A Pack of Smokes

A parody of "The Cask of Amontillado"

Premeditation is essential. You have to remember that. None of that waiting for the burst to come or building sensation of hunger-bred anticipation of winning that seems to consume them. Human connection is lost in a world of speculation.The tide turning does not carry the speculator with it. They simply gather what is brought ashore. Too impulsive, too braggadocio, too undermining of an attitude to have towards the countless insults and injuries she inflicted. Otherwise I would've been mistaken as part of the hypocrisy, sitting in that atrium looking inconspicuous among the crescendo of voices forming dreams and aspirations of defying rules and staking claims. We here are avid smokers. And while my mind was currently elsewhere, I could always see clouds of smoke hanging high. They were never dark as in gloomy. Nor was there any reason to think they could dim the sunlight, I always reasoned. They were transparent, now casting a haze over a sign reading "The Career Advisement and Placement Services Office", CAPS for short. What I had to do, what would follow was clear. So I started looking for Rahman, the first link in the chain. Although unforgivably a techie, he was also a businessman in his own right whose favorite topic of conversation had always been the next big thing. His current business was with a few of his co-workers from the I.T department where I found him at the garden. We'd known each other from our undergrad years and although we weren't close, we'd always have a smoke every time we crossed paths. His enthusiastic spirit had never quite escaped him as it does with the passing of time, and I always enjoyed conversations when he'd tell me about “the next big thing”. They were always one-sided. It was impossible to have a conversation with him. I stopped trying to and instead preferred to guide his monologue that ultimately led to the most extraordinarily outlandish ideas told in an exciting tone that ached to skip a note on its way up the voice scale till it was no longer an idea nor a monologue at all, but an inaudible display of pleasure. Today would be different. My patience was as thin as the cloud of smoke blinding her of what was to come. And they would never be able to distinguish it from broad daylight should I not go through with it. The choice of whether to burn with envy or bask in the warmth of their flawed convictions of certainty being undone was entirely up to them. It has to be done. No one provokes me with impunity. Now at the garden where he caught me drawing near, he walked towards me. As soon as he started talking I cut him off. “I've been looking for you everywhere. “ I started telling him. “I was talking with a few people and your name came up. “ “What's going on?” obliviously confused at the change to how our conversations went. “The next big thing” I said holding my index fingers high for his wandering eyes to lock on to. “What's that?” “Get us some coffee from over there and I'll tell you all about it, let's walk and talk.” was I right to boss him just now? Why did I say that? “don't keep me guessing, give it to me.” he said as we made our way down a walkway from where the coffeehouse was. “When was the last time you got stuck on campus without cigarettes?” “Well I usually keep an extra pack because I'm afraid I'd-” “Because you're always afraid you'd run out.” “What are you getting at?” “It's an app. An app that gets you a pack of smokes anywhere on campus at anytime.” “But selling tobacco on campus is illegal, otherwise a million people would've done it.” “We wouldn't be selling tobacco, we'd be selling a Pack of Smokes. That's the name.” “so we wouldn't be selling cigarettes? “ “We’d be selling a Pack of Smokes. A Pack of Smokes does not leave you high and dry with nicotine in your mind waiting to fade. It does not keep you longing for another look at a vape rippling out of your body. It's always there. Always one click away.” “But what schmuck would buy it? “ “It was never who buys what. It's why they buy it. That's our edge. It's a chance to think they're in control. To be insatiably intrigued by a different sort of high and know it was of their own doing that made it so special.” “I can't see it” he said as though searching the afternoon horizon for an elusive feeling that had just slipped from the palm of his hands. “Wouldn't they simply think it's a pack of smokes?” “When was the last time you thought before buying a pack of smokes?” they'll buy it. They be disappointed at first, what they do then is entirely up to them. Some would curse us day and night but can you imagine the publicity we’d get from that? In no time this community would start talking about the idiocy of anyone who buys it, how easy it is to get, and why it's only sold here. And that's the point isn't it?” “What point?” “Let's not beat around the bush, this is the only liberal arts university around here.” “But that's a good thing right? It's better than not having one at all.” “Having a Pack of Smokes is better than not having one at all, a key demographic in our business strategy.” “I still have my doubts. You make it sounds so simple.” “Wouldn't you rather doubt it than be afraid of running out. The more people buy it or don't the more they'd take comfort in numbers. The ones who do buy it would snarl at those who think it wasn't as good as real cigarettes, those who don't would sympathize with everyone else who thought it wasn't the right thing to argue or worse that it did not exist in the first place, but they’d all marvel at their self determined choice to doubt. To take sides. A Pack of Smokes could mean whatever you want it to mean, but the reality would be that it's there.” I spent a few moments of silence watching him turning the idea in his head. “We’re still in the development stage. We haven't got it yet.” “A Pack of Smokes! “ “But we will.” “A Pack of Smokes!” “Are you in?” “A Pack of Smokes!” “Do you have some time, we need to start collecting our market sample frame.” “Let's go to my office. I just got an idea for its 5 year plan.”

