Yesterday I smoked my last cigarette. No ceremony; just the last one from a carton that lasted about a week.
Now I can feel the deathly craving for just one puff. There is an empty space in the pit of my stomach yearning to be filled. I've already tried with coffee and biscuits, but the hole is still there. Unfortunately I know only too well that I can't have a cigarette. It would be wonderful if I could. Just one cigarette every now and then when the mood hit me would suit me fine, but for me it is either 20 a day or none. I'm an addict when it comes to tobacco and I know it.
There is nothing else in my life quite like it. The closest would be the coffee, which I consume in great quantities, but my coffee consumption is not compulsive. Not having coffee in the house doesn't make me nervous, nor cause me to break out into a cold sweat. I could go for days or weeks without coffee. I wouldn't go for months without it because that would mean depriving myself of one of my pleasures and as pleasures go, a cup of coffee is an extremely pleasant thing.
Smoking was an extremely pleasant thing to do too. I'll miss it.
It was all fireworks in Turin last night as the city held the annual celebrations for the town's patron saint, St. John, and I was down the river with everyone else to witness the spectacle.
