Smoking in the Dark

Three women are standing in a doorway. All three have those long white canes that indicate they are blind. In their other hands they hold cigarettes. As they chat they puff merrily away. Real hardcore smokers by the look of things. As a one-time devotee of the delights of tobacco, I watch them thinking what’s the pleasure of smoking when you can’t see it? I remember in the old days I’d have a cigarette in the dark occasionally but always found it very unsatisfying if I couldn’t see the gray cloud coming out of my mouth. To me, smoking was taste *and* sight. But watching these women obviously enjoying their cigs reminded me once again of how many different worlds surround and intersect with ours. Although we may all walk down the same street together, the street of the blind is very different from that of the sighted, the deaf, the child, the old person, the handicapped, the lovers, the dying, the short, the tall… Whoever or whatever you are, your pains, pleasures and perceptions are your own and rarely shared by those right next to you. Passing these women, I wonder if smoking to a blind person is ten times more satisfying and sensual than to those who can actually see the flaring match, the smoke, the orange ember, the curving ash… for reasons I will never ever know or understand.