Smoking Ace

All ready, sipping and enjoying my morning coffee, I was ready to get to work. All set to take on the day and make the best out of it. It was 9.30. I had organized my mind for the tasks that followed that day. My usual day is really not that long. Couple of reports to be updated and a few meetings to attend. I was all set to handle them. A training in the evening is part of every week's schedule and is a piece of cake. These thoughts were running in my mind just when all hell break apart. Everything just dropped like a bomb. Destruction spread in front of my eyes and my mind start to wander every worst possible thing I have done in my life when my mother called out my name in the tone no one had ever wished.

"Abid, come here, I need to talk to you." she said, in a very stern voice.

I, in my mind, started to analyse all possible situations and what caused her to use that spine-chilling, terrifying tone to call out my name.

"Yes. What is it?" I replied in a petrified tone.

"You have been smoking a lot of cigarettes?" She asked.

I was struck by that question. How could she possibly know that I smoke a lot? Although it wasn't a shocker since she knew that I smoke. But my smoking was far away from home. I would never dare to smoke in front of my parents. If at all I did, that will be the end of me.

Years ago, my Mom discovered that I smoke cigarettes. Back then, I always carried a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my backpack. When I felt low or stressed, I would sneak out of the house through the back door and smoke. She caught me smoking for the 1st time. While she looked shocked, the rage that followed that shocking expression was catastrophic. I couldn't look her in the eye and explain myself. I made a pact to myself then, If I want to smoke I would do it so far away from the house that by the time I walk home the smell of that cigarette vanished from my mouth.

I stood in shock thinking who tipped her about my smoking that too, a lot. That was out of question since I only smoke on weekdays during office hours in my breaks. When I am at home on weekends, I would not touch the bud of a cigarette. At home, I have a lot of ways to keep my mind off cigarettes. At work, well work reminds me of smoking. I don't smoke a lot though. On weekdays when I am in office I could not go more than 5 sticks max. Often I'd only hit 3. I ain't a chain smoker.

"Who said that?" I hesitated.

"I have sources" she replied.

Sources! what is she? A spy, I thought.

"Don't smoke too much, Smoking causes cancer and is injurious to health." She said. It is a destructive force that you inhale. You see those ads on TV about how people suffer from heart diseases as a result of smoking. Do you want that happening to you? You are young and you have a whole life ahead of you. You are an adult and should know better.

"I do." I started to explain myself. I don't smoke when I am at home. It is only when I am in the office, the work compels me to drag a few sticks.

"Who told you that anyway?" I asked

"Your little brother" She replied

That little bastard. How could he get the nerves to rat me out like that?

My brother and I, for sometime, were not talking to each other. Few days ago, we had a wrestle mania of our own.

"I am not going down like this. He sold me out. I, too, am selling him out. If I am going down I am taking everybody with me", I thought.

"Well, He smokes too." I said. There were times when we bought cigarettes for each other. We'd lit each other's cigarettes.

A shocking expression covered my mother's face.

"Let him wake up. I am gonna confront him too" She replied.

With a devilish grin, I left the room and left for work.