Smoking Dead

The great hero

Peter drove the rented caravan under a scorching sun. The PPC van was in the workshop, a joint of tricky mechanical matters had broken down, forcing them to temporarily rent a vehicle. The new purchase had a thin sliding glass hood, which by order of Mrs. Corinne, was forbidden to cover, close or do anything that prevented the passage of the sacred sun through that place.

“That way I'll get a wonderful tan,” she said with a big smile that illuminated her face, as she cheerfully put on her sunglasses.

Peter, grumpy with so much sun, tried to think of something else. They had given him the address of the guy they were going to visit. The receptionist at Kentucky City Hall was very efficient, taking only two hours to check the information on her computer. After the Great Smoke, with the death of most computer scientists, a happy consensus opened among the few computer connoisseurs left alive. Some of them whispered forbidden words like GÜINDOUS, IPONES, YAVA and a thousand other nonsense.

All that hellish string of incompatible programs had been left behind with the whole old system. Throw the incompatibility out. The World Federation Programmers had created the definitive Operative System, free, compatible one hundred percent with all electronic device of the planet. The SOS, as the Super Operative System invented by WFP was affectionately called was a substantial improvement in global computing. In addition, the new programmers, full of good humor had taken the opportunity to include in that name, an implicit play on words, using as a base the famous dead language of antiquity, English.

In any case, despite great advances in computer science, the ineptitude of some receptionists had not improved much at that time.

“Will it be much longer? I get bored” Peter’s daydreams vanished with the advent of Corinne's mystical question, who added a yawn from his professional jargon of “I get mortally bored”.

“It's that house over there.”

Peter's index finger pointed to a large white house. The building had two floors with a huge porch at the bottom. The house was in the middle of a green grassy meadow and the estate contained several majestic looking oaks. The whole house was surrounded by wire fences. Large red-bottomed signs and white letters displayed: NON-SMOKING AREA.

Someone dressed in a white suit opened the front gate for them. Peter drove the caravan into the compound. The young man in the white clothes shaken his hands in a friendly way. Corinne, camera on her shoulder was the first to enter the house.

“We are Peter and Corinne; we are delighted to be able to visit Mr. N...

The young man interrupted him abruptly.

“If you call him ‘sir’, you are doomed. You must call him ‘Rick’. Just ‘Rick’.”

“Rick?” Peter replied.

“Yes. Call him Rick. Rick Grimmes. Follow me.”

The future interviewee was sitting in a rocking chair on a small balcony at the back of the house. Between his hands was a strange gray-faced doll. That figure did not have any human features, in the face of the alleged toy were missing eyes, nose, ears, eyebrows, hair. The strange figure wore a wide white gabardine, the hat of equal color, was surrounded by a blue ribbon and a scarf, also blue, appeared timidly under his neck. Rick looked at the inanimate object as if he were talking to it. On the torso of the doll were eight shimmering green buttons, the belt, colored as the buttons was tied tightly to the abdomen. The rag doll’s feet ended up in tiny red boots.

“Rick? Rick Grimmes? We are Peter and Corinne from the PPC.”

The man who answered to Rick Grimmes' name was sitting in a wheelchair. When he heard his name, he nervously left the doll on the floor. From the description in the psychiatric chart, the man must have been over a hundred years old, but it was barely noticeable. Rick took advantage of the pause to scratch with his right hand the leafy beard of his face.

“Please sit down,” commented the young man dressed in white attire.

Peter and Corinne agreed.

“They're coming back,” the old man in a wheelchair said.

“Excuse me Rick, what did you say?” Peter interrupted quickly.

“Smokers. They're there. They're waiting for us.”

Corinne had been recording the whole time. She was a real nail fanatic, quite a snob, but above all she was a professional camera operator. As soon as she smelled something similar to news, she connected her camera and recorded everything. It was like a disease. Peter couldn't help but look at Corinne's professionalism and, by the way, also noticed the two extra good reasons that Corinne always had hanging on her front.

“It's not over. It's just a truce” Mr. Rick abruptly pulled Peter out of his erotic daydreams.

“Rick, why do you think that? Would you mind if we record him while we talk?”

“Do as you like.”

The old bearded face in a Texan hat stared at the horizon. He kept muttering something to himself, as if Peter and Corinne were not in that room with him.

