"I just don't want anyone messing around with my pure smoking pleasure." Max Cannon
Bobby watched as the smoke coiled and twisted from the end of the cigarette, fascinated by the subtle and shifting pictures it wove. A snake, a twist of DNA, a strand of hair appeared before becoming lost in the eddies and swirls of previous illusions.
The moment was broken by a sudden pang; the urge, the need heavy in his empty mouth and gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Eagerly, he brought the cigarette to his lips, drawing the smoke down deep into his lungs, savouring the rush, the flash of giddiness, the quietening edginess. He exhaled with less haste, playing with the smoke as it left his mouth, forming rings to join curls and clouds.
Ah! There was nothing like the first cigarette of the day.
Except maybe the one after a fine meal. Or the one with a beer... or a cup of good coffee. Or the one snatched as a moment of peace in a hectic day or the one savoured in luxury at the end of the day. Or the post-coital hedonistic shared delight... Christ! Those had been the days...
His long finger tapped off the column of ash and he brought the cigarette again to his mouth.
This time his lungs rebelled, tightening, doubling him over in a paroxysm of coughing. The smoke strayed into his eyes, stinging them, blurring his vision as he choked and gasped. Pain flared in his head at each spasm and he wheezed in the attempt to draw air into his constricted chest. Gradually the fit passed, his breathing eased and the headache receded to a tight band across his temples.
He closed his still teary eyes and concentrated on steadying his shallow breaths, only opening them when a new pain flared in his fingers as the cigarette burnt down to the stub. Hastily he shifted his grip and put it out, pausing as his eyes cleared and he began to see things in a different light.
Butts and ash were piled in a stinking mound in the ashtray he'd neglected to empty the night before. Above it his scorched fingers hovered, stained with nicotine. Around him hung a noxious fog that had accumulated in a room too infrequently aired in the winter chill. He glanced down to see stray flakes of ash speckling his favourite black T-shirt and, in attempting to brush them off, discovered pinhole burns in the fabric. His tongue felt raw, his throat sore and there was an unpleasant taste in his mouth.
Jeez, how had he not noticed?
It must have crept up on him. Bobby thought back to his Army days, where cigarettes were a currency of camaraderie and he'd been a regular smoker. He'd stopped when he'd joined the NYPD, only occasionally lapsing when the needs of undercover work demanded it or to build rapport with a witness or suspect. He realised those lapses had got more frequent, that he had begun to never refuse a proffered smoke, and eventually, embarrassed by always being the one on the cadge, had relented and bought a pack...
A slippery slope, indeed.
And it had led him here, to a three day break over the holidays with no family to share the festivities, nothing to do but read ... and smoke. He grimaced, disgusted with himself, and made a vow.
He would quit smoking.