Smoker By Association
Smoker By Association
I need a smoke. I need a bloody cigarette.
I'm sitting here, going through papers and sorting them into different stacks. Ever so often I will tap my fingers together, the right hand's thumb and index finger, in a motion of distress. Something is missing. Well, not literally, but my brain keeps telling me so. With the papers all sorted, I put them away and look for another distraction. That's what I need, distractions. Keep myself busy with other things, and maybe the craving will go away eventually.
Biting my nails - I never chew them off, I've always found that disgusting - I browse through pictures on my computer, putting them into folders and organizing My Pictures. The Libertines' eponymous album revolves in my CD player, the volume cranked up to as loud as I can have it without the rest of the family complaining. Under the influence of shuffle, Barât sings about being 'professionally trendy in the glow of Clapham sun', and I sing along as I click my way through a collection of photographs I took in Greece. The uncomfortable feeling is still there under it all, pulling at my concentration.
"If you pipe all summer long, then get forgiven in a song," sings Doherty as I finish sorting the multitude of pictures I've gathered. Clicking open a WordPad document (I've come to prefer writing in WordPad and then spellchecking and saving the text in Word) I start writing text stubs, ideas that I've had in my head all day. They're good, but I'm just not in the right mood for making anything good of them, resulting in a document full of loose paragraphs. I push my chair back, listening to Doherty's advice to 'remember why you came - not to play follow the leader, no no'.
I'm not planning to follow any leader. I just want a cigarette.
What's so ironic about this addiction-like desire is that I am a non-smoker. Never smoked a cigarette in my life, at least not actively. I've been a passive smoker since I was a baby, thanks to my mother. But she's been keeping off those cancer sticks for some years now. A lot of my former classmates smoke, and a lot of my relatives. What I find myself wondering, as Barât and Doherty join forces on 'The Man Who Would Be King', is: Can you develop a cigarette addiction through passive smoking?
I'm sitting here, going through papers and sorting them into different stacks. Ever so often I will tap my fingers together, the right hand's thumb and index finger, in a motion of distress. Something is missing. Well, not literally, but my brain keeps telling me so. With the papers all sorted, I put them away and look for another distraction. That's what I need, distractions. Keep myself busy with other things, and maybe the craving will go away eventually.
Biting my nails - I never chew them off, I've always found that disgusting - I browse through pictures on my computer, putting them into folders and organizing My Pictures. The Libertines' eponymous album revolves in my CD player, the volume cranked up to as loud as I can have it without the rest of the family complaining. Under the influence of shuffle, Barât sings about being 'professionally trendy in the glow of Clapham sun', and I sing along as I click my way through a collection of photographs I took in Greece. The uncomfortable feeling is still there under it all, pulling at my concentration.
"If you pipe all summer long, then get forgiven in a song," sings Doherty as I finish sorting the multitude of pictures I've gathered. Clicking open a WordPad document (I've come to prefer writing in WordPad and then spellchecking and saving the text in Word) I start writing text stubs, ideas that I've had in my head all day. They're good, but I'm just not in the right mood for making anything good of them, resulting in a document full of loose paragraphs. I push my chair back, listening to Doherty's advice to 'remember why you came - not to play follow the leader, no no'.
I'm not planning to follow any leader. I just want a cigarette.
What's so ironic about this addiction-like desire is that I am a non-smoker. Never smoked a cigarette in my life, at least not actively. I've been a passive smoker since I was a baby, thanks to my mother. But she's been keeping off those cancer sticks for some years now. A lot of my former classmates smoke, and a lot of my relatives. What I find myself wondering, as Barât and Doherty join forces on 'The Man Who Would Be King', is: Can you develop a cigarette addiction through passive smoking?
♠ ♠ ♠
Well, can you?Again, a piece that's not fully fiction nor non-fiction, but a mix of both.