The Seventy-Year Suicide

            Leaning against the uncomfortable and unwelcoming red brick building, Howard, in his plain white T-shirt and blue jeans, took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, as he had done many times before. Shaking out a yellow and white cigarette, he stuck it in his mouth and lit it with a purple lighter he always kept in his pocket. He never kept the lighter and cigarettes in the same pockets, because he didn’t like the sensation of his pockets being full or larger than they need to be.

            As indicated by his clothing, Howard considered himself to be a plain and typical man with nothing to prove to anybody except the fact that he was a living, breathing male, capable of existing on his own. This self-depiction was also furthered by the way he spoke to people; nothing about his voice indicated any particular differentiations, no hint of benign or malignant tones, not a decibel too high or too low, just a voice that was by all means plain. Yet, it was a rare occasion when Howard actually spoke to anybody, not that Howard disliked people, he just wasn’t much of a speaker; if anything, people tried their best to stay away from talking to him.

            Generally, Howard was a content person, and to keep it that way, he kept to himself and didn’t mind that people did not want to interact with him. In terms of hobbies, anybody who knew Howard (which, as we established, was not too many) knew that the only thing he wanted to do was smoke. On most days, he would smoke up to half a pack, and on others, even a full pack. As he stood, leaning against the building, he reminisced about his life, as he often did while smoking, especially now that he was an old man, and feeling that his end was coming soon.

            Howard was twenty-two when he first started smoking, shortly after one of his closest friends was injured. The two of them were working in a construction site when a couple of workers set down a sheet of glass and, not seeing the glass because of its transparency, Howard’s friend, Leopold, walked right through it. Howard was gazing, awe-stricken, at his friend on the ground as Leopold bled profusely with shards of glass sticking out of various places in his face and one could tell the pain he was in by simply looking at him. Wasting no time in calling an ambulance, Howard dialed the phone and told the local hospital what had happened. Two minutes passed when Howard hung up the phone and the paramedics arrived and put Leopold’s bloody body into the ambulance, which whisked him off to the hospital leaving behind the sound of sirens fading away in the direction of the ambulance.

            While, Leopold was in the hospital, Howard stepped outside to get some fresh air and avoid seeing his friend in the inexplicable pain that Howard could not feel. One nurse, who recently lit up a cigarette, looked over at Howard and saw that he was in distress.

            “What’s the matter pal?” She asked, as her voice indicated years of smoking.

            “My friend is in there, in a lot of pain and I don’t know if he’s going to be okay,” Howard said.

            Looking around herself to make sure that nobody was watching, she offered him a cigarette, understanding that she could get in big trouble for doing that. Taking the cigarette from the nurse, in her full regalia, Howard lit the cigarette using the nurse’s lighter and took a big drag. Aside from the slight tickle in his throat, he felt no different; it didn’t make him feel better nor worse. To Howard, it felt no different than breathing regular air with a little bit of exhaust in it. He knew that smoking was bad for people, and to him, it didn’t give him any extra pleasure, but at least it gave him something to do while Leopold was in the hospital.

            After saying goodbye to Leopold for the night, he went to a corner store and bought his first pack of cigarettes. Howard was not kidding himself, he wasn’t denying the fact that he was addicted and needed to buy some cigarettes. But in his mind he was asking himself “How could I be addicted to something that provided little to no pleasure?” He blamed it on the chemicals and the tobacco, that first drag on the nurse’s cigarette extended its arm around him and took him under the control of a rolled up paper with dead leaves inside that wasn’t even 1/100 of his size.

            The first night he smoked, he recalled that it was a warm night with the lampposts acting as makeshift stars. As he was smoking, he thought about the effect of tobacco all throughout history. He thought about the Natives and Europeans smoking it and how it saved the Jamestown colony.

            “Isn’t it funny that the same thing that saved America’s first permanent settlement would go on to be the second leading cause of death for Americans?” Howard thought to himself.

            With another puff on his cigarette, he felt like asking more rhetorical questions. Howard stood on that first night smoking more than half the cigarettes in the pack he bought, yet feeling no different than if he didn’t smoke at all. Yet, his mind was ablaze with questions and thoughts he had never envisioned before, with each question more unanswerable than the last.

            When he was finished with his last cigarette, he pushed the burning end down into a newly bought ashtray, which looked like a whole tavern of smokers used it and rinsed it to get rid of any lingering smell. Even though Howard lived by himself, he still believed that every aspect of a cigarette should be left outside, even though Howard’s clothes brought the smell inside. To Howard, smoking brought him no internal pleasure nor made him feel any better. Smoking was but a break from everything, a few short minutes to escape that all the world had to throw at him. That is why he had to take as many breaks as he had to, because there was nothing about this reality that he enjoyed.

