​Smoking Kills

I always loved back roads, especially riding in a Toyota Hilux. I loved cargo pants and jackets, especially in army green colour. Guns always made me excited. I always loved staying in the mountains with no facilities and having nothing to watch but the campfire and the stars.

But now, sitting in the passenger seat of this military pickup truck as a junior commissioned officer, here because of the two-year mandatory military service that I have to accomplish, in order to achieve a normal adult citizen life; I am disgusted of all. I am disgusted by this road, this truck, these clothes, and the guns. I can’t believe that I am hating this gentle sunlight slipping across my face as the car moves up the hills toward the sunset through the curves. I hate it — even though my superior ( Capitan ) has finally stopped asking about and digging into all twenty-two years of my life, that I put behind. And he also finally stopped complaining about his assistant.

We had just met in the Colonel’s office waiting room at the State Head Quarters.

Before calling it a day, the colonel threw me to the captain as a temporary assistant, just to shut him up until tomorrow. That way, he wouldn’t also have to deal with my case till tomorrow either.

“Here you are,” colonel said, walking out of his office and putting on his cap, ready to leave. “A lieutenant with one year of army experience, recently transferred back to his estate after resolving a misconduct that had sent him to the other side of the country.”

“Sir” Capitan replies “but he’s just a service act soldier, not a real military personnel. I haven’t seen my two kids for almost a month cause I don’t have a real assistant, and my base needs at least twelve members — four of them real army personnel at least — while it’s only me, with my four service act soldiers who are counting the last days of their service before going back to their normal life… my assistant is always absent, sir,”

“We will deal with it tomorrow,” Colonel said, and then he left.

Everything came together at once, and now I’m stuck in this truck, heading to a messed up Border Military Base, at north west mountain range border of Iran. Somewhere I’ve never been, with people I’ve never met. I’ve given up trying to figure out where I’m going or who I’m meeting anymore. I’ve been pushed around with zero control over my life, appearing in different places like an alien, specifically for the last couple of weeks since I transferred to my state. It feels very much like wandering through a long nightmare. Everything is grotesque, and I’m just trying to be there and survive.

***

Captain looks like a good person. He even offered to drive himself. However, as a rule of thumb for Service Act Soldiers and regular personnel, you never trust each other and you never become real friends. Service Acts leave the army in about two years and never look back. The moment we sign off, we have no respect for the army, the personnel, and, in a way, we betray them.

He didn’t even tell me what my assignment for tonight would be. However, I don’t worry about it — the worst that could happen is being posted as a guard until morning. Then, in the morning, I’m supposed to go back to headquarters with the food delivery truck and wait for Colonel to come to his office and assign me my permanent service base for the remaining year of my service.

We turn onto an off-road and keep climbing through the valley. No wonder he insists on driving, even though he is clearly exhausted. There’s no time to go slow on these roads — hesitation means you won’t make it. For the past hour, all I see is the rocky path ahead, lit only by the headlights, and I have no sense of where we are or which way we’re heading.

Then, suddenly, a rusty, tall gate looms in the car’s lights, swinging open as we approach. Captain is not pleased. He is dead tired and furious, cursing under his breath. “These basters are supposed to stop me and check with the night patrol before opening the gate! All they do is smoke, smoke, and smoke — stupid addicts!”

He’s not against smoking himself — he even stoped for a smoke a couple of times — but these guys are next level maybe. A soldier with a tiny cap opens the gate, not even bothering to hang his gun. Well, Captain isn’t completely wrong about them. He holds an army-level respect for Captain as the car enters. Then another soldier, fully armed, shines his tourch on us from the top of the watchtower as we get out of the car and suddenly captain looks calmer, almost satisfied. He goes inside without giving me any instructions.

Trying to act normal, I read the name tag on the soldier’s chest: “Akbar,” followed by a long surname.

“Hi, Akbar,” I say, trying to introduce myself, but he doesn’t seem interested. His worn clothes and cap tell me he’s close to the end of his service. He has seen plenty of lieutenants like me come and go. He won’t salute a Service Act who is newer than him in army, even if I’m a lieutenant. He starts unloading some things from the truck. I immediately pull my duffel bag out of his way — the bag I carry everywhere, the one that holds my whole life — and go inside.

Inside, another soldier ( Payam ), wearing less faded clothes, sits on a chair and stares at me with obvious interest, unlike Akbar. There’s a third one sleeping on the bunk with his boots on, ready to switch shifts with the guard on the tower, as they do every two hours. The room smells heavily of cigarettes. I can almost see the smoke hanging in the air.

