There were no people in the streets; only shadows that occasionally passed me by.
Holes
You may see me with a cigarette in my mouth more often than without, and wonder if I ever even thought about the health risks of smoking. To answer your question: Yes, I am well aware of them. You see, I have tried to stop smoking before, because I know this won't end well and I want to change that. Though I have failed each time, as the reason why I can't and won't stop smoking is a little more complicated. In those times I concluded that cigarettes may be the antidote, but not the cure for the itch.
Here is a depiction of what it feels like to go two days without smoking.
It was late afternoon. I was on my way to the pond to catch the last rays of sunlight of the day when I lit my last cigarette on the way there and gave myself a mental note: "I really gotta stock up. Last call!"
The weather was nice; I felt calmed by the diminishing sunlight on my skin and the nicotine in my lungs.
Once the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, I set out for the convenience store to stock up on my stash, but, to my surprise, once I arrived there and tried to enter, the door wouldn't open. In utter confusion I looked at my watch, which showed 9:30 pm, then I rattled on the handle again. I wondered why it wouldn't open. Usually they were always open at this time of the day. Unless…
I glanced around and among all the advertisements I spotted the sign taped onto to the inside of the glass door, reading "closed". Below it there was a note. "This store has been suspended by the department for health until further notice. As ordered by Mayor McDaniels, cigarettes and tobacco will no longer be sold here."
"WHAT!" I exclaimed at the sign. "Agh! They can't just do that!"
I felt a tickle on my arm and battered a little spider crawling over it in a quick reflex. I twitched in disgust and quickly swiped it off, wiping my hand on my pants.
Usually I would have a freshly wrapped cigarette now, but the sudden closure of my favorite store had really caught me off-guard. What a nasty move! How could the Mayor do this? I remembered that there was another store somewhere at the other side of town and decided to try my luck there.
It was an excruciatingly long walk. One I would usually make more pleasant by smoking on the way. But no matter how often I checked my belt-pocket out of a reflex formed by habit, it remained empty. I squished another spider and an ant crawling across my neck.
As expected, this store was closed too, with a similar notice hanging out. In the window I saw a newspaper with a headline that read: "On the way to a healthier world! South Park establishes tobacco ban!"
"Are you fucking kidding me? You gotta be… This is just ridiculous!" I stood there staring at the sign, still finding it hard to believe. Then I saw the cockroach crawling up onto my nose.
"And what the hell are you staring at?!" I yelled and batted it off.
I walked back home and killed five more bugs that crawled out from under my shirt.
After my dinner, which consisted of instant-noodles, I went outside and slid my fingers into my belt pocket, almost lighting the tip of the stick bug on fire that had made itself a home in there.
"God fucking damn those bugs!" I yelled and threw it into the bushes, then a bunch of beetles fell onto the ground in front of me as I rifled through my hair.
I went back inside and tried to sleep, but the tickling continued. It was too dark to see, but I felt them crawling all over my body with their gross feet.
In the morning I woke up feeling like shit, and when I lifted my cover I found myself lying in a sea of cockroaches.
"Ah fucking damn it, what is this?!" I yelped and got up, batting them off my body.
I looked for something to eat, but the bugs had eaten holes into the remains of yesterday's loaf of bread. Great. Wonderful. I sighed and grabbed my phone as I left the house, dialing Pete to arrange a meeting. Surely one of his goth friends would be able to spare a cig for me.
Pete, Michael, Henrietta and Firkle were waiting for me at the playground, all seated around a table with a coffee machine in the center and sipping from their mugs. Seeing as they were not smoking, I knew that I wasn't the only one who had run out of cigarettes.
"'Ello," I greeted them and sat down next to Michael. "So what happened?"
"The Mayor banned smoking," Firkle spoke. Henrietta poured me some coffee too.
"Yeah but why?"
A short silence followed.
"Just another ridiculous story. There was a big drama at school because some kid almost died swallowing a cigarette, and some parents got upset. It all went downhill from there," Michael explained.
"Yeah. And of course now everyone thinks cigs are a threat to their children so they prohibited stores from selling them at all," Henrietta added.
"What the hell. Have they all gone crazy?" I asked.
"More like they've never been normal. Welcome to South Park," Pete commented.
I squished a spider on my cheek. "So where are we gonna get our cigarettes from now?"
"We haven't really thought of a plan yet. It's a pain, I know," Michael said.
"There must be a secret stash somewhere. I'm sure the stores didn't just mysteriously sell out before they closed," I theorized aloud.
"But the question is, can you break us in?" Michael asked.
"Nothing easier than that. Meet me at the store tonight at seven," I said and quickly batted off another pair of ants from the back of my hand. But as soon as I had left the round, I felt something tickling on my neck.
I felt sick when I got home, wondering if I'd caught a fever. I shivered, feeling cold and nauseous. I gagged, spitting out a cockroach that lay on its back and wiggled at me with its many feet before it tipped itself over and disappeared in a hole behind the furniture.