            One week later, Leopold came out of the hospital with twelve stiches on his face, and possibly more all over his body. Howard was glad to see Leopold okay and working in the construction site again, and when Howard paused to take a smoke break, Leopold asked when he started smoking. Howard bluntly replied when Leopold was in the hospital and needed some comfort.

            “But don’t you know that those things will kill you?” Leopold said.

            “What doesn’t these days?” Howard replied.

            Feeling as if he didn’t need to say anymore, Howard continued smoking and ignoring Leopold as Howard’s mind was liberated from any and all burdens. When he was finished with what was left of his stub, he pressed it into a public ashtray, completely extinguishing any flames that could have been left over.

            When he was done, he returned to the construction site to pound a metal stake into the ground. Given the amount that Howard had smoked in the first week, everybody thought that he wouldn’t be able to do it; not even Howard thought he could do it. But when Howard picked up the sledgehammer, he brought it down with ease on the stake’s flat head as it visibly moved into the ground. After hammering it again another eighteen times, he was done and did not feel as winded as everyone thought he was going to be. Of course, some energy was taken out of him, but no more than it would normally take to hammer a stake into the ground. Two hours later, Howard took another smoke break.

            As time went on, Howard continued to smoke as much as he did when he first started. Weeks, months and years went by, friends and family came and went, he noticeably got older, but paid no mind to any of this. After all the time Howard spent smoking, one would guess that it would inevitably take a toll on his health, but this was not the case. Despite how much Howard smoked, his health did not falter, he did not develop any wrinkles and there was not the slightest hint of jaundice on his body. By looking at him, nobody could have told that he was a heavy smoker; not even his clothes or furniture held the smell of tobacco.

            Doctors were baffled at Howard as they tried to find an answer to his phenomenon, but no answer seemed feasible enough to explain Howard’s condition. Stumped and confused, people were trying to figure out why Howard was immune to the effects of smoking, but to no avail did they know. Not even Howard knew how this could be, but the only difference between him and everyone else, in his eyes, was that he did not pay any mind to it. He knew that this was not normal, but it didn’t inhibit him from smoking as much as he did.

            But as an unintended consequence of smoking, Howard was virtually isolated from everyone else. Some people avoided him because they did not want to catch any second-hand smoke whilst others avoided him for fear of his odd resistance to tobacco; not even regular smokers would associate with him out of this same fear. Even Leopold stopped seeing Howard, but more because he did not want to catch any effects of second-hand smoke. Soon enough, Howard was alone, but he did not mind at all; he felt comfortable with his cigarettes and decided that they were all he needed. If anything, Howard felt more free to be with his thoughts; no people to say that his opinion was wrong, no fingers to point nor blame, and no eyes to cast silent judgment nor offending glances on him as he walked by. Even if he did have the chance to socialize with somebody, he didn’t take any chances if it meant having to give up smoking.

            But one day, when Howard was in his mid-80’s, a little boy, named Ben, saw Howard smoking while on his way home from school. Having just learned about the effects of smoking in his health class, Ben felt the need to step in and say something to Howard.

            “Hey, mister,” Ben called to Howard.

            Howard darted his head in all directions to see who it was that said that; when he saw that it was coming from Ben, he had no idea what to expect. What Howard saw was a little boy in either 4^th or 5^th grade, with shining black hair, and a walk and posture unfit for his age. When Howard replied with a blunt “yes?” Ben finally came up to him.

            “You know you shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes, right?” Ben said, timidly.

            Howard could have easily ignored him, but something about Ben made Howard genuinely interested. Looking into his ebony corneas, past his pupils and into the darkest reaches of his eyes, Howard saw something he never thought he would see in anybody else: the look of inquisition. He saw that Ben wanted to help him, but also saw that he wanted to go beyond helping, Ben wanted to know why Howard was smoking if he knew it was so bad for him.

            “Kid, I’ve been smoking these things since I was twenty-two, and it hasn’t done any harm to me in the past sixty-somewhat years” Howard said smoothly.

            “But mister-“ Ben began.

            “Please, call me Howard.”

            “Okay, Howard, but you do know what could happen to you, right?”

            “Yes, yes, cancer, emphysema, and me looking like a train wreck. Look, I already told you, there’s nothing wrong with me for my age, despite how much I’ve smoked.”

