I had never
known what I was like until I stopped smoking, by which time
there was hell to pay for it. When the haze cleared over the
charred landscape, the person I had always assumed to be behind
the smoke was revealed to be a tinny weights-and-balances
apparatus, rapidly disassembling on contact with oxygen.
The First Two Weeks
I lie on the floor and howl with grief. A friend tells me, "During the third week it will occur to you that you're insane, and you'll think, Well, now I'm insane. What difference does it make whether I smoke or not? This is a trick to get you to smoke."
The Third Week
I am insane, but I am determined to wait it out.
Today I bump into someone crossing the street. I begin an apology, but when he tells me to watch where I am going in a tone I consider unnecessarily condemning, I seize him by the lapels. For an instant we look at each other. Then I release him back into the surge of pedestrians and continue on, stiff with fear.
I have gained twenty pounds. I weep unstintingly for the victims of tragedy I see around me on subways, in restaurants, and on the street, but the victims look at me oddly and move away. I find that I have elaborate opinions about things I have never previously given a thought to, and that is imperative that everyone within earshot understand exactly what I mean, and why, in detail, I mean it.
Everything makes me angry, unless it makes me sad. I cannot tell how long anything takes.
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