“It all started years ago. One day I woke up after a long coma. At least that's what they told me. Then I went out into the street and met one of them for the first time. His face was swollen, his eyes glazed, his skin rotten, and worst of all, a cigarette butt in his right hand. They looked at you with their lazy eyes, their arms hanging down and the eternal smoking cigarette fag-end that they put in their mouths by simple inertia. Some even babbled ‘giiiiive me a liiiiight...’. They hissed each and every syllable of the words they uttered through their filthy mouths filled with rickety yellow teeth. No, the young people can't even imagine what that was all about. Hordes of smokers ravaging everything. Do you know what was the worst thing about it?”

“No, Rick, what was the worst?”

“Their touch. If a smoker touched a person for a long period of time, that person became a smoker instantly. It's horrible. One day Bill and I found ourselves inspecting an old gas station. Bill was a young boy from the Kansas area, I don't think he'd ever left his village, and he was checking the pumps for gas and then I smelled them. When that happened, problems started to take place. I remember that conversation: ‘What... what...? What's up, Rick,’ stammered the good Bill who sensed the problems in the air. ‘They're here,’ I replied. ‘You're... you're... Are you sure?’ ‘Yes. “How... How do you know for sure?’ poor Bill kept replied incredulously. ‘Because of the smell, Bill, because of the smell’. ‘Smell, smell of what? Rottenness?’ ‘No, Bill, nicotine’.”

Rick looked at the place on the floor where he had deposited the faceless doll and continued talking.

“Then, without warning, a smoker came out of the shadows. Bill fell to the ground. He rolled and rolled across the ground. A brave boy is able to hurt. I missed the first shot to the head of that smoker; both were very close. Bill couldn't get the smoker off his back. Finally, I fired an accurate shot, the bullet pierced the smoker's right temple, but that wasn't enough. Smokers could resist worse injures. After all, they never had brains, and that smoker was so small that a single shot wasn't enough for anything. The smoker continued to fight the desperate boy, without giving him any truce. The smoker's hand rested on the face of the poor, frightened Bill. He fought with all his soul, managed to kick the monster out of the way and shot him twice bluntly. But it was too late. Then I noticed the first symptom in my companion, he started crawling like a desperate little dog on the floor, looking for some cigarette butt or something remotely similar to put in his mouth.”

Rick put his right hand to his chin, scratched his beard hard, as if trying to remember something.

“Then the second symptom appeared. Bill had never smoked in his life, but he began to intone the words a thousand times cursed: ‘Giiiiive me a liiiiight...’. He had already been converted. Luckily, I had three nicotine patches in the pocket of my jacket. I shot a porous patch right into his hand. That gave me a vital time. Bill, or what was left of him, started desperately sucking on the patch. He was eager for nicotine. It's the last thing he saw before I shot him with an accurate gunshot between the eyebrows.”

Rick fell into a deep silence, swinging his body slowly in the wheelchair.

“Rick, why did you say this was a truce before?”

“I repeat. They're out there. They're waiting for us. They're just giving us a break. Humanity never learns from its mistakes. In every region, country, habitat, there is a place; a place of nightmare enveloped in a thick fog that is not such. The NON-Zone.”

A masculine voice interrupted them.

“Excuse me, it's time for medication. You must leave. Rick must rest.”

Corinne and Peter slowly left the room. The boy dressed in a white robe kindly accompanied them to the exit.

“Is he always like this?” Peter asked intrigued.

“Oh, no. There are worse days. Some days he thinks he's Superman or even God.”

“How could our great world hero look so bad?”

“The last great battle in Dallas. A fight to the death against Patrick Swuaize.”

“Wow...”

“Yes, Patrick, the King of smokers was superior in everything. Style, movement, strength, performance... He was the only smoker capable of dancing, singing and putting a cigarette butt in his mouth all at the same time.”

“How could he...?”

“Beat him? He only had one chance. He grabbed his old Texan hat, and throwing it towards Patrick's face, he managed to create a little distraction. If Patrick fell, the rest of the smokers would be history, the gregarious instinct of the smokers encouraged them to choose a leader, so if Patrick fell, the smokers wouldn't know where to go. Smokers have always needed icons to continue to exist. And Patrick was the greatest of them. Our great hero knew it, so he played his last card. Humanity's last chance. With his perfected Karate technique, he made one last flying kick less than a meter away from Patrick's face. And he did it. The body of the famous smoker fell to the ground, but the smoke intake had been excessive. Anyone else would have died, or even worse. But not him. Not our great hero. However, his mind, filled with all that crap, simply broke. Since then he is in neuropsychiatric treatment, away from all those he saved in life.”