            “But, how can that be?”

            “I don’t know, nobody does. But if these things haven’t killed me by now, I’m either a freak of nature or we’ve been lied to this whole time; and frankly, I don’t care anymore.”

            Ben struggled to comprehend what Howard was saying; he was trying to piece together the logic of how Howard was able to stay healthy in lieu of all his smoking. Howard could see the confusion and disheartenment in Ben’s eyes as Ben looked for something to say.

            “But…the teacher said that smoking could kill us...so how…why?” Ben finally said.

            Howard gently put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, which seemed to calm Ben down tremendously. Speaking in a soft, but disciplined tone, Howard said to Ben:

            “Listen, I know that this is hard for you to take in, believe me, you’re not the first one, but I have no idea how this is happening, all I know is that it just does. Yet, this whole thing has taught me something valuable that you will never learn in school; nothing is certain in life, but sometimes that uncertainty can be the best thing that happens to you.”

            “In this case, your health not being damaged by smoking, right?” Ben asked, fully recovered.

            “Well…that and these cigarettes giving me time to be alone with my thoughts and away from everyone else. Let me tell you, that school you go to won’t teach you anything, only by going out and seeing the world will you learn something.”

            Ben found all of this difficult to take in, especially for someone as young as him. Feeling overwhelmed with what Howard told him, Ben decided to continue his way back home and get some rest. But not before promising Howard that he would come back the next day.

            Later that night as Howard was smoking, he asked himself:

            “Was I wrong in letting him know the way things are this early in life?”

            But a puff of his cigarette assured him that what he did was the right thing. Tapping off some ash into an ashtray, he went back inside his house and went to bed, excited to see Ben again the next day; the first time he had been excited to see anyone in a long time.

            When the next day came, Ben came back as promised and told Howard about his day at school. One particular aspect that interested Howard was how Ben told the teacher what Howard told him about smoking. The teacher did not believe him and denounced Ben for saying something as ridiculous as that.

            “Geez, give those people a tie and a room full of kids and they’ll think that they know all there is to know,” Howard said.

            Ben looked up at Howard with eyes as round and smooth as marbles. What frightened, yet intrigued Ben about Howard was how he disproved his teacher about smoking as much as he did without experiencing any side effects. Was the teacher wrong the whole time? Was Howard a god? A demon? No matter how much Ben thought about it, he could not come to a solid conclusion.

            From all of this thinking, Ben’s mind went blank and could not adhere to any thoughts. Howard could tell by Ben’s facial expressions, that he was stunned by this and invited him inside for some water. Once Ben downed a full glass that had a few specks on it, he felt much better, and wanted to know what else he had been lied to about.

            “Well, Ben, I can tell you right now that there are more lies than truths in the world. The food you eat, the water you drink and the air you breathe is all full of lies down to the last molecule; contaminated, polluted and likely to kill you faster than starvation, dehydration or suffocation. The world you live in is built upon lies, so much so that nobody knows what is true anymore. Unfortunately, since you are only a child, adults will try to paint the world into pretty colors for you; all that this will do if stiffen the blow against you once you realize what the world is all about,” Howard said to Ben.

            “But why would they lie to me, I haven’t done anything?” Ben said.

            “It’s not what you have done, it’s what you’re going to do…for them. Unfortunately, the world is full of yes-men, and if one person says no, then they will be cast aside like a piece of trash.”

            “But what if every person says no?”

            “Then they will replace the elites with even more elites, sometimes, even worse.”

            After their discussion that lasted a half-hour, Ben went home with a new kind of knowledge and promised to see Howard again the next day. To which Howard looked forward to, as he was not only helping someone, but also showing them what was wrong and what they could do to fix it. Perhaps it was what Howard needed all these years.

            As promised, Ben came back the next day and was eager to learn more from Howard. For nearly an hour they conversed about various topics from politics to freedoms to truths withheld from them. Ben hung on to every word and was firmly convinced that he was learning more from Howard than from any teacher he had. Of course, Howard still kept on smoking all the time and still preserved his health, miraculously. Ben asked Howard if he could have a cigarette, but Howard knew better than to give drugs to minors.

            “I’m sorry Ben, but I don’t want to risk your health. Besides it would be illegal to give you a cigarette and if your parents don’t kill you, then the law certainly will,” Howard said coolly.

            Understanding what Howard was saying, Ben maturely accepted the decline for a cigarette. Once the conversation was over, Ben got all of his supplies and went home.

