there's a sort of unwritten code amongst smokers to offer cigarettes to their fellow like-minded people when asked for one. well, i'm not sure whether it's an unwritten code amongst our local smokers, but i follow it none the less. for the sake of karma and people helping me out in times of dire need. the usual routine would be a stranger approaching a smoker (while in the act of smoking), asking to sell a single stick of cigarette for a nominal token sum, say.... a dollar. a typical pack of smokes costs anything between nine dollars (crappy brands like 'Halftime' or 'Texas') to twelve (premium brands like 'Davidoff' and 'Dunhills'). so let's put the average at roughly ten bucks for a pack of fags. that equates to roughly fifty cents for a stick (it comes in twenty sticks a pack).

a dollar for a single stick therefore, is really worth the price and really all that tempting to take. but i always refuse out of empathy. i'm almost always out of cigarettes on the 24th of every month (payday is on the 25th) and i really need all the help that i can get when it comes to nicotine. true enough, karma always pays me back when i ask random strangers for cigarettes with this token payment of a dollar. they generally refuse payment and gladly hand over that precious stick of goodness. i've even had nice people who gave me an extra cigarette with the good tidings of 'one for the road'. not once has the door been slammed shut in my face when i ask for a stick.

of course, this is a practice that goes well with strangers that chances are, you will never ever see again in your life. during the days of the green, brown and black combat boots, there were selfish creeps who kept asking for free fags. i'm all fine with acquaintances asking for cigarettes. but i'm not fine if they KEEP asking for cigarettes every few days. Pangkeng and i call these people 'buay zi dong eh chee byes' (which loosely translated from Hokkien, means 'chee byes with no initiatives'; ask your local Singaporean friend what 'chee bye' means). apparently, karma will deal justice and vengeance in due time because as word gets round the work place that these people are parasitic by nature, they will eventually be blacklisted from the smokers' list. it's another of those unwritten codes amongst smokers.

you simply gotta love these unwritten codes, eh?


it's not everyday that one gets free cigarettes from strangers. it's not everyday even that one gets free cigarettes from one's neighbours. and it's definitely not commonplace for your neighbour who's a Satanist to give out free cigarettes. but it's happening to me.

it's not everyday that one's father suffers from tinnitus. it's not everyday that one's father suffers from macular degeneration. it's absolutely not everyday that one's father suffers from insomnia and constant migraines. but then again, my father is forty-five and fast reaching a mid-life crisis. it's all happening to my father.

it's not everyday that one has irritating neighbours who do the most bizarre things. bizarre like shouting 'ZHU BA JIE' in the most absurd hours of the afternoon (refer to project 355: all smokers are friends, a post that i wrote in early January this year). bizarre like gibberish words. sometimes these things irritate my father who comes equipped with a strong sense of justice and a copy of the King James bible in the other hand. my father seems to be constantly at loggerheads with the neighbours who live above us. and for a good reason actually. they crank up their karaoke on saturday afternoons and sing horrendous versions of chinese pop tunes. they have an eighteen-year old son who smokes like a chimney and tosses cigarettes from the balcony, most of which end up along our corridors.

and guess what? their son is a Satanist who practices the dark arts and gives me free cigarettes.
or at least that's what he tells me.
it's all kinda falling in place now, isn't it?


i stepped out of my home for my usual post-siesta smoke yesterday. that was when i bumped into the kid who always gave me a free cigarette without fail. i have already taken seven cigarettes from him in my entire life and seven is a lot. though as to why i've never returned any of the favours back to him, i'm not sure why. as usual, he offered me a single stick once again. and i gladly accepted it. for the first time in our lives, we sat along the corridor and smoked away. i couldn't help but think that he looked like a church mate of mine, Norman (Norm: he looks like you with the uncombed, ruffled hair and the fair skin).

we talked. in mandarin. about religion. he claimed to be a practising Satanist who curses his classmates ('have you heard me chanting before when i'm doing curses?'). we talked more. about my father. he said that he thinks my father has something against his family. of course, i neglected to mention the tossed cigarettes butts and the incessant bursts of 'ZHU BA JIE'. we talked even more. about his family moving out at the end of the next month. moving away to Bukit Panjang. and how he would 'miss me'. to which i agreed as well.

and that was when it all clicked into place. or at least the possibility of a theory clicked into place.
nobody gives away free cigarettes out of pure, good intentions. i give them away out of selfish intents based on karma. which makes me wonder why Satan's child is giving me cigarettes. am i the missing link between my father's health-problems and the upstairs neighbours?

or maybe i'm just thinking too much into it?

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