[Story Index] [Discussion Thread] [The Asylum]
Reflections on the Water
By Hedonism
2000-12-17
It's twenty past three in Nanaimo, and I've had a sudden change of heart. None of what I had to say before is important, and I don't think it'll ever reach the front page of the Asylum. Especially when compared to some of the brilliant and heart-wrenching stories that others here have shared, the pain and hope they've elicited seems so much worthwhile than the boredom I might inspire by re-hashing and edited-for-your-viewing-pleasure academic essay that would only serve as a pale and drab analysis of an experience to whom only a few can relate.
So I quit smoking, tonight.
Not because I care about my health, because I don't. Not because it costs me money. I don't care about money; having clean water to drink a and adequate shelter is a life of riches in some part of the world, and I am not so naïve as to think of my situation as approaching anything resembling poverty. Fuck, my parents own a hot-tub. As far as I'm concerned, I am a king among men, and you could not convince me otherwise, no matter how many zeroes you can scribble on the end of a check.
So I'm sitting in this ill-gotten hot-tub, sharing a smoke with the stars, when the ringing of sirens wafts over from the parkway, a couple kilometers away. A lot of sirens. There will be a front page story about it in the newspaper tomorrow. Another impersonal and dollar-generating sensation buzzing around this small city like the latest 6AM, hot caffeine injection to let everyone know that the world has just become a little grimmer.
Suddenly I became very, very sombre. I thought long about the suffering that some very unlucky people must be going through for so many ambulances to be converging on one spot. Will they recover? Will they have the opportunity to reveal to those they care about their true heart, before their consciousness passes from existence? Would they have the courage to do it, even in the face of death?
This is too precious to be wasting isn't it? And here I am, pruning up, killing time with a carton of white and brown death in my hands. Tar, 14 milligrams. Nicotine, 1.3 milligrams. Carbon monoxide, 14 milligrams. Glue and acetone, paintstripper. And worse yet, I spent money on this toxic waste that I one day decided would be a good idea to inhale into my lungs. This money that went straight into the hands of a tobacco company, an organization dedicated to poisoning adults and children alike, that warps our governments' agendas with the same sort of money that bought this hot-tub I don't deserve. An industry historically built on slave labour, and now built on the backs of people who don't have the strength to end their habit. A group of men who have thrived on the theft of people's ability to choose, and on the suffering of millions.
And as I sit here, praying as a devout atheist for the recovery of people dying miles away, whom I've never met, I have to quit. I've been wasting my life. How many times have I wanted to reach out and tell someone close how much they've meant to me? How many times have I sheepishly decided not to tell a beautiful girl just what I think about her? What have I done but cut off my own leaves if I've never sought that vital interaction with other people that I crave? I've withered, like a brown tobacco leaf, and it is my own end. I've pruned everything I value. I have supported by omission and by dollar everything I despise.
Time to butt out.
I'm going to tell my friends how much I love them.
I will let that girl know how pretty she is.
Your life has more to offer you than isolation. Goodnight.