Smoking Saves

I was slowly releasing the clutch and applying the gas as I anticipated the gap in traffic. I had just finished my morning workout and was feeling abnormally vomitous after five heavy sets of dead lifts. The sun had yet to make an appearance and these days 6:30AM is just as dark as 1:30AM, at least it is here at the 39th northern parallel. I was primed to pull out of the Bally’s parking lot when a bright red dot flared and materialized in front of my VW Golf. I slammed the clutch to the floorboard and switched my right foot from accelerator to break pedal. The middle-aged man crossing in front of my car blended into the early morning atmosphere. His black pants and a dark-gray hooded sweatshirt made him naught but a skulking spectral silhouette in the murky night. Clenched in the corner of his shadowed lips was the beacon that had saved his life. The cigarette cherry blazed again as he puffed, and I reflected on the irony. Over the course of this man’s life chronic smoking may eventually lead to his demise; however, for this one instance the cigarette saved him. If the man had not been a smoker, I would not have seen him and he might well be at the county coroner’s office right now. Smoking has prolonged his life, and it has saved mine. If not for that glowing ember dangling from his mouth I might well be incarcerated with charges of vehicular manslaughter pending, instead of marinating in my cubicle sipping lukewarm coffee.
...and so it was written, shenry at 11/19/2002 10:49:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .