The Companionship of Cigarettes

In lieu of companionship, of friendship, of a lover, he smokes clove cigarettes. He smoked them the way a troubadour plays his guitar, the way the barfly drinks a bottle of whisky, the way an accountant arranges sums on a spreadsheet.

It was hardly an addiction unless one counts one or two cigarettes three or four times a week as an addiction. He certainly wasn't a chain smoker. He was lucky (so to speak) if he smoked a whole pack in the course of a month.

It was for companionship - a way to be alone but not just standing by himself. In an odd sort of way, standing around smoking a cigarette made him more invisible, anonymous than if he were to stand in the same place without a cigarette. That was part of his reasoning, but it was also because of the warmth, the sweet, tight taste of smoke. The tiny buzz that made him feel illuminated, as if he were radiating a faint blue aura.

It was an odd sort of love affair, he knew, but in his shyness, his cowardice around women he was attracted to, these cigarettes were a guilty comfort.

Most of his friends didn't know. He didn't want to be bothered with the questions and the practical, all to obvious health warnings. The few friends who did know thought he had stopped a long time ago.

It was also a kind of rebellion. He wasn't one to impose himself on others and beyond that, it wasn't uncommon for him to feel taken advantage of or taken for granted. These cigarettes were a quiet, secret way for him to tell all of his free loading friends to fuck off and leave him alone.

He loved his cigarettes but he knew well enough to keep them at a distance, to not love them too much. He didn't know where the line between casual smoking and can't quit smoking was drawn but he wanted to stay well away from that line. To this end, it's not that he limited himself to a certain number of cigarettes a day. A limit implies restraint and one only needs to restrain ones self from something one would otherwise indulge in. Smoking wasn't that for him.

So there was no per-day limit. Unrestrained on his worst days the most he ever indulged in was four in one day but that was rare. To keep himself far away from that line, he just made sure to resist the want of a cigarette at least as often as he gave into it and since he had never gotten to the point where he NEEDED to smoke, this blurry rule of thumb kept him safe enough.