, this morning, it was nothing more than a tiny leaf. A semi-dried one, too, that had lost its grip and fallen from the eucalyptus tree that overhangs the balcony. It is still a young tree, by the way, its branches springy with youth, ready to bend and sway as the winds command. The little detached leaf was once no doubt a blue-green shade like all its siblings still attached to the branches. But this one, now on its own and without nourishment, has had to endure the sun and its new bed — a tiled surface that blows hot and cold according to the commands of the sun and the clouds. The leaf has, given these harsh conditions, lost both its shape and colour. It has curled up at the edges with dehydration, and turned brown. And now, as I look at it, I see the wind is having a little fun rocking it from side to side teasingly then blowing just that bit harder to send it rolling forward a few centimetres along the apricot-tinted tiles before rolling it back.

In all honesty, it is not as a leaf that I first noticed it. The moment my eye caught it rolling along the tiles, I thought it was a cigar. It looked exactly like something someone might have half-smoked and reserved for another occasion. As a young man who once upon a time experimented with the white sticks, I know a thing or two about half-smokes and saving some for later — not because, at that young age, cancer was a lurking fear, but because economics dictated that a whole cigarette ‘in one go’ was simply being too lavish. Over indulgent, in other words. I suppose that in turn came from growing up in a house where ‘overindulgence’ wasn’t in the family vocabulary.

But there was one time, when I got my very first job, that the aforementioned overindulgence simply overran me.

Anyhow, on this occasion as I went to buy a cigar, I looked at all the cigars on the shelves shielded by sliding glass doors. I must surely have looked confused and undecided (which I truly was) for the store owner enquired if I needed assistance. “I’m just looking to buy a cigar. Just one. To celebrate.” I stopped short of telling him I’d just received my first pay packet and I felt like a king. A king desperately in need of a cigar!

The first cigar

The store manager — a dapper man in waistcoat and old-fashioned fob watch — was even in the 70s a man from another bygone period altogether. Slightly bent, he walked over to a far shelf and returned with a cylindrical box. Prising off the lid he took one and laid it on the counter. “These are probably the best ones to sample first, if you’re a beginner,” he said. Looking at the leaf on my balcony today, I’m reminded of how similar in shape and size it is to the first cigar I bought. I wish I could remember its name, or the brand. Nothing comes to mind. In size, it looked just a little larger than a bullet. But it was, if memory serves me right, mild. And at that time, with Rs300 (Dh17) in my pocket, the whole atmosphere wreathed in cigar smoke, it did invoke a feeling of luxury that I’ve never since quite experienced.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.