Can I explain the sensation that passes across the surface of my brain when the waves of smoke become tangled in my hair? The acrid scent of toxins burning alongside the fibrous tobacco lulls me into a trance.
How do I see her holding the burning cigarette between wrinkled brown fingers and not fear that someday my face will be so prematurely lined? That someday it will be me with oxygen tubes stuck up my nostrils? That my lungs will have grown heavy with tar? The sweet noxious vapor twisting off the end of her Marlborough must be warping my perception of reality, because all I can do as I watch this woman smoke her cigarette is repress the urge to ask for one of my own.
"I'm quitting," she says, the cigarette still between her fingers, resting above the ashtray. She's telling the truth. Two months ago she'd been inhaling two packs a day. Now she had dwindled down to two cigarettes before lunch and two after. I was glad she had waited to smoke one in front of me so I could breathe it in.
Tobacco torments like a recurring dream. I reach for my invisible pack of Camels every time I sit in a long lecture, every time a customer bitches about their undercooked french fries and every time a friend calls me up crying about something her boyfriend did. It is an escape from the rush of bad thoughts, a defense against the unfairness of life. But I know it will destroy me. Sometimes I think being destroyed wouldn't be so bad.
People walk in and out of the house. One leans over the table and slides a long white cigarette out of the carton. Another strolls through the room, lit cigarette hanging between loose fingers. He smiles at me and asks what I've been up to, not seeming to notice the ash accumulating on the end of his cigarette. After a moment it breaks off and drifts to the floor.
I threw a half-empty carton of Camel Menthols out my car window once. It was the only time I ever littered, and if I ever got pulled in front of a judge I'd plead that I'd done it in self defense.