Payam doesn’t say anything until Akbar comes in and starts warming up dinner on the tiny, rusty stove placed on top of a small, broken fridge with no door. Three plastic containers sit on the floor beside it — salt, sugar, and tea. They continue a conversation from where they left off while Payam stands up and begins scrubbing a black, crooked pan in the little sink on the opposite side of the room.

There isn’t much conversation until Captain’s office light turns off and he lies down on the metal bed in the corner of his room. Once the soldier from the tower comes down for his two-hour break and dinner, the atmosphere changes. The conversation finally heats up — about the only thing that really matters around here.

Payam, after two midnight shifts on the tower, is resting tonight so he can be ready again for the next night shifts. But he prefers staying up late anyway — smoking, drinking tea, and chatting instead of sleeping.

He pulls a white cigarette pack from his chest pocket and holds it up to our faces, showing the picture of the rotten tooth printed on it.

“I got it from Zabi ( the shepherd ) just this morning. Best Winston Lights ever. Very limited” he says, unwrapping the plastic. He takes a deep sniff of the freshly opened pack before expertly tapping it upside down and sliding one cigarette out with practiced ease.

Akbar disagrees. “The last batch with rotten teeth picture, I tried last month was bullshit. But Zabi pushes them as good cigarettes because he’s got them in stock on his donkey pouch, and has to get rid of them” then he offers the half-burned cigarette to Payam “Here, try this one.”

Payam presses it to his lips and mumbles, “He has no stock. He asks and brings exactly as many as we are around here. Special order haha” before taking a deep drag. His eyes widen in surprise as he exhales, trying to talk at the same time. “This is good — as good as the original Winston Light. Can I see the pack?” He asks Akbar.

Akbar pulls a half-full, crushed pack of Winston Light — as smashed as his cap — from his pocket. As he shows the picture of cancer-blackened lungs printed on it, says, “I won’t trust him. There are many more people in these mountains he trades with. He is a local”

Then he generously offers one to me and jokes, “Zabi didn’t count you in.”

I pass, saying “I quit before joining the army. I thought I wouldn’t have access to smoke and would suffer military more”

They all laugh and say the army wouldn’t run without these little friends. Your only real friend that ready to burn for you.

Eventually, everyone at the base is lying on their bunks except for the tower guard. I know without saying that I’m supposed to stay awake as the temporary assistant and make sure the guards are taking their shifts properly, but I find it unnecessary. They’re taking it seriously enough. Besides, it’s almost impossible for me to stay awake anyway.

***

Suddenly, I wake up to movement around me. Everybody is running, getting dressed, grabbing their Kalashnikovs. Captain is shouting instructions, complaining and cursing at the same time.

“I told you a thousand times — the machine gun has to be maintained and tested every morning. It’s a fucking rule! They know our machine gun is broken. They know we don’t have a single night-vision device. They know exactly how many we are here. I told you — information is everything. Information is life. But all you care about is smoking. You buy them from Zabih, don’t you? He sells everywhere — on both sides of the border. To farmers, to smugglers, to Democrats, to the PKK — to everyone. He would sell us out to terrorists for the price of a cigarette!”

Captain hands me a Kalashnikov and tells everyone, “Go to the roof. Take all the ammunition — but no shooting until I say so. Just try to spot them.”

That’s when I panic. I pull on my boots and run to the roof. Akbar is trying to fix the machine gun when Captain comes up behind him with his G3 automatic gun.

“Leave it,” he says. “Go get your Kalashnikov. It’s too late.”

Everything feels dreamy — unreal, but completely real at the same time. The last time I used a gun was during training, a year ago. After that, I was assigned to the traffic police division on the other side of the country before being transferred back here to my state. I was hoping to be placed in an office or somewhere quiet by Colonel, who is a friend of my uncle’s friend. Honestly, I used to shoot more often before joining the military.

Here I am, sitting on the roof, staring into the blackout, trying to figure out what’s got everyone so on edge. The guard and the captain are pointing into the darkness. I see nothing but black.

Then, suddenly, it appears — a tiny, but obvious glow, burning brighter and brighter until it fades away. It’s exactly like a cigarette lit in the dark, not too far from us. However, the surroundings are so dark that, for someone like me, unfamiliar with the landscape, it could easily be mistaken for a forest fire burning kilometres away.

We all stare at the pure blackness until the glow appears again, at the exact same spot. This time, it confirms for everyone that someone is smoking very close to us — about 50 or at most 100 meters away, on the opposite side of the creek, based on my imagination, based on what everyone agrees. We can also tell there are almost none, or at most two, puffs left from that cigarette to glow.

Captain is already aiming with his G3, and I’m sure he’s going to pull the trigger the next time the glowing opportunity comes.

