They are teaching me how to smoke — not just light up and inhale like the neighbor kid taught me — but to use a cigarette as a magical tool. Smoking is a sacred act, a secret act. I am being taught how to smoke so that I can share the knowledge, not to become a smoker as an end in itself.

There aren’t just the smokers, there are categories: there’s the smoking smokers, those who smoke people with their magic cigarettes. There’s the non-smoking smokers, those who smoke people by other means. The non-smoking non-smokers are the most peaceful, or conversely, those who have smoked so many they are no longer allowed to smoke. I fall into the final category: the smoking non-smoker, for I am learning how to smoke, so my cigarette is nothing more than tobacco and filter. A benign habit.

The smoker will always smoke on the left side when smoking someone. I hold the cigarette away from the body to keep the effects as far away from me as possible. Every action while smoking can take on meaning, but there are some universals.

Throw it down, crush it, I want no part of this.

Toss it out the window and let the life burn to its natural conclusion.

One crush…

Two crush, three crush, four. Each has significance. Since I am learning still, I put out the ash instead. Poke. poke. poke. poke those cinders away. I am not ready to crush my opponents, my foes, my enemies. I’m not allowed to smoke them until I’ve matured, until I’ve become a magician myself.