Once Upon a Time There Was a Smoker

Good Morning and I hope it is not too early for a little story. I have been writing about smoking, not smoking, loving smoking, hating smoking, for over 20 years. I am obsessed with smoking, not smoking, loving and hating smoking. I am an ex-addict of smoking cigarettes and using nicotine to manage a life that is far larger than a silly habit that sought to control me. So much so that I made it an entity. I made it a story. I made it a hundred stories.

And here is the newest:

Once Upon A Time, there was a young girl who was obsessed with smoking. She watched how it changed the mood of all the "adults" around her. She watched how it seemed to "calm them down" and "relax" them. Of course she would want to know how to do that when she was old enough to buy them for herself. Of course she wanted to calm down and relax.

So, why was this girl so obsessed with smoking? She was looking for a shield to help protect herself from her feelings, of course. Feelings she was told she should not have. That she was too sensitive. That she was too impatient. That she was too this, too that. But surely she hadn't been born that way. Had she?

She had definitely been born with teeth that would grow into an overbite and require several years of braces. She was relentlessly taunted and bullied because of those teeth. She was targeted because she was a female, and because of those teeth, she did her best to keep her mouth shut. Until she found her best new friend, cigarettes.

Between the teeth and the taunting, and the feelings of overwhelming displacement, the cigarettes were an amazing and constant ally. They became the shield she could hide behind, up to 20 times a day and sometimes more. They became a device to start a conversation, continue a conversation, take with you into work or the car. The car was the best. Driving, smoking, coffee. The best.

But she did a lot of hiding. Hiding the habit, how often she tended the habit. Hiding the feelings of insecurity, anger, doubt, frustration, anxiety. Barely able to have joy in anything because the other shoe waiting to drop was only a moment away. But the cigarettes, ah, they were never too far. They were always there when she reached for them. They would support her until she stopped supporting them. They would wait for her, forever.

They became such a strong and comforting influence that she was suddenly afraid of how permanently they had become a part of her. She started to hear the call of the addiction become louder and stronger and more persistent, so much that it became its own entity. So much that she began to look for others who heard this same thing going on, people who were writing about how much they loved and hated "Nic".

And just like that, the Engineer was born. The addiction had become a Shadow, a strong presence that developed over time into a form that stood between her and everything else. It became complacent and neutral when it saw what she was trying to do. And it became very quiet when she began to write.