Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Smoking on a windy night

do you ever get that feeling of euphoria?

maybe it's only me, knowing that i am unique, that is euphoric?!?!

I was standing outside, smoking my cigarette, in the dark and on a windy night. I had just been driven home and before i entered, needed to get my nicotine addiction in check first. so i lit one up and began to suck on the smoke.

as i was smoking, i remembered a story that one of my brothers had told me. He is six years older than i. he gave me advice on how to hide the smokes from my parents, how to get rid of tobacco smell before i went home and also how to spend your money wisely - so that your parents don't question where all that money you make goes to.

So he told me of a story when he was 16, with our cousin. he said my family was to be out hunting for three weeks. he was hiding the smoke from our parents. and he didn't have any money so he had to steal the pack from someone else. so a pack of cigarettes for two sixteen years old boys for three weeks. if you smoke, that is a tough stretch.

well, what he said was: there is a lot of risk when you are in a camp of about fifteen people in two tents, most of them are older than you and none of them want you to smoke. so we had to hide them and we needed a good hiding spot for the pack, where rain would not get to it.

so they hid the pack.

the next morning, my father decided to go somewhere where there might be some caribou and wanted to leave early. of course my brother is sixteen and stays up later than anyone in the camp. and being young that he is, he sleeps in all the time. unfortunately, him being a late sleeper, my father didn't give him enough time do what he has to do. He made him do chores and soon as they were done, they went on the boat and off they went hunting for caribou, never to come back to the camp they slept in.

along with the camp, went the cigarettes, never to be seen again as well.

that was my brothers story: story of great eskimo despair, of eskimo sadness, of an eskimo growing up in the eskimo world. how sad.

as sad as it is (hahaha) it reminded me of a time when my brother would give me advice on how to be sneaky. it brought back memories of growing up eskimo. and i remembered the time he told me the story when we were smoking, passing by the very island where he slept in and where he hid his smokes, passing it by from a boat.

unbeknown to us, my father was listening, and told my brother, "i knew you smoke all along... the only person that i didn't know who smoked was your younger brother."

and he looked at me smiling, as if a father and son relationship had just been realized.

NOT. He scolded both of us for being smokers.