hi, this is alice.
noa, they say people learn new things everyday. but i've realized that not all learning is necessarily good. for example, today charlie taught me how to smoke. i sincerely hope that you're not against smoking or anything, because you might not like charlie then. he's a hardcore smoker. on the safe note, i won't smoke ever again. i didn't like the taste of the cigarette. and as i felt the smoke enter my lungs, it felt plain wrong. like 'bad' took a physical form, like what i was tasting couple of hours ago was 'bad' itself. i won't do it again. or i'll try not to. my mother will kill me if she finds out. i hope i don't smell like cigarette.
before you judge me, i have to say that i just was a healthy victim of curiosity. it was plainly out of curiosity that i've tried. i couldn't find charlie during lunch so i went to search for him. i found him later in the car park, in his worn-out car, smoking.
noa, i have nothing against smoking. i might hate smoking, but i have nothing against smokers. people often say that smoking is detrimental for your health, and that it would lead to your death. but death is only a consequence of being human. it's going to happen, sooner or later, whether or not you smoke. my mother is a smoker, noa. but she forbids me from smoking. she says once i get into habit, i'll never be able to free myself from the addiction. she keeps on joking that she'll die a early, painful death, but i hope she doesn't really mean it. because a lot of people joke around, but they actually mean it. like when charlie jokes: "damn, i'll get fat eating this chips. but hell, i can't get worse than i already am." people around him laugh. not in a cruel way of course. they just thought that what he said was the funniest thing in the world. charlie laughed along with them. and so did i, because they were all laughing. but i could not mistake the pained and honest look in his eyes as he was laughing. and i sort of wished that we weren't laughing. but it felt like that it would be worse if we took him seriously. so we kept on laughing, until the joke faded.
wait. sorry. back to charlie smoking in the car park.
charlie handed me a 'cancer stick' (he calls it that) and told me to 'puff' it. and i did. i was curious. and curiosity probably killed three seconds of my life. i didn't care much. but i also found out that i didn't like smoking too much. i choked on the cigar, and then i put it out of my mouth. charlie just laughed at me, called me a baby. told me that he's done stronger stuff than this. and i was sort of worried.
when i asked him when he started smoking, he didn't really tell me. or he thought that 'when' was not important. the reason 'why' he started smoking was more important. he told me that smoking took all the bad things in his life away. like it was burnt away like the fumes. and just for a moment was enough. but i told him that all the bad things that he was talking about was now over. and he just shook his head. he told me that: "bad things don't just go away. they build a home within you. you can't kill it." and he told me that he's already addicted to it. he can't stop. so i just held his hand. and hope that some bad things within him would stay in bay.
noa, as i said. death is only a consequences of being human. but dying in a miserable death is a different matter. i want charlie to die in happiness, not in drugs. so i made him promise that he'll avoid the hardcore stuff. he said 'okay', but i'm not entirely sure that he meant it. so i promised myself that i'll look after him. don't worry noa, i'll try to take care of him. he's my friend.
you're also my friend, right noa?