“Oh,” said Corinne in distress. “Poor man.”

“Yes, that's right. Mr. Norris sacrificed his life and sanity for us.”

Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police

A giant building stretched out before Peter and Corinne, the rectangular shape resembled an old warehouse and a gigantic fence surrounded the entire perimeter. A very large stone arch welcomed them and in the apse of the arch it could be read some sculpted letters: Defending the law.

An Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Policeman waited for them under the arch of the entrance.

“Welcome Corinne and Peter. This is Fort Dufferin. My name is John Alexander and I will guide you through the main building of the world's most important headquarters. Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police Headquarters. The world's oldest safeguards.”

The speaker wore the typical officer costume, a red jacket with a black belt, sky-blue puffy trousers, and flawless black boots. In addition, the man wore an elegant brown hat that elegantly highlighted the whole.

Corinne painted her nails carelessly, while Peter recalled his childhood youthful dream of being an ex-cop on horseback. A broken dream at an early age by his inability to open easily legs, a prerequisite for horseback riding. For this reason, as a young man, he was considered unfit for ex-police service. Peter still remembered the words of his teacher Paquita Johns from pre-school: “Peter, you are no good to be a member of the Ex Canadian Mounted Police, but quiet, you can always devote yourself to some easier job for your skills, as a journalist for example.”

John abruptly pulled him out of his daydreams.

“Please don't record anything in the whole room, but you can take notes. We will begin our tour shortly.”

It was normal for Corinne to be absent in this situation. Everyone knew the strong celibacy of the famous police force. An Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Policeman vowed not to engage in any sexual activity while serving on the corps. Add to that the fact that he couldn't record anything with his camera at all, and the only distraction for the camera operator was to paint her nails. A couple of former mounted policemen passed in front of them and greeted John Alexander.

“Hello Mountie.”

“See you later Mounties,” John Alexander politely replied to the former mounted policeman couple who had just crossed his path.

“Excuse me,” interrupted Corinne boringly, “what does Mountie mean?”

The former policeman smiled with a correction typical of the ancients.

“Mounties is what we call each other. The origin of the word was lost some time ago because of the Great Smoke, that cruel war against smokers that took place more than fifty years ago. Unfortunately, the smokers burned all the books and only the oral tradition remained.

“What about computers?” Corinne said, not without a certain reluctance.

“The computers of that time had great deficiencies. Since there were no humans to maintain their archaic data systems, they soon became volatile. In addition, they had different operating systems that were incompatible with each other. The few devices that survived the Holocaust showed unconnected, ambiguous or even contradictory data.”

“Didn't they have the SOS system?”

“No, citizen Corinne, at that time they didn't own our beloved SOS. Humanity was not as united as it is now and they only thought of their own.”

“Sorry,” Peter interrupted, “and, who gave them the necessary information about what a Mountie was?”

“With regard to your question,” the former policeman smiled, “the clowns gave us the answer, for they possess an astonishing collective memory, not in vain were from antiquity great travelers and great guardians of oral transmission. The word Mountie comes from an ancient group of clowns called Monthy Pailton. After the Great Smoke, and thanks to our heroic acts, the clowns decided to nickname us the Mounties, in honor of this group of ancient clowns. All members of the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police take this nickname very seriously. And after this subsection, if you will please follow me.”

John Alexander guided them through the first floor of the main headquarters. Very stripped-down offices governed the decor. The second floor, with large wooden beams, had a pre-smoking style. The Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police led them to a large room with many seats, in the middle of which was a gigantic round table with letters carved in an ancient language.

“It is English. I studied it,” said Corinne as she gladly patted her hands as she came out of her silence.

“This Corinne is a strange woman. Who learns English which is a dead language? She is ridiculous, being able to learn the Newspeak”.

“It says something like. T... H... E…R... F... O... R... C... E... What does it mean? Don't I know that word? Is it some kind of hair shampoo?

“What I thought. You have no idea about English. What a phony.”