“If I miss this shot, we’re all fucked,” he murmurs from the corner of his mouth, leaning into the gun with a steady grip, ready for his one-shot opportunity.

With this shot, we’re sending a vital message to the man or men who we don’t know how many there are and where they’re hiding, or maybe surrounding us. A good shot says, “We have Night Vision, and you’re in our trap — like tiny, glowing, phosphorescent rats, ready to be picked off, one by one.” A bad shot says that we’re the ones in their trap — like blind rats, waiting to be caught.

My survival instinct starts to take over. “Aim to the right side of the glow,” I blurt out, noticing that the person isn’t facing us, based on the movement of cigaret.

“You wanna do it?” Captain responds quickly. He knows my dad was a hunter, that I’ve been shooting since when my dad’s rifle was bigger than me. He knows all of this from our car ride conversation.

“With the G3, yes” I respond, remembering the terrible experience I had with the Kalashnikov aiming, and reverse with G3, during training.

Captain rolls to his left, leaving the G3 where it is, and I slide behind the gun.

Immediately, I realize this is different from any aiming I’ve done in my life. I’m aiming at nothing. The shot has to be quick once the glow reappears — just like quail hunting, I remember.

There it appears again. I squeeze my left eye shut to aim, but it gets less clear with just one eye. I hesitate, and in that moment, I lose my precious chance.

No one speaks.

I take a few deep breaths, steadying myself. I’m ready this time, hoping for one more chance.

We’ve already missed one glow during the exchange of guns. As experienced smokers, they know that was the last puff. But we also know that some heavy smokers — the ones addicted to the taste of the burned filter — sometimes take one extra hit, packed with a dense concentration of nicotine, just before they snuff out the cigarette butt.

Here we go. Another glow appears, brighter than all the others. I pull the trigger, aiming for the right circumference of the glow.

“Boom.” bullet and the glow unite. it explodes and vanishes into the night, like a fire work being watched from kilometres away.

After a brief silence, “Wait and aim at their fire,” Captain orders.

We wait. We stare at the pure darkness. We keep looking for a long time, until the cold starts to seep into my bones.

Finally I climb down first, and soon everyone else follows, except for the tower guard and Captain.

***

The sun is rising. I didn’t sleep, but somehow, I feel surprisingly fresh. We start walking out into the light of that magical sunrise, into a landscape I’m seeing for the first time in light and I finally know where I’ve spent the whole night.

The spot I shot at, last night, is about 50 or 70 meters down by the creek and then maybe 25 meters uphill from there, on a rocky, uneven landscape. It’s hard to spot our last night target.

Suddenly, Payam finds a half-full Winston Light pack behind a big rock. I approach and immediately a wet spot or almost muddy puddle catches my eye. Looking closer lots of blood spilled and sank into the soil during night. After seeing the colour of dark blood we start noticing more blood stains splashed around the same spot and painted with blood. How much a man can bleed, I think.

We all sling our guns over our shoulders and sit around the blood puddle. The sun starts warming our cold bodies, and along with the calmness of the mountains, it turns into a deep moment, almost like the time for Muslims’ morning prayer. Some blood was spilled, and we were saved.

Payam is holding the cigarette pack he found. He can’t raise his head out of shame. He let slip the information about who exactly was supposed to be at the base last night. Except me of course.

Captain grabs the pack from his hand, pulls one out, places it between his lips, then passes the pack to me and says, “nobody count you in for sure.” He smiles.

No way I’m passing on this one. I pull a cigarette and pass it to Akbar. “Smoke and die,” I joke. Everyone laughs except Akbar himself. He doesn’t like a newer in the army talking to him like that. To him, stars on my shoulder are bullshit. My cap looks much fresher than his soft, faded, and shrunken cap. That’s what they respect around here. A worn cap.

“That’s what it says here,” I continue, pointing at the English letters on the pack.

He grabs the pack and slides a cigarette out, studying the package—not the English letters, of course, but the small signs that prove it came from the very same box as Payam’s pack last night.

“Your favourite,” he says, offering the pack out to him.

Payam searches through it, trying to find one without blood staining the filter.

“Nothing left,” he says.

Captain takes the pack back, looks at it, and says, “This will be attached to my report tonight.

Finally, they’ll take me seriously at the Headquarters.”

Before putting the pack into his chest pocket, he holds it up to my face and asks, “What does it say really?” He knows I studied English Literature, based on our car ride conversation.

Akbar sharpens his ears, waiting to see if I was messing with him.

Without lifting my head to look at it, I take a deep drag, after one long year of sober, from blood tasting cigaret and say :

“Smoking Kills”

—————

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