Smoking and Running

I'm breathing so hard.  My legs are aching, my heart is pounding, and I'm running as fast as I can.  I have a bag under my right arm that I will not let go of until I reach my destination, or until I die.  My eyes are burning, because there is sweat trickling into them off of my brow. 

It's dark in this tunnel, but my other senses are heightened.  The small enclosed tunnel makes it very easy to smell the humid, earthy tones of the surrounding sulfuric rock.  What concerns me more is the quick patter of running footsteps behind me.  They are loud, and the echoes seem deafening.  He won’t give up until he gets my bag, or until he dies. 

The contents are all that either one of us has to live for anymore.  It's funny how material objects can make human beings want to kill each other.  Actually, it's not that we want to kill each other; it’s that neither one of us wants to die.  No one has a better reason to live after what I've seen.  If I can get this bag to Charlie, I'll get to live.

Charlie.  I should tell you about Charlie.  Twisted is all that I can say about him.  I stumbled into his path one night at a bar downtown.  The scotch had set in, and all I wanted was a cigar.

I left my Rocky Patel on my dresser, but I had meant to put it in the breast pocket of my jacket.  One minute detail is all it takes sometimes.  If I would have put it in my pocket, I would have never met Charlie.  I would have stepped outside to have a smoke.  If I hadn't met Charlie, I wouldn't want to live as much as I do now.

"Hey Pal, you lookin' for a smoke?" he said to me from a leather couch towards the back of the bar.  He was next to a man in a dark overcoat.  The other man looked about six feet tall, thin, and about thirty-five years old. 

Charlie was a short stubby man.  His face looked as though it had never seen stress in his whole life.  I could tell he was a guy that always got what he wanted.  He had a little smirk on his face.

I got up from my bar stool, and walked back towards the smoking lounge to bum a cigar from him.  The bar didn't sell them. 

"Sure, if you don't mind," I replied. 

"No prob, Pal.  Take a seat.  You look like a Maduro kind of guy.  Here you go.  Here's a light, too".

I took it, and lit up.  It was worth it at the time.  I could feel the tobacco taking effect, and I was relaxed.  Oh, how I wish I had remembered to grab my cigar off of the dresser!  But if I had, I wouldn't want life so much.  Would it have been so bad to be ignorant?  Now it's a moot point, because I know what I know.

The other man had a lit cigar in front of him on the table, and he never took his eyes off of me.  He also never put an expression on his face.  It looked lifeless. 

Charlie leaned back and put his feet up on the table in front of us. 

"So, Pal, this is Winston.  You'll get to know him very well in the next hour or so.  Very well."  He laughed softly, through his nose, with his mouth closed.  "I've done everything I've ever wanted to do.  I've traveled everywhere, been with any woman I've wanted to be with.  I've been the life of the party everywhere.  I own six houses.  I do whatever I want whenever I want to do it.  Sounds good, huh?"

I looked at Charlie and then to Winston.  Winston still had a blank expression on his face. 

"Yeah.  Yeah it does.  I'm good with my situation, though.  Thanks for the smoke."  I'm not one for arrogance.  I stood up, and turned back towards the bar. 

"Pal, if you want to live, you'll sit back down."  Charlie had a huge grin on his face.

All I can see now as I'm running through this tunnel is the faint candle lit outline of the walls of the mine shaft and a vision of Charlie's evil grin.  How I'd love to wipe it off his face for him.  But, now, I'm in it until death or life.  In a few minutes the poison will kick in, and I'll be dead.  Hopefully, this will happen to Winston and not me.  It could happen to both of us.

I know Charlie just wants to watch the competition.  Why, though?  Maybe he even has a wager on it.  Maybe he has a plan for us. 

Why did I just run from the bar to the mine?  Why should I believe that the other half of the antidote is somewhere in this mine shaft?  Why did I let Charlie manipulate me for an hour by telling me all about the poison in the cigars, giving me just minutes to find the antidote? 

After I sat back down with the two of them in the smoking lounge, he gave me a glimpse.  I value my life; now more so than ever. 

Winston is an object, an obstacle, a guy with a broken nose that I broke getting the first half of the antidote.  I imagine I will view more people like I do Winston if I survive.  I’ve got to live it up while I can, right?

Charlie gave me a glimpse into death.  It's horrible.  I've lived a good life, too.  I've done my best to do good whenever I can, and I've followed the rules.  Now, as I'm running, the terrible glimpse is all I can see.  Anything I do from now on is going to prolong seeing what Charlie showed me again.  I do mean anything, and I’m going to do what I have to do to enjoy life while I have it.  I won’t enjoy death.

But, the vision isn’t going away.  It's horrible, and it's not going away.  I can see Charlie laughing up ahead.

It's not going to go away, is it?

Ever.