“I'm glad you asked me that question. It's the old doctrine we follow in the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police. Jediism contemplates The Force, an energy underlying every being or object in the universe.

“Oh! Yes! He really knows English. Now you have impressed me Corinne.”

“I didn't know that the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police followed a religion,” struck Peter in amazement, “especially when years ago it was mathematically proven that God doesn't exist.”

“But The Force is no God, citizen Peter. The Force unites us all.”

“Like string theory?” Peter asked.

“Like Paterson nail polish?” Corinne continued.

The Ex-Former policeman looked at them very seriously.

“Much more. Infinitely more. The Force unites everything. Even the Force itself is united by itself of how strong it is.”

“Unbelievable, more than string theory,” exclaimed Peter.

“Unbelievable, more than Paterson nail polish,” added Corinne.

Peter and Corinne looked at each other with a certain skepticism, although this initial reaction soon disappeared before the voice of John Alexander, who possessed a surprisingly captivating voice. Both Peter and Corinne had fleeting daydreams about the entity appointed by the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police, although their personal ramblings differed greatly from each other.

Peter mentally ratified the words of his former teacher Paquita Johns. He could never have been an ex-cop.

“Look at him. How he arches his legs as he walks.”

Corinne, for her part, thought that the members of that police force were very boring characters, not one of them had deigned to look, albeit out of the shadows, at the deep neckline she carried for that occasion: “Are they blind or dumb?” thought the disillusioned Corinne.

And again, being moved only by the most atrocious boredom, Corinne in the middle of that room again asked a question.

“Why were the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police the only police force that survived the Great Smoke?”

John Alexander took a penetrating look into Corinne's eyes.

“By a simple rule not possessed by the rest of the police forces of that time,” John Alexander knew how to use silences well. “It was the only defense corps that banned smoking.”

A prolonging “wow” arose from the throats of Peter and Corinne.

“All the old police forces allowed…” John made another deliberate pause, “smoking among their ranks. Poor puppets of disease. All these entities were struck down by the Great Plague. All but us.”

John Alexander stared at them.

“Please follow me. I have one last surprise for your documentary.”

Peter and Corinne went down to the basement. A place carved in stone with strange marble columns that joined the floor to the ceiling. Many galleries with different tunnels made their way from the center of the room to which they had descended by elevator.

“Do you have a 3D documentary screening room down here?” Peter's astonishment was genuine.

Meanwhile, Corinne showed her particular face of disenchantment at the prospect of being a passive spectator. She was still enormously bored with those former policemen and her nail polish was running out.

“No, citizens, still better,” continued John Alexander with a laugh. “They're in the information room. The Stone Room. Paper is an extremely volatile material, as our ancestors discovered for their misfortune, as well as a powerful food for compulsive smokers. Computers are also really fragile machines, no matter how much we improve, in the face of a new catastrophe, their circuits and lack of energy would turn them into useless material. Humanity cannot rely on paper or silicon to preserve its legacy, our valuable historical heritage. So, what is the only thing that lasts? The only thing that survives the passage of time?”

Peter and Corinne didn't know what to answer.

“The stone. A robust material, highly resistant, which also has the attraction of being in large quantities on our planet. Since we won the war, the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police has been carving the history of mankind into stone. These stones contain in newspeak and pictorial drawings the history of humanity since the Great Smoke. This will survive a catastrophe. The disease of smokers, the Great Smoke, the rise of clowns to power, the contribution of the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police. All that and more is carved here.”

Peter looked around, trying to write down what he had just heard.

“And this is the end of our journey. If you are so kind, I will accompany you to the exit, not without first commenting to you, citizen Peter and citizen Corinne, the sale of gift products made in Fort Dufferin at the exit. If you want, you can take with you a lightweight stone book weighing only four hundred twenty-three ounces, or a beautiful necklace pendant made of seven stones, the latest in fashion. Think about it, Peter and Corinne, because with the second purchase we make a significant discount.”

Pepa Frank's diary

“Corinne, everyone thought he was a legend, but Pepa Frank existed.”

Corinne, sitting peacefully on the co-pilot's side, looked at Peter without any trace of effusiveness. The van continued at good speed along the road on its way home.

“It's incredible, we have the only copy of Pepa Frank's diary.”

“How interesting,” said Corinne in her usual tone of boredom. “I can't wait to read it.”