Why I Smoke

I can remember as a young child going to my grandparents’ house every Sunday for lunch after church. My grandmother smoked, until she quit. My grandfather quit. My great grandfather smoked. As a young child I was unable to see the ceiling in their house as the smoke was so thick, it loomed above me like a thick gray swirling soup.

One Sunday after lunch one of my younger cousins and I decided to try smoking a cigarette. This was in early eighties, an age when newscasters still smoked on camera and every man wanted to be the Marlboro Man. We managed to get a pack of Marlboro Reds from our grandfather’s carton, which he kept on top of the refrigerator, and hid in the back bathroom. Once there with the door closed and locked behind us we managed, with some difficulty, to finally get the pack open. Standing there looking as the open pack one would think we just unwrapped a bar of gold with our eyes wide and mouths gapping. After a few seconds we puled a cigarette each from the pack and placed them between our lips.

I found a lighter beside the sink and struck the wheel and trigger; success on the first try, we had a flame, which danced against our breathes. Lighting our cigarettes we felt older and more mature immediately, then we inhaled.

The coughs were like dominos falling, one after the other. Our stomachs churned, our eyes stung, and our lungs burned. We quickly threw our new idols of manhood into the toilet and ran outside for some fresh air. We never spoke of that to anyone, not even amongst ourselves.

Word Count – 282

~ by John on February 19, 2008.