We were making our way down a spiralling ram that led to the busy campus center when Rahman started telling me what he saw happening. “Do you know what the problem with your plan is? It doesn't fully utilize the bandwidth of the idea. This could have exponential value. You're still thinking in 4 year intervals.” he said, a smirky look edging out of his face. “Everyone who buys it, doesn't buy it would still be inundated by the thought. They'll have the ability to convince, persuade, and challenge everyone else’s ideas about what a pack of smokes really is for the rest of their lives.” “Right. And that's a good thing.” I said “You're so naive. We created it. We should control the image. Not just the image of a Pack of Smokes we provide our customers with, but of the demand for them. And the more successful we are at making the market believe it's real-” “Well it would be real” “oh, I know that. But they don't.” “Who's they?” was a rhetorical question he went on answering, while I thought of the repercussions of what I was about to do. “The market.” I could hear him saying. “We’d have to walk a fine line. It has to be up to our clients to decide what they believe to be true. They can't lose their self determined choice. But it ultimately doesn't even matter. To the market, they'll be a product no one else has. Dispensed in waves every 4 years.” “And what happens to them?” “Clearly you're not following. It's a pack of smokes they've been arguing about, it would be a seller's market.” “Except it's not and it wouldn't be.” I hoped. “It doesn't matter. What matters most would be our commitment to protect the quality and ensure the exclusivity of our product.” “You're not getting me. They'd have the choice. that's the point.” “Who would?” “Our clients.” “maybe they would, but whether they like it or not, the reality would be what we're selling exists.” I still hadn't the slightest idea of how far this was going. I decided to go with his flow and see where it would take them. “where would we fit in, how would you do it?” “We’d first hold meetings once a week, twice a week, three times if we have to. To make sure our product was well on its way into our clients minds, till it would never fade away.” “What product?!” We’d organize a series of events providing the market with access so they could see for themselves what we were selling. Of Course exclusive access to an exclusive product doesn't come cheap.” he continued as though his enthusiastic spirit had overpowered his ability to hear. Or was I not saying it out loud. I realized he was drifting away, almost vertically. “Suppliers of a monopolized product” I could now distinctly.hear him. “The more they buy it, the more everyone else would wonder what was so special about it. How were we selling it.” How could I not have seen it. They wouldn't know warmth from a burning sensation. Suspended in a cycle with no beginning or ending, one would never follow the other. “And the wannabes, the imitators.The ones who want the product but don't have a clue how to emulate it. It's created value would be too tempting not to try and pursue-” Now a figure beneath me I could hear that part of his monologue as he rambled on in the distance. It was then that I lost balance, feeling the weight of my foot gravitate towards his distant head, to a woman's voice shouting “Watch it!”. 

“Excuse me.” I said as I leaned on her regaining my balance. “I must've tripped.” “You're only human.” when I saw it was a miracle we hadn't both fallen. Still woozy, my feet searched for solid ground, I looked up to see a small-figured woman staring down at me with apprehension. “Can you walk over to that empty chair? Just another inch or two.”she said as I tried to regain my composure. Rahman had disappeared into the office building, going to see about a Pack of Smokes, totally oblivious I wasn't at his side anymore. You feel better? “ “My legs are stiff, like they've just been dug out of a cold grave.” I found myself confiding in her. “I'll be fine in a moment.” I said “Like they've decided to move in circles of their own accord?” she asked. I wondered what her interest in all this was. “Are you a doctor?” “Pah! What do they know about what's not in their sight, of how to tell syllable from sound. Tell me about it.” “Why do you want to know?” “Because I noticed you around noon at the garden, and when I looked again you were gone. But what I saw troubled me, made me shiver in the bone.” Had I really sunk so low, that she’d shiver at the sight of me I thought, but then asked myself who stares at perfect strangers in gardens? “You're the last person I thought I'd have to carry to a seat. I'd still like to know why you’re in it.” “I guess my head swerved and there wasn't enough time to hold on to all I had, and not lose it.” “What's that?” “My own terms.” “And you lost some money today.” she added to a conspiratorial nod. “You don't understand. These weren't terms of a business deal. This would've set the record straight once and for all. Poetic justice dealt of a single choice made, by anyone, for the benefit of everyone.” she lit a cigarette as she listened, a wide smile, almost unintentional, letting some smoke out. “Are you a college professor” she asked “No” Is she even listening to me? “ why would you assume that?” “It just sounded like you couldn't tell sky from sea on a moonless night while saying that.” “But I know something about what you're in. Because I too realized I was not in control in mid step one day. As though my life was a movie reel and something was slowly writing me out. But then a marvelous feeling took over me, and I lost my desire to doubt eternity.” “I don't follow.” “What an arrogant thing to say…” “I mean I don't get it. It sounds nice and all -” “ “No one can listen peddling the schemes of a loaded gun. Always searching for its prey, you end up dying having never found joy, you rob the world of it. Never having basked in the sun. Till you get those white blotches on your forearms. What is that?” I noticed some dead skin waiting to be shed on my forearm and followed it all the way up to my armpit. “You're saying I should live without a purpose, “ “Im not telling you to do anything. Haven't you noticed we've simply been having a conversation? Put down your gun so you can decide for yourself what your purpose is. So you could finally tell sky from sea.” Like blades. Her words felt like blades unbearing nerves I never knew existed making me feel more human instead of causing pain. “Do you know what I like to do at night?” she asked and scribbled down directions to a spot on a bridge and told me to her there at 6:00 pm sharp. “What's with all the dashes?” I asked as I read it. “I never liked full stops” she gave me a shrug and a smile. “Report me” It was already 7:00 pm at a bridge on the Nile where I'd been standing there since 5:45, but she was nowhere to be seen or heard. I could see the fallucas passing underneath in the moonlit sky, When I finally saw, not understood what was wrong. She hadn't injured or insulted me in anyway that I could now have seen beyond the effortless drifting of the fallucas as they made their way down the water. I pictured her waiting for me to draw her a new plan, drawing one of her own, waiting for the tide to come in. How empty of a life they've led. “May she rest in peace”