Already when I came into their house I could feel the smell of smoke.
I knew that Mary was a social smoker, but I didn't know that she
smoked at home too. My new, tall, blonde girlfriend had invited me to
her parents' weekend house, just to be together over the weekend and to meet
her little sister, Anna. I hadn't met Anna before, and Mary hadn't told
me much about her.
- Anna's on her way to take a shower, it's because of the dry, cold air
today I think, Mary said, - but she wanted to say hello to you first.
I think she's sitting in the small area outside the bathroom, just go
downstairs and you'll see her. I'll just park the car in the garage.
Mary left and I went downstairs to find a young girl, age 20 probably,
with long, straight, blonde hair, her tall slim body wrapped in a white,
big soft towel. She was sitting in a wicker chair, beside a little table
of the same material. She was in a cloud of smoke and her hand held a
cigarette. Just as our eyes met, she smiled and exhaled a cloud of smoke
towards the ceiling.
- Hello Jim, she said and surprised me. I had expected a cute girl
voice, but her voice was smoky like from a much older, heavily smoking
woman. It was clear but dark and a bit raspy. She then put her hand,
fist-formed, for her mouth and coughed with one, short and silent hack,
but there was a deep, dark and thick sound from her chest. I said hello
and she finished her cigarette in an - at least - six-seconds drag.
A little cloud of smoke escaped out from her mouth before she pulled
the rest down into her lungs.
- There you are! Mary had come down to us and we kissed quickly.
Anna smiled at us and made a long mouth exhale.
- Now it's time for my shower, she smiled before nose exhaling the
remaining smoke
through her long, straight nose. She then repeated her way of coughing again,
by quickly covering her mouth with her fist and making one single, but
deep, hack.
- Mmmm, my smoky little sister, Mary said and let her fingers caress
Anna's chest for a while.
- I'll be back, Anna said and went into the shower. As soon as she had
got in there, we heard her hack again. I thought it was one of her usual
hacks, but it must have been followed by a long inhaling because after
some seconds, her chest sounded like a thunderstorm in there. She coughed
with a long, soft and deep rattling followed by two rumbling hacks.
- Mmmm, Mary said again. - Her smoker's cough is fantastic. You know,
she's 20, but she's smoking like a chimney and she's had that cough since 18.
But, she added, it's her lungs too, you know.
We went upstairs. - Her lungs, I asked.
- Yes, she's got a lung disease, so she has a chronical cough even without
smoking. Before she started, her chronical cough was usually a dry one for
two weeks, then she got a sort of emphysemia lasting about one week, so her
chest got full of mucus that she coughed up all the time. After that week,
she was back to her dry period again. Oh, I've been watching her standing
there with her little hand over her mouth all my life. Her little body
shakes, her face gets red, she sounds like she's getting a lung up,
everything. I've seen her bend her body forward 90 degrees, getting that
thick, but always liquid, phlegma half-way up so the next inhale pulls it down again even deeper,
until she gets her palms filled with it.
- What about her smoking, then?
- Well, when she was 14, she had a period when she really hated her own
lungs. She said she wanted to punish them and wanted to try my cigarette.
I think it just took her two weeks before she was a smoker! And, her cough
got worse of course, and when she was around 18, her emphysemia periods
got worse. She's in the middle of it now, you know. In her dry periods, she
can get coughing fits lasting up to 20 minutes, she just coughs and
coughs until she can't breathe. But now, she has these small, thick hacks
all the time, mixed with her rumbling coughing fits. You just wait and see...
Anna came up to us after a while, dressed in tight blue jeans and a white
T-shirt. Immediately after sitting down, she took a cigarette from her pack
and lit it.
- Mmm, that's better, she rasped. - My lungs need that hot, humid air
in the shower, you know, she smiled at me.
- Yes, your sister told me, I replied.
- Yeah, my lungs are full of the stuff today, she sighed with a deep,
rattling sound that surprised herself. She opened her eyes wide and cupped her
hand over her mouth instead of forming it to a fist.
- Oh, poor little girl, Mary said. The girl started to hack, deeper than
before and when she inhaled we could hear how all the smoky phlegma inside her
was pulled down. Her chest got full of it and her next coughings managed to
force it up a bit.
- Try to get it up a bit further, Mary whispered to her but the girl's next
inhale almost pulled some it down into her lungs. She quickly put the cigarette
in the ash tray and cupped both her hands up over her nose and mouth. We heard
how she started to cough up her phlegma and I understood she got at least some
of it up in her soft hands. Her face was dark red when it stopped after a minute
and she went into the bathroom to clean her hands.
- It has happened that she has coughed her hands almost full, so I've cupped
mine over her mouth while she's been on her way into the bathroom to clean
her hands, you know, Mary said. - Funny thing is, I've never felt disgusted or so.
It's warm, and... you know, it smells exactly like her ash tray. Exactly!
Oh, her lungs will probably soon be full of tar so it will get more and more black,
Mary giggled. I especially remember her worst coughing fit ever, she started with
her little hand over her mouth and I heard from the sound that she was going
to get hugh amounts of her phlegma up and soon her both hands was over her mouth
and nose. After a while, I heard from the way she started to sound and saw from
her face expression that she had almost coughed her hands full and I helped her
into the bathroom to get her hands cleaned. In there, I saw her hands full of it
while I covered her mouth with my both hands while she was going to clean hers.
This sounds crazy, I know, but I wanted so much to know what it smelled like and...
what it... tasted like, but I didn't have the guts to try. You know, it was if
like I was holding a part of my little sister's sick lungs in my hands, and it
was so warm and soft...
- Sorry, Anna whispered when she was back.
- Not at all, I said and put an arm around her, massaging her soft, warm
chest with the other hand. Mary took the cigarette from the ash tray and lit it
again before putting it between her sister's lips. Anna put her head on my
shoulder and inhaled deeply. Because she did it with her mouth open, I could
hear a thick, dark and wheezing sound from her chest when she let the smoke
caress the inside of her sick lungs.
She kept the smoke for almost ten seconds before releasing it, immediately
followed by a new, long drag. Mary just looked at her, smiling.
- Is this your worst sort of coughing, I asked Anna.
- Yeah. I keep getting these coughing fits for a little more than a week.
I have to sit and sleep, otherwise my lungs will get full of my mucus.
Then, after that period, I'm back in my dry period. Then I can cough for hours,
but I don't have to fill my own lungs with my smoky mucus, you know. Today,
I mean, I can't inhale too deeply and quickly because I would pull the stuff
down.
- Well, her dry periods aren't as dry as they used to be, Mary interrupted her.
- No, I've managed to turned them into a smoker's cough, Anna laughed.
Her laughter forced some loose phlegma up and she coughed it up into her mouth
without putting any hand over it. I heard her swallow it down.
I massaged her chest a little. - I know, she said. - I shouldn't really smoke
like I do. But since my chest is full of this stuff anyway, and since my lungs
are so tired and weak, what does it matter? I'm almost a born cougher, I've
had a chronical cough almost all my life.
- Can't you go through a lung transplantation, I asked.
- Yes, I'm going to. But, the doctors say they want to wait until I start to develop
lung cancer or my emphysemia gets worse. I can live with my cough, I mean
my hand is more often over my mouth than it's in my pocket or holding a pen or so,
and my fingers are more often on my nose than Mom's glasses are on hers.
Every laughter starts off a rumbling coughing fit, every giggling is accompanied
by at least a deep throat-clearing, but I'm used to it now. As long as I can
breathe after walking 100 meters, it's OK.
- It must take ages to develop lung cancer. Besides, it's just a minority
of the smokers that really do, I said.
- Yeah, well they say my emphysemia will soon get worse anyway. I'll develop
more and more mucus, especially since my heavy smoking provocates the process.
She coughed with one of those single hacks again.
- The lung transplantation will be done in three weeks, Mary said and smiled
at her little sister.
- What?, I said.
- They found the first signs of cancer in my little, sweet left lung, Anna
explained and caressed herself over the left side of her chest. - I'm so happy,
she added. - After I've done the transplantation, I'll never cough again...
so I love my little lung cancer.
- I remember, it was just three months ago, Mary said. - She was coughing
and coughing one night and I sat down on her bed to give her poor chest some
massage. "I'm longing for you to get lung cancer", I said to her, "I want
your lungs to be full of it". Then I took a cigarette, lit it and put it between her lips
and told her to drag as deeply as she could. When she had inhaled, I kept
holding the cigarette between her lips and told her to drag again, and again,
and again. "Fill your lungs", I whispered, and we went on like that until she
had chain-smoked five cigarettes. "I want you to get lung cancer", I moaned in her ear.
- Maybe they'll just transplantate your left lung, I joked. - You'll
still be coughing because of the right one.
- You're sure?, she smiled at me. - You mean, both my wheezing
lungs need to be full of lung cancer first?
- I'm positive, I replied and gave Mary a glance and Mary understood.
Mary and I took one cigarette each, put them between her lips and lit them.
- So, you'll have to smoke two at a time from now on, Mary smiled.
It wasn't always that Anna listed to her sister, but this time she decided
to make an exception, at least for the next three weeks.
- I'd bet they'll make chewing tobacco of your lungs, I joked and we all
laughed. Needless to mention, Anna's laughter turned into a coughing fit
that almost fixed the first half of the lung operation, the part when the
original lungs are removed...