“Love is a cigarette. The excitement of it. The romantic inclination. The flittering feelingly of frantic glee at its initial kindling. The euphoria at its burgeoning flame. The panic of fleeting comfort, when the ash leaves a trail of us chasing to the end or running from its inception. And at the last, if cancer doesn’t take you, you can laugh at everyone else, having proven them wrong.”
-Pope Francis*
Here’s a question for you:
What do dragons, demons, antiheroes, fire-eaters, revolutionaries, and I have in common?
We all love to breathe smoke.
“Smoking’s bad for you!”
I know that. Hell, babies that aren’t born yet know that smoking is bad for you. But I can’t help it.
It isn’t just the addiction to the nicotine, though I’d be fooling myself to believe otherwise. It’s that, for a quick five minutes, I can focus on something else. On the curling of the smoke as it unravels into a physical embodiment of the Chaos Theory. The feeling that some deathly pitch is being contained in me, the way retribution sits in the soul a vengeful god, both a reason for living and its self-demise. The action is a romance I can share with myself, as deep and free as I want to go without fear of reprisal, doubt, or judgment from the parties involved.
A silent revolution of one, where every cigarette is a middle finger to a species more focused on self interest than the betterment of the world that made them.
So I’d say about a pack a day.
“What about cancer?”
Well, this is going to sound a little bit rough, but it’s the truth. I’ve known a kid who was tortured before he was killed. Good guy, too. I’ve had friends, young men, blow up or get shot or commit suicide or so many other forms of death that were both violent and sudden that I think having several months advanced warning that you were going to die is a blessing. I didn’t think I would be here this long anyway. And I get more time? Okey dokey.
And yes, the pain and suffering that’s involved is horrendous. I’ve seen it. Last week I held the hand of a man I'd known for years, good to the core, and I saw what cancer can do. He’d lost tremendous amounts of weight, had to go through chemo that made him terribly ill, and he could barely move himself. But every day this man woke up was a day that people told him he was loved. That he’d mattered and will, long after he’s in the grave. At least, that's what I said. And I get it. Dying sucks, from what we all think.
No one else thinks this way, of course. Tomorrow’s not simply definite, it’s necessary. So smoking’s on the decline. And that’s great! I’m very happy that so many people don’t have to deal with the ubiquitous smell, the stains on the fingers and teeth, the higher risk of so many health issues, and the dent in the bank account. I can celebrate that with you. And who knows? Maybe one day my views will adjust and I’ll join you. But as for the present, I’ll enjoy the company of dragons.
*It wasn’t Pope Francis