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the archive(s):
issue no. 4:
A Nearly Justified Cigarette / J M
I inhale it again, relieving only temporarily the already temporary stress existing in my sleepy spirit. My exhalation isn't as soothing as the smoke and steam mixture looks rising from my lips.
A soggy, half-smoked, burnt-brown edged cigarette lies before me, six feet and counting. I'm coming closer; is this a real-life foreshadowing? The likelihood that I will turn into the human equivalent of a soggy shriveling cancer stick ought to match that of anybody's. We all breathe the same damned air. The carcinogens I'm exhaling are the same particles that are soon to be inhaled by someone's car, not fully filtered, but quite nicely tempered, and dispersed into the enclosed interior of the automobile. It will be disguised as comforting warm air. The car's inhabitants might as well be taking a drag with me.
Contrary to usual reactions, I'm not disgusted by drawing nearer my own death. This is when, typically, I would convince myself that if I take one more drag fuck it, even half a drag, that I will one hundred percent for sure no doubt die of lung cancer. The possibility of such a likely event is enough to defeat the purpose of the cigarette in the first place. Why do I kill myself? I like to think I'm helping Mother Nature. Of course, I like to think a lot of things. I also like to think that the ass monkey who just cut me off didn't do it on purpose. And I like to think that the customers who literally throw their money at me onto the counter will be tortured somehow in the future by the same ridiculous pain which arises from their existence in my life.
This is why I was lighting the cigarette in the first place; this is one of many nearly justifiable reasons for participating in the pleasure-inducing process of blackening my lungs, and aiding in Death's battle against their function.
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