A Bit of Encouragement

Having spent the day with my brother, ripping up carpets and emptying my step-mother's flat, as she is now in residential care, I am somewhat weary. So, here I give you a short piece of unpublished fiction for your entertainment. I'd be interested in your views.

A Bit of Encouragement

‘It’s great. You’ll like it.’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Scared?’

‘Have to be a bit thick not to be; staring death in the face.’

‘Jeez, it’s only a fag.’

‘Makes you ill and can kill you.’

‘They just say that. Any case; doesn’t happen to everyone. My dad says Winston Churchill smoked all his life and lived till he was a hundred.’

‘Ninety one. Anyway, exceptions are supposed to prove the rule, aren’t they?’

‘Everyone does it.’

‘Josh doesn’t. Kate doesn’t. Sam doesn’t...’

‘Like you said, exceptions prove the rule.’

‘Makes you smell. My dad’s like, he’d never kiss a woman who smoked, even if she was real fit and offered it on a plate.’

‘Your dad said that? Cool.’

‘He’s like, it’d be like kissing an ashtray.’

‘Not if you smoke yourself.’

‘Non-smokers taste different, do they?’

‘Don’t know. Can’t tell.’

‘See, that’s the other thing. Stunts your sense of smell. Nothing tastes like it should.’

‘So, you’re not going to try it?’

‘I’ll try it, if you’ll try something for me.’

‘Yeah. Right. Fair enough.’

‘Up for it, then?’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘We go to the cliff edge. I blindfold you and spin you round. You take five steps.’

‘You’re jokin’. That’s like suicide!’

‘Yeah. Right. It is.’

‘What sort of friend would try to get you to kill yourself? I can’t believe you’d do that.’

‘I know. Hard to believe, isn’t it?’