A race to the end..

That was a very delighted day for me. I was going to meet one of my best friend after a long time. Recently, he got a job in one of the major IT firm in the suburbs of the city. And he moved there. This was after almost a couple of years.

We were best buddies in college but after the college ended we hardly meet each other. But this was a huge moment for me. We planned to meet at 5 O'clock in the evening in a cafe uptown.

I had already reserved a table for both of us. I reached early and was waiting for him. There he came, wearing a dark blue shirt with folded sleeves, a grayish jeans, a pair of brand new Snickers and smoking a cigarette.

I knew that he smokes a lot and heard various tales of him. Once, he finished a couple of dozens of cigarettes while having a pitcher. Another time he consumed the entire stock he had in a night. He had became a chain smoker and so on.

We sat and remembered the glorious days from our past, the fun we had, the lectures we didn't attended, the things we should have done then, the things we shouldn't have done, etc. We also shared the experiences we had on all these years of our lives when we weren't together.

And then something he said that ripped me apart. He said, “I am sorry but I had to tell you this”. He had now became an addict to smoking and drugs and alcohol and every other things his parents wanted him to stay away from. He would not live without smoking half a dozen of cigarettes a day. He couldn't live without having alcohol for every alternate reason. And perhaps he was detected with lung cancer but couldn't help. Everything that was making him feel alive was in fact killing him.

I asked him to promise he that he would get rid of these false pleasures gradually if not at once. Now I understood why people say that these pleasures doesn't make you happy, they just borrow happiness from your future.

As he raised his hand to promise I found that he couldn't keep his hand still. His hand used to be Rock steady when I used to ask to make promises back in college. His hand was shivering and so was I.

This was the day I decided that I want to quit of all the analgesics from my life and lives of everyone I care of, I want to end the race before it ends us. I want people to Stay healthy and ftw. And stop paying for their deaths.