I stopped smoking on October 8, 1989. And still — to borrow a line from Brian Wilson — I dream of it. Last night I dreamed that Elaine and I were living out of suitcases in a large house with its own cigarette machine. I bought what I thought was a pack of Merits, a brand I never smoked. What came out was a pack of unfiltered Gauloises, a brand I did smoke, with pleasure. This pack was tan not blue. The rest of what I remember: holding the pack, walking around the house, thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad to smoke a few cigarettes, thinking about how to acquire matches, realizing that I would have to go outside to smoke. But I didn’t smoke. In all the cigarette dreams I’ve had, I’ve never smoked.
I can think of two elements from life that may have shaped this dream. From Monday, lines from Langston Hughes’s Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951):
TWO DIMES AND A NICKEL ONLYAnd from Tuesday, a conversation with Elaine about the rise in heroin addiction.
says this particular
cigarette machine.
Others take a quarter straight.
Reader, if you smoke, quit. It will never get easier. And you can always dream.
Related reading
All OCA cigarette posts (Pinboard)
comments: 1
I've never been a smoker, and I used to have very vivid dreams about craving cigarettes. It was very strange.
Post a Comment