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" Even attractive young men adjusting their copious genitals failed to arouse my interest ."
suffering : these laughing , drinking , smoking bastards . My hand flicked out like a chameleon ' s tongue snatching my wine glass . Drink more . Drink more . You can do this . Just keep drinking and it will be fine . But the pleasant Spanish plonk was as sand to me . It was incomplete without a cigarette and every sip reminded me that I should be smoking . Seconds later I was begging my father for money .
My father is not the soft , cuddly type and he resisted my pleading with what seemed , at the time , to be psychopathic ease . In that moment I hated him . I fantasised about leaping across the table and smashing him to death with the tormenting bottle of wine . I ' d take his wallet and abscond to Cuba to frolic in tobacco fields , the pungent leaves stuffed into my cheeks , a cigarette jammed into each nostril and a smouldering cigar protruding from my anus . I knew my father could easily overpower me so I would have to use the element of surprise and work quickly with the bottle to knock him unconscious before he had chance to fight back . While this orgy of violence played out in my mind , my fingers , rather than crawling towards the potential blunt instrument , feebly picked at each other ' s nails in the quiet semaphore of the helpless addict .
Dad decided to distract me but I had no interest in anything but smoking . Beautiful cigarettes . How could
anyone resist such a small and comforting pleasure ? What kind of father was he to participate so diligently in denying me them ? It was kindness , I knew , but of the longterm kind . I tried to think that my future self would thank him , but being my present self I didn ' t give a flying fuck . I wanted a cigarette and I wanted it now .
Four joyless days passed . As I sat on the beach my eyes were dim to the soft sand and the glittering play of the sunlight on the blue waters . Spotlights illuminated every smug , cackling , coughing smoker . Even the bodies of athletic young men padding along in their speedos or adjusting their copious genitals failed to arouse my interest . New arrivals yet to catch the sun with milky skin and alabaster contours of pectoral and groin couldn ' t divert me from my obsession . My predatory gaze , which usually would have scanned their flesh lingeringly , fixed like a sniper ' s sight on the dainty , glorious cigarettes pinched between their lips . I was going mad with lust for tobacco . I flicked impatiently through my book , scanning the words more quickly than I could absorb them , turning the pages ever-quicker until I threw it down in despair and hurled myself backwards into the sand to try to sleep .
For three more days I repeated this miserable ritual . On the third day I visited a chemist and , fumbling naively at the Spanish language like a stubborn bra I eventually managed to communicate enough to buy some herbal cigarettes . The fact that they even call them cigarettes breaches trading ethics . I lit my first stinking little stick and drew in the smoke . I felt like a leg of lamb . The flavour was like bad stuffing : herby , aromatic and completely unlike a cigarette . The harsh sensation of smoke that I had hoped would curb my cravings was woefully ineffectual . One after the other I smoked them , each one a fresh
smokers ' manifesto 13