Burning Through the Haze to Waking

The First One

Smoking is one of the myriad attempts I have made in life.

Speaking of smoking, for me, I must first thank Keanu Reeves. When I was young, I watched Constantine. Keanu’s stunning looks revealed a kind of serenity through the haze of smoke. I mistakenly credited the cigarette, forgetting that behind the smoke lay his cancer-stricken body and a life flickering like a candle in the wind.

And so, in my ignorance, when I finally reached the legal age, I bought a pack of cigarettes, raised a lighter, and lit the first cigarette of my life.

The experience wasn’t good; rather, it was quite awful. The specific model has long since blurred from memory; I only remember it was a traditional thick stick.

Inhale and exhale, no smoke entering the lungs, just happily enjoying the matching haze. No sensation, just a foul taste in the mouth, which I disliked greatly.

Later

Time walked on like this, and the youth was no more. In my game of hide-and-seek with time, I gained new experiences while shedding parts of my past self.

Smoking came onto the agenda again at a college roommate’s wedding banquet. Good friends filled the seats, cups were exchanged, and everyone in my circle held a soft-pack cigarette.

I had no intention of catering to them; I was simply immersed in gazing at the happy smiles on the groom and bride’s faces, my vision slowly blurring. I don’t know why, but I forgot the intensity of the first one, and the bad taste that eventually lingered in my mouth. I took a pack of cigarettes, opened Xiaohongshu in the dead of night, and solemnly studied how to inhale into the lungs.

This time, I endured the discomfort and finished an entire cigarette using this new method. The mouth still tasted foul. Tar, carbon monoxide, nicotine, coupling with lungs and blood waiting for fresh oxygen.

A sense of relief welled up in my heart. Like a child who has gained a new toy, I was elated at having found a gentle, slow, and decent way to kill myself.

The most direct feedback was dizziness—carbon monoxide acting on the blood, suffocating the brain with hypoxia; and a bit of floating lightness, as nicotine engaged in academic exchange with the brain’s neural receptors.

The experience wasn’t good, but I was very happy.

The Last One

Sitting in a private booth, the environment was excellent, the configuration high. I left my e-sports equipment to the side; yes, I have already become an incompetent husband. To some extent, electronic impotence and erectile dysfunction are one and the same, a threshold that young people cannot avoid stepping over when moving towards middle age.

I picked up a cigarette and finished it. In the spiraling, rising smoke, a thought struck me: what I needed was not the cigarette, not the tar that would kill me, not the physiological feedback brought by cerebral hypoxia or nicotine.

I just needed ten minutes to enter a flow state.

Simply enjoying this unpeopled time, whether gazing with pity and tenderness at a rose that belongs only to me in the corner, or like a corpse that has lost the ability to think, emptying the mind, awaiting the inevitable decay and return.

This one of myriad attempts has fulfilled its value. I think next time, when I need such ten minutes, I will close my eyes and take a deep breath. Perhaps my thinking will still be in a hazy place.