More Village!

    Ting-a-ling-ling sounds the shop bell as Un-Two enters the Village Shop.

    "Do you have cigarettes?"
    The Shopkeeper "No. But would you like to buy a map of The Village?"

    "You sure you don't have any cigarettes?.....Would you look?"

    "We haven't had cigarettes here for eight years and five months."
    "If you don't look, how can you be really sure that you're right?"

    {The Shopkeeper-37927 looks under the counter and produces a pack of Village cigarettes and a book of matches. Un-Two looks longingly at the packet. The shopkeeper unwraps the packet and offers Un-Two a cigarette and lights it. Un-Two draws long and deep on the cigarette, and offers one to 37927, and together they enjoy a guilty pleasure.}

    Shopkeeper "I didn't supply you with these cigarettes."
    "No."

    "I don't have them. I don't even know what they are."

    "No."
    "I'd forgotten they even existed. You came in here to buy a map."

    "I used to smoke in order to think."
    "You did? Are you thinking now?"
    "I am. Sometimes........"
    "Yes."
    "I think..........."
    "Go on."

    "That I could choose, there's a place I want to spend the rest of my life. A warm place...with no memory.

    "Just be careful what you say around here. People will report you as soon as look at you. Don't be different."
    "I wonder if we smoke to feed the guilt?"
    "Speaking for myself, I smoke for that oaky flavour, with just a hint of lavender."

    "These things will kill you, you know. The main health risks in tobacco relate to diseases of the cardiovascular system. In particular  myocardial infraction, diseases of the respiratory tract, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. And asthma, emphysema and cancers, in particular lung cancer, and cancers of the larynx and tongue."

    "So I've heard."

    "Smoking is a kind of suicide."

    "That's a bit philosophical....for a Thursday.'"

    {Un-Two stubs out his cigarette}

    "Thank you, and I'll say good day to you."

    As Un-Two leaves The Village shop the shopkeeper is on the telephone making a call to the Clinic to report his customer.

    This scene is a very seductive one. The way Un-Two and the shopkeeper-37927 enjoy smoking their cigarettes always makes me feel like I would enjoy a cigarette, and I gave up smoking some twenty years ago!!!

   I remember when I did used to smoke, how back in the 1980's a group of us would be in the local public house, enjoying a drink and a smoke. At times we would discuss the risks of smoking, and yet carry on smoking despite those risks.

   And of course today here in Britain cigarettes can no longer be seen on sale, they have to be screened off from customers, so that children do not see them. And in a way, have to be sold under the counter, like in the scene in 'Schizoid.'

Be seeing you