Smokers Lung Like Me Narrative

“This definitely hurt my grades because I was so stressed that I stopped doing my work.”

Isaac’s body heated from the embarrassment. “I kind of forgot to. What were you trying to tell me?”

“I would love to catch a nap,” he said, “but there’s a lot to be done this evening.”

“Yeah but you never know if you’re good at something until you try” Myah stated.

"Well, before I answer that, you need to think of a better way to ask that," Mrs.Biddle answered while the whole class was working on their morning work.

“For the boy sake, it would be beneficial if you could explain things to him and then maybe Manyara would loosen-up.”

“Hmm, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you,” he replied rather vaguely.

"Um, well, one time I had to look up information on home remedies. Like stuff for colds, headaches, bruises, and stuff like that. One time I had to give a presentation on the life cycle of a tomato plant."

I focused my attention back to my hand which held my cigarette. I shouldn't be smoking this. She didn't smoke and she was unfortunate enough to-- I halted my thoughts immediately. I felt my throat close up. I tried to swallow down my tears as I felt them surface. Remembering that the stranger was still here, I masked my face of any emotion and pulled my own shades down to cover my eyes. Better.

“I was just wondering why weren’t you in history class?” I whispered softly, not trying to make it obvious I was deliberately trying to interrupt his fatuous chatter. “Is it because of what happened earlier in the

Zach replied at the top of his lungs, “No I went to get my homework so it wasn’t late work or missing work.”

I scoffed quietly. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be working as a teacher, now would I?"

There was a small tv blaring a report of a sports game on full volume directly in front of the couch with a small coffee table that was littered with cigarette butts in between. Jose the entire place stank of booze and smoke, I covered my nose with my jacket. “Treat yourself to something to drink”, he nodded towards the refrigerator. It was filled with bottles and bottles of alcohol. “Geez you should really take better care of yourself”, he rolled his eyes “kid it's my life I do what I want”. I sat down on the couch, I noticed among the mess of cigarette butts and empty bottles there was an old picture of what looks like him and a younger man with greased hair. “Who is this?” I pointed at the younger man,”It’s me.” “Then who is the older one?” I pointed. “That’s my brother Sven.” The tone of his voice changed, he sounded like mom on the worst day when she told me what happened. “He died when we were on an aerial raid in Afghan, the entire squadron got blown apart except me. I barely managed to escape.” He took a long drag, I suddenly got extremely heavy boots, it felt like I was being pulled down to the earth and there's nothing I could do about it. He extinguished the cancer stick, “I guess there are somethings that you can’t control no matter what.” I didn’t know what to

"It's a lot to take in, I know. I tried to keep you out of it..."

“That’s ok. The dictionary’s right there on your shelf.” She replied with that parental hint of finality.