The Long Smoke

Selfina was a heavy smoker who went through and consumed three packs of cigarettes faster than her two and a half daily meals. She was quite aware that smoking was going to kill her one day, but her love of the Joker’s brand was greater than her love of life, especially her own. She had stopped smoking for a short while — for Nicole, her partner in this shortening life, for Joey, their son, and for Ashley, their daughter — too many times. Alas, Joker’s were very good to her; extremely uplifting, as they tended to send shivers down and up her spine when she finally smoked them following a Joker’s-less period. She tried hypnosis, acupuncture, Life Sign, Nicorette, and a ghost of other therapies, but Joker’s always got the last breath.

“Three Joker’s, please!” Selfina told the vendor.

“Which ones?”

“Regular! On second thought, make it two packs! I’m trying to cut down.”

A cigarette was burning in her mouth as soon as she stepped out of the convenience store. And later, on her way home, she stopped for another pack.

“I’ll cut down tomorrow,” she promised herself, as she always tended to do.

That night, she had a foggy dream in which Joker’s had gone out of business. On top of it, she was dead broke and needed a smoke very badly. She woke up in a thick sweat, and soon enough was buying several packs of Joker’s. She felt much better with a Joker’s burning in her mouth, but deep within — not deep enough — she knew that she was blowing her whole life away.

“Fuck it!” she told herself. “If I want a smoke, nothing will stop me, not even death.”

A cloud of smoke was billowing around her head.

Nicole had cried and pleaded with her to give it up, but she simply couldn’t or wouldn’t. Joey and Ashley were confused by her odd behaviour. “Mommy, Mommy! Do you love Jocker’s more than Mommy?” Joey had asked. “No!” answered Selfina. “My love for your mother, your sister, and you have nothing to do with smoking.” Joey had felt betrayed, and Nicole threatened to leave her. But somehow, she managed to calm her with another petty promise.

Eventually, Selfina’s health deteriorated: the wrinkles on her skin got wider, her colour paled, coughing was a regular affair, and her life turned more chaotic. She looked like a living ghost. Her physician practically ordered her to stop smoking, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t, for Joker’s were invincible, possessing the entire controlling panel of her brain. Each smoke that she took and held, triggered a chain of coughs and spits and a period of breathlessness, but she kept on smoking. Even when she really tried, she couldn’t stop.

She remained at home, as working outside had become impossible. This daylong living hell wasn’t a suitable or sustainable environment for her family any longer. Nicole took the children and left to live with her parents for a while. As for Selfina, she only got sicker. Yet smoke still ruled whatever was left of her life.

One day, her nurse found her dead with a Joker’s still burning in her mouth. Her last cigarette became a great mystery, as it burned without losing its length. It was as if it was burning something else and not itself. It was against all the known laws of Nature, and no one was able to explain it; no one except for Nicole who carefully kept it to herself. She knew that Selfina’s last Joker’s was consuming her deathless part, her immortal speck, her perpetual soul.

Are all souls smoking? It appears to the observing brain, except for those whose bodies stopped or never did.