Take aim

We have a job to do, we are not here just to revel in the glory of creation. Beauty itself is not enough for the people who write the rules, each creature must perform a task that plays a part in one of several scripts competing for the prize of human destiny. Step forwards, creature of the light, and speak your lines.

I could die for a cigarette. Or, if I get a different job, I could warn other people that they could die for a cigarette. I could work in a white van taking pictures of people who drive too fast, or strut along the pavements looking for people who have driven to slowly for too long and stick smug little tickets in plastic bags to their windscreens. There are so many roles to choose from, and so many other players desperate to tread the boards. Competition is so fierce that even smokers now are having to take jobs in companies that "operate a no-smoking policy".

I am sometimes disturbed by the thought that the inmates in the concentration camps might not have been allowed to smoke. Not because it was bad for their health; the authorities would hardly want to improve the health of those they planned to do away with. Not because it was en expensive luxury either, for the tobacco industries of all sides made sure that there were enough packs for everybody's needs, even though food was being rationed. It was a simple piece of malice, almost an afterthought, that went along with the withdrawal of liberty and self-determination. "You are not permitted to choose how you live or die. We do that". The freedom to indulge in hazardous delights is one which is a pleasure to withdraw from those you deem no longer human.

And now we are over the enemy's countryside, turning cautiously round to head back towards the tiny strip of land, no thicker than a cigarette paper, that all the strife and turmoil is about. We fly confidently, purposefully, as though we had just taken off from one of their fields and are heading out over their lines to take a look at their enemy, and gently crab sideways towards a large round object floating playfully high above the trees. Then, as the first warning puffs of black smoke burst in the air ahead of us, we throw away the pretence and dive, full throttle, wires screaming in the rising wind, on a graceful arc towards a point midway between balloon and ground, wait until it seems too late to change our minds, and roll the arc upwards to let both guns hack and spit and cough a rattling message.

"Stay on the ground, Fat Boy, soaring can seriously damage your health".