Over and Over

Chapter Five

Five

Monday saw a brand new school week and no further dreams.  I waited at the bus stop with my life long friend and bus partner Michelle.  We sat idly chit chatting about nothing, waiting for the bus.  A group of boys arrived to wait for the same bus.  They went to different school to us there was only one bus into town from here, so all kids caught it.  The boys shared a cigarette as they waited.  Michelle watched them for a while then turned to me.

“I think I’ll try smoking, it looks so cool.”

I let my gaze drift to the group of boys and watched as they sucked back then blew out a steady stream of blue smoke before handing the shared smoke along.  A memory arrived in my head.

“No it’s too hard to give up,” I said.  “And dying of lung cancer hurts too much.”

Michelle gave me odd look.

“Who do you know that died of lung cancer?”

I almost said my husband but chopped the words off before I said them.  The memory was there, right at the front of my mind.  I could see him gasping for air, the terrible taste of the oxygen from a bottle that they tried to feed him at the end.  The feeling of hopelessness as he had struggled to draw in one last breath. 

I shook my head trying to clear it.  I was sixteen not sixty four.  None of my family smoked.  Where had the memory come from.

“You ok?” said Michelle.  “You’ve gone all weird.”

I tried a weak smile, then the bus rounded the corner and approached our stop.

“I’ll be fine,” I said as I watched the boys hurriedly stamp out the cigarette before the bus driver saw them.  The memory was fading like all memories do but I knew if I prodded it back to the surface of my mind again it would be there, bold as brass.  Dying of lung cancer hurt.  I knew that like I knew what I had eaten for breakfast that morning.  I pushed the thought away and followed Michelle onto the bus and towards a new school day.