For the last eight days of September and the first 29 days of October I smoked like a fiend. A chimney, if you will. I probably went through three packs a week, perhaps more. If I became frustrated with myself and threw my cigarettes away, I would only discover 18 hours later that I was desperately in need of a dry, rolled-up leaf, laced with toxins, producing a rich and foul-smelling smoke whose calm effluvience so artfully destroyed my lungs.
I think I began my nicotine binge those few weeks ago for the simple purpose of destroying myself consciously, systematically and fashionably. There is something powerful about breathing in the remnants of a flame and spewing them back out again from an orifice which talks and breathes and eats and vomits and makes love. It was like gambling. The addict does it for the thrill, not for the winnings, and when it came down to it, I enjoyed the rush and didn’t care to admit there was no way I could possibly win against the house with the odds stacked the way they were. But that was my rationale; my personality, even. Some people are politicians; others are jocks, geeks, or jokers. I found myself, more and more, becoming a smoker. Name: Haddad. DOB: 6/22/87. Occupation: Smoker.
Then, last Sunday, I pulled myself out of bed at eight in the morning, donned my winter jacket and a hat and walked down 35 th St. to M to meet my friends and to cheer on Danny in the Marine Corps Marathon. We waited with great anticipation for his arrival.
The front runners came first, the muscles in their exposed legs groaning and shaking with the strain of exertion and determination, pulsating wildly with an animal power which only true athletes can muster. Then more people, all happy and keeping pace with one another. Danny came sprinting by in a blur of black Underarmour, sunglasses firmly affixed to his face, running and smiling for my camera, which caught his happy face amidst a blurred cloud of energy, action and life.
Seeing Danny and all these happy, fit, full-breathing, heart-pounding joie-de-vivre-full people running by in a line tens of thousands deep and seven happy miles long, I was suddenly filled with a deep longing to be myself again. I wanted all of the things that the act of brooding away the remainder of my truncated life in a nimbus of smoke denied me. I wanted to live.
It has been 11 days since I last smoked; I have not once craved a cigarette. Something about knowing that I have life and there is a certain way in which I can enjoy it prevents me from taking up the active forfeiture of true happiness that smokers, consciously or not, pursue with such reckless abandon.
Since Sunday I have run a total of twenty-five miles—almost a whole marathon. The Dublin Marathon will be held on October 29th next year. I will be there, among the miles-long lines of thousands of happy runners breathing heavy with faces reddening and hearts pounding with the essence of mortal existence. 355 days and counting.
