"He's literally perfect, he's steadfast on his deen, has a good relationship with Allah swt, he takes care of his family and parents, he's God-fearing, good-looking, self aware and whatnot what else does one want, Aiman" She squealed with excitement...
While driving home I took a short-cut through a congested alley. I was thinking about different things, when I noticed a guy in the spooky and dim alley who looked to be around my age, he was wearing a white tee and blue jeans that was ripped around the knee
He was smoking cigarettes, I've always wondered how people start smoking. I never thought cigarettes were harmful, as compared to our daily meals, the junk that we consume, the unhealthy amount of screen time, all of that is way harmful, but it is still a part of our daily routine. But the nicotine addiction part didn't impress me. It never sounded convincing enough for me to try it out. It wasn't worth it. Having a little stick of tobacco and nicotine control me? I'd pass.
My dad used to be a big smoker, he started in his teenage years. He quit about 10 years ago, I don't really know how he started, never asked, although I'm curious. I don't want him to remember what it felt like, I don't want him to dig back into the time. A drug addiction is like love, even if it's over, even if it's been faded into memories. It is still there, if we get a hint of the memories, of how it felt like, it comes back, the urge to have it back, it can be very hard to fight. I don't want my dad to be hard on himself to fight it again just because I couldn't keep my curiosity to myself.
I thought for a second, and decided I should go to him, maybe I will learn something, or maybe earn myself a new friend. I thought, as I opened my car door, he looked at me like he had seen a ghost. But that reaction was understandable, imagine you're smoking your cigarette peacefully, and you see a black audi stop in front of you, a man like me comes out, he starts walking towards you. Man, I would be scared.
He started to look around, searching for a place to hide probably, I put my hands up, to show him I wasn't dangerous. Although he shouldn't have, but he still calmed down a bit. Atleast he stopped looking for an escape.
I looked down to my watch as I reached him. "It's 1:00 am, why are you smoking at this time? Can't wait 4-5 hours? The sun is going to rise soon." I said casually standing right next to him, leaning my back on the red brick wall. He still looked at me like I was crazy.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"I'm Aariz, Aariz Ahmed Khan, what about you?" I said as I held my hand out, waiting for a handshake. He looked at it for a moment and then accepted it. I smiled.
"Azlan Khalid Ahmed" he said, I hummed, so, we're getting somewhere.
"Mind telling me about this?" I asked pointing towards his hand which held the cigarette.
"What?" He asked innocently.
"The thing in your hand"
"oh this, what do you want to know about it?". He replied. I couldn't comprehend if he was genuinely confused or just trying to make a fool of me. But bet I wasn't going to let him.
"How did you get introduced to it?"
Azlan's POV
"Um..." I contemplated if I should answer the question of this mysterious stranger for a second.
He's a stranger anyway, not like we're going to cross paths in this huge city ever again. I thought and put the cigarette in my mouth, taking in a big kush (smoke) and exhaled the smoke in the humid air and went on with my introductive story.
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"I guess it was about six years ago, when I made some new friends at my school, I was around 16 years old at the time. They were really nice to me, you know the kind of cool and mean kids, but they were really friendly to me, so I thought I was special." I rolled my eyes along with a sarcastic laugh thinking about my naive self.
"Later on when we got to know each other, they would make fun of me for not smoking. So, one day I decided to go out and buy one for myself, man it was hard to inhale the smoke, it made me cough furiously, even the shopkeeper understood it was my first time smoking. He taught me how to do it. And I gradually learnt it. Later, I actually got used to it, and now, even during my office hours I crave it really bad. But my new office doesn't allow smoking breaks, so here I am, trying to get my system used to smoking at night." I said, skipping some details.
"Hmm, so it started as a thing to look cool, and now you're an addict." He said looking at my cigarette which was now almost at its end.
"I'm not an addict. I can stop smoking anytime if I want". I said with a smug smile, I was proud that I could stop whenever I wanted unlike other addicts, I mean smokers.
"But you don't want to stop?" He asked with mischief in his eyes.
"Yeah" I said, confused.
"Then you're an addict"
"No, I'm not an addict" I shouted a little, trying to convince myself I wasn't an addict.
"Sounds like something an addict would say" he said, he was clearly enjoying watching me question myself. Now I'm done with him.
"Shut up, who even are you?" I said angrily, after fighting my inner self for a few moments.
"I already told you about it, okay I'm going to go now, it's too late. Here take my number, call me if you want to quit smoking." He said with a mischievous smirk, handing me a card as I gave him a disgusted look, "I won't need it" I said giving it back to him.
"Don't judge your needs based on your mood or ego, needs are needs. They will show themselves eventually. I'm just trying to help a brother in quitting his addiction."
"Dude it's not an addic-" he didn't let me complete as he stuffed his card in my tee shirt's pocket and ran towards his car. "What's with him" I mumbled with annoyance, as I looked at the cigarette in my hand. It was completely burnt, only leaving the little peace of styrofoam at the end. I couldn't even enjoy it because of him.