"What the hell?" I groaned and went to lie down, only to realize my bed was gone. The bugs must had eaten it.
"What the fuck?!"
I felt tickling on my chest and when I lifted my shirt, I saw a swarm of ants wildly running all over my body. I took off my shirt and tried to batter them off with it, but they kept coming back. I stumbled back against a wall. There was something on my back.
Panic clouding my mind, I dashed to the bathroom and broke the mirror with my fist. Hastily I grabbed a shard from the sink and turned around.
"FUCK!"
I jerked my head away in disgust and suppressed my nausea at what I saw in the tiny mirror. There were maggots of all sizes sitting in reddened holes in the skin of my back, oozing with infection. I jumped into the shower and tried to brush them off with a rag, but it only made the pain worse. Blood was dripping onto the tile floor and I saw a bug crawling to the closest crimson spot to drink from it. The roaches were waiting for me outside the shower, looking at me, and now spiders were coming down from the ceiling too, monitoring my every move with their many eyes. I felt nauseous.
Suddenly all strength left my body and I sank down. For a while I was cowering in the corner of the shower burying my face in my hands, naked, wet, shivering and trying not to throw up. Everything was itching with pain and I felt like dying.
"I should probably go see a doctor while I still can," I told myself and convinced myself to get up from my position, stepping out of the room and making my way through the roaches on the floor. When I arrived at the kitchen, the whole room appeared to flicker with black spots. I paid it no attention and poured the roaches out of my shoes before I put them on and walked to the hospital.
The hospital made me wait. To be precise, I waited there for two hours and watched as a maggot ate its way through my wrist. I let it.
"Hello? Did you not hear your name called?" a nurse awkwardly bent down to talk to my face. "The doctor is ready to see you now."
The doctor was not ready to see me. Upon a quick and very brief inspection, he gave me a painful pat on the back and told me to man up, stop wasting his time and get out of his sight. What a waste of time indeed.
My stomach was growling, so when I passed by the hospital's cafeteria I decided to buy some cake. The cake was made of cheese with a nice filling of… live maggots. I didn't care and ate it anyway.
Back outside I went to pick up my shovel at my house. When I entered, the room was obscured with spider webs and I had to fight my way through a sea of bugs on the floor to my bedroom, where I usually left it. Though the only thing the bugs didn't eat was the metal part of the shovel. I flicked off a beetle sitting on it and took it with me as I left the house, locking in that living hell made of bugs behind my front door.
I felt weary, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to keep my promise and make it to the rendezvous. My whole body was shivering and I was soaked in sweat, even though the evening was rather chill. With effort I dragged myself to the store. Two days ago I had still walked this path with ease; but on this dying day my muscles felt heavy and over strained with the easiest of tasks, like lifting one leg in front of the other.
Eventually I slowed down and came to a halt. My legs wouldn't move another centimeter, no matter how hard I tried. It was almost as if they were rebelling against their owner. I kept pushing, but they were just too heavy to lift. I didn't need to pull up the pant leg to see the cause of my fatigue, because the bugs that had been eating holes through my muscles had now punctured my clothes as well. Slowly lifting my arm I ran my hand over my face, realizing I must look like hell right now.
I collapsed under my immobilized legs and crushed a few bugs as I fell onto the concrete ground. Biting through the pain, I tried to drag myself to the rendezvous point with the help of my hiltless shovel. There were no people in the streets; only shadows that occasionally passed me by. For some reason all I worried about now was being late, and when I finally arrived there hours later, I understood why.
I saw the goth kids standing by the store, a street light illuminating the scene as I approached in the same slow pace as I came and found a cigarette on the ground in front of me. Making no haste now, I grabbed my lighter and ignited the tip. Inhaling the sweet substance instantly made me feel better. The bugs were leaving my body, escaping the fumigation of their nest that was my body, and at some point I thought I could feel my legs again. In a matter of minutes the itching stopped, the pain was gone, and so were the bugs.
With shaky legs I stood up and started approaching my friends, who had been patiently waiting for me in place.
"'Ello," I greeted them.
They didn't say a word.
Their shapes were recognizable, but something seemed off. As I came closer I discovered the terror that had been awaiting me all along. Empty husks made of flesh stood there, wearing the faces of my friends with a blank stare.
"No..." my voice shook as I approached and looked into their gray faces.
My hand reached out to touch Michael's cheek because in that moment the shock wouldn't allow my mind to trust my eyes alone. The touch however caused an unexpected chain reaction and suddenly all hell broke loose. It awoke a swarm of bugs that crawled from every pore of his skin and onto my arm. I screamed and dropped my cigarette, trying to shake them off, but now the other three figures started shaking horribly as thousands of carnivorous bugs left their eroded bodies, swarmed into my direction and dug into my skin, eating me alive.