            For the next few weeks, Ben visited Howard on a regular basis and learned more from him than he did in school. Howard saw Ben as his pupil and not only told him what he thought, but he allowed Ben to think about some issues for himself. Occasionally, he countered some of Howard’s points, but this is exactly what Howard wanted; even if Ben’s reasoning was off, he was still standing up for himself. For Howard, he was teaching Ben everything he learned from smoking, he made a true friend, one that seemed to put even Leopold to shame.

            Unfortunately, for a while, Ben stopped coming to visit Howard. He thought that perhaps Ben was on a vacation of some sort and shrugged off the notion that Ben stopped wanting to see him. One more week went by and Howard still had not seen ben; if this happened to Howard in the past, Howard would have been angry, but in this situation, he was upset. To put his mind at ease, Howard went out side to think and smoke.

            As Howard lit up his cigarette, he saw a procession of cars making their way through the road, with a crowd of people following it. Despite how rude he may come off as, Howard pulled one of the people aside and asked whom the funeral was for.

            “This is a funeral for little Benjamin Tourias, he was killed two weeks ago when a car hit him. It’s a real shame, especially for his parents and the man he kept company with after school,” the person said, beginning to tear up.

            Howard thought for a while of who this could have been until he realized that it was Ben.

            Once the thought of Ben, who hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of the world, passing away sank in, Howard felt a constriction in his chest and could barely breathe. He knew that the unexpected death of someone as close to him as Ben would tear him up inside, but he didn’t know that it would hurt this much. Every minute that passed made Howard feel an increased sense of pain that spread further into his body. He decided to go back into his house to hopefully alleviate the pain.

            Even though his house was not too great a distance away, by the time he reached it, he felt out of breath and an incredible pain all throughout his body. Each step was agony, he couldn’t move without a fully concentrated effort and the taste of every cigarette he ever smoked was collecting in his mouth and left an unpleasant taste.

            When he got in, he called 911 and spoke to an impatient operator, but when he tried to say what the matter was he couldn’t talk, his vocal chords were shot. Clearly frustrated, the operator hung up, leaving Howard in his pained silent state, with not so much as a word of comfort. With the pain intensifying even more, Howard decided to look in the hallway mirror to see what was wrong.

            Howard looked in the mirror and was taken aback by what he saw. The mirror, in all its brutal honesty, showed Howard’s state from all the years of excessive smoking. Howard, according to the mirror, had wrinkles all over his body, fingertips and teeth as yellow as corn kernels and skin as pale as that of a corpse. To reassure himself of what he saw, he looked down at his hands and saw that they were as wrinkled and yellow as the mirror presented. All the time he was noticing this, the pain was continuously getting even worse until he collapsed on the ground, clutching his chest.

            “My God, what is happening to me?” Thought Howard as his voice was devolving into a series of wheezes.

            There lay Howard on the floor, trying to breathe through his hardened alveolis and trying to figure out what was going on with him. He let out a few prolonged and painful coughs that did more harm than good while he was slowly losing his fight to stay alive. In his final moments, all he could think about was the knowledge he passed on to Ben; now with Ben gone and Howard on the way out, who will now pass on the knowledge that Howard learned? To Howard, he would have endured his pain if it meant that Ben could live and benefit from all that Howard taught him. Unfortunately, Ben was taken away far too soon and Howard had no one else to turn to in his final moments. With the room growing a steady shade of black and coldness spreading all over his body, Howard lay on the hardwood floor, gave one last cough, and left the world without a fight.

            Two days later, someone looked into the window of Howard’s house and saw via the mirror a corpse. They called the police and told the two officers that a man’s body lay in the living room. Once the police officers found they key under Howard’s doormat, they went inside and looked at the corpse as it lay lifelessly on the floor.

            “Hello! Is there anybody else here?” One of the officers said.

            “Holy shit! Look at this guy; poor bastard must have been here for weeks. Look at his body,” the other officer said.

            “Must have died by old age, all by his lonesome.”

            An ambulance arrived in the meantime and two paramedics came in through the open door. A third paramedic came in shortly after with a body bag and without a word, they confirmed that he was dead by checking his pulse, then zipped him up in the black bag.

            As the police and ambulance sped away, the bystander was left wondering who that person was. The house looked familiar to them, it reminded them of that one man who smoked a lot, yet wasn’t affected by it. They weren’t too sure that it was the same person though, instead, they looked in the house one last time and continued on their way, as dusk was beginning to set in.