Londis Carpenter

“You know that stuff is going to kill you, so just leave it alone and you’ll be happy,” The Prime Minister said. 

The PM might just as easily have been have been the President, or Commandant, or Czar, or Secretariat of any other country in the free world  (yours or mine or even yours). He was a jovial gentleman and politician, who had obviously earned the right to be a ruler over his countrymen, because he cared  deeply about humanity and the rights and well being of people. He obviously cared about me and my health, which explained why he always nagged me for my cigar smoking habit.  Smoking kills, everyone knows that. And he certainly cared for the safety of his people because he was willing to risk the lives of their sons and daughters to fight off the unnamed terrorists with every terrible weapon he had at his disposal. He had just a few moments before reassigned me from my job in the chemical warfare Research and Development Center to a higher paying new job in nuclear armament. 

I inhaled deeply and let out a smooth cloud of smoke from my Havana cigar, which was the object to which he had just made reference.   At  that exact moment an enormous blast from a couple miles outside the city, where a bomb had just exploded into the local schoolhouse, rocked our building. It was later reported that the bomb had left sixty children and three teachers severely maimed or killed.  After hearing the report, the Prime Minister said it was just collateral damage.  He explained that we needed to expect to, pay a terrible price in bloodshed to defend our right to live under the rule of law.  He had once told me he would like to make a law that banned tobacco altogether. Before we parted company for the evening he scolded me again  about the dangers of smoking and offered to use his GSA connections get me some nicotine patches but I refused.  Why risk getting the kind politician in trouble for something so trivial.

The next morning, on the way to a staff meeting, I overheard the PM explaining to a local tobacco grower that it was okay for him to continue growing and marketing his product as long as he was willing to pay an extortion tax (well he actually called it a tariff).  The tax, having already reached an exorbitant fee, seemed to be growing at a rate faster then the crop being taxed.  There were huge TV screens on every corner of the city now-a-days with the volume of the speakers set to a level that could be heard above the din of traffic.  At this very moment the well known figure on the TV screen was citing the number of people who died every three seconds from second hand cigarette smoke.  Without being consciously aware of my actions, I dropped the cigar I had been holding onto the ground and crushed it under my foot.

“I’m going to have to quit these things,” I mumbled to myself.

I had been hoping to hear the latest body count from the war on terror. I knew that most of our hospitals were filled to overflowing with wounded civilians, mostly women and children, but the announcer never got around to mentioning the war at all.  Instead, after he said goodbye and that he would see us tonight on the late night news, an ad appeared on the screen telling us to be sure to sign up for the new identity chip that was scheduled to soon be implanted in the skin of our right hand. It's reported purpose was to protect us all from identity theft.  (I actually recalled reading once about some woman who had lost her purse and discovered that  her credit card had been used to purchase a computer or something).  I reminded myself to place this higher on my priority list.  It was something  I had been procrastinating about taking care of and I needed to just do it.  I thought about perhaps calling for an appointment this afternoon.

Another bomb exploded in the distance and then another. I saw the darkened northern sky fill with a giant black cloud.  I felt a warm fuzzy feeling inside my stomach as I continued to the staff meeting at the nuclear bomb plant.  I felt lucky to be part of a great country like ours and I thought once again about the need to quit smoking; I resolved to quit once and for all.  It is funny the foolish things people do. Everyone knows smoking kills people.