Smoking Paradise Origin's - Martha

"I can't see why I am fine, if a little tired from nightshift and will need another coffee before going starting my next shift, but apart from that I am fine. I was thinking of going to the movies on Friday night, if you want to?" she grinned and placed the orange filter back between her lips and her cheeks briefly collapsed as she took another lungful of smoke.

Hannah chewed on her last of her donut as she licked the sugar off her hands and then wiped them on her dress as Martha exhaled a cloud of smoke into the middle of the room. "I would love to, but Mum was saying that you are serious about going to the island?"

A wry smiled crept across Martha's face. "Han, yes I am."

"But what about me, it means losing your support?" she frowned, "I would miss you!"

"You will be fine; you are big enough and old enough and I of course was always going to be moving out once I got my position confirmed."

"Yeah, but to the next town, not a frigging remote island Mart."

"It's not for ever, I come home for holidays every few weeks, or you can come out?" She grinned and hit on her cigarette again.

"That does sounds good, but why leave us in the first place?"

Martha rubbed her nose with the back of her index finger as she thought. "Because of my career, I can really do some good out there, I became a doctor to actually help people and secondly I like the idea of relaxing after work with the sun, sea and hopefully sex!" she nervously giggled.

Hannah snorted and shook her head "Oh Mart really? It's not good you, mum and dad with all this smoking; I worry about it, you must hear mum and occasionally dad coughing their guts up as they get up in the morning, complaining of the effort of the exercise after having to go back up the stairs because of old age they have forgotten why they came down for and now you are heading off to an smoking island as well..."

"Honestly I will be absolutely fine, I have done seven years of medical school, I am sure that I can cope on a nicotine fuelled island, I am aware and know the risks." She stated as took a final drag on the cigarette and held it for a second smiled and the leant forward and stubbed it out as she exhaled a cloud up out the corner of her mouth as she sat back up, she re-arranged her pyjama top to protect her modesty.

"You better be good and keep in contact!"

"I will but look I haven't even got the job yet."

"Good."

Chapter 6

Martha opened the front door and then wiggled the umbrella to shake of the water before putting in the umbrella rack beside the door; She shivered as she walked into the kitchen where Gerald and Jessica were both sitting there eating their toast with a cigarette each burning in the ashtray.

"Morning Mum, dad, hope all is well?" She smiled as she sauntered in her hair dripping from the rain.

"How was work?" Gerald asked as he placed his cigarette back between his lips and inhaled.

"Same old, same old, glad to have a couple of days off now" Martha smiled as she placed her hand on her dads shoulder and leant across and extracted a cigarette from the pack in the middle of table.

"You are drenched" he stated wiping non-existent drips off him as he looked at his daughter and offered her a flame from his lighter.

"Yeah," she shrugged her shoulders "I forgot my coat," and leaned in to take the flame provided by Gerald with a double pump inhale. "Rain, don't you love it!" she said with her exhale before taking another drag.

"You have to be careful darling; you will catch a cold Mart!" Jessica stated shaking her head before she too took a drag on her cigarette.

Martha rolled her eyes, "I am the doctor out the three of us, and I will be fine. I just can't wait it's not too long until I get to the sunshine!" She grinned and leaned into her cigarette again filling her chest with her much required smoke.

"What?" Jessica sort of woke up and looked at her.

"Yes, pardon?" Gerald asked putting his cigarette down in to the ashtray.

"Sorry didn't I say SPIL have email through overnight and given me the contract" Martha beamed.

"Are you going to accept it?" They both asked in unison.

Martha grinned and nodded and reached across the table and flicked the ash from her cigarette.

"Yes, I am, I have been thinking about it, I am young, free, and single. I can use this time to explore and see things that I haven't done before. I can also forward my career focusing on looking after those who have enjoyed a cigarette or two in their later years of life?"

"When do you go?" Gerald asked flatly.

"End of the month, on the Saturday." She grinned and nervously shrugged her shoulders.

"What do we need to do now?" Jessica looked fiercely at Gerald to lead.

"You don't need to do anything!" Martha stated and took another drag on her cigarette, before sighing the exhale through her nose, and then running her hand through her hair "I just need to go to bed!"

"Mart, before you go to bed, come on sit down and chat to us about this!" Jessica asked patting the chair beside her.

"Can I do it later?"

"Can you show your dad your contract?"

"Yes of course, but why?"

"Just so we can know what is going on!"

"Mum!" Martha stated and took a frustrated drag on her cigarette.

"Sorry..." Jessica frowned.

"I am going to bed, have a good day." She stated and took a final drag, leaned over the table, and stubbed the cigarette out. Then Martha turned and whilst still exhaling and shaking her head flounced up the stairs.

Chapter 7

Martha dangled her post dinner cigarette in the corner of her mouth, and exhaled a trickle of smoke through her nose as she slid her pink fluffy hairband off her wrist and put her blonde hair up in to ponytail and after taking one final drag deep drag, she exhaled a large cone, stubbed her cigarette out and thanked her parents for dinner and suggested that she was heading out before looking across at Hannah who had already made her way to the sofa.

"Han, are you coming out to the movies with me, or have you settled on the sofa with your nachos all night?"

"Oh, I guess so, as long as it's not Terminator!" Hannah grinned as she shuffled herself off the sofa.

"I need something happy after work today, think there is an evening showing of Minions." She grinned.

"Why didn't you say so?" Hannah beamed as she wiped the crumbs of food from her green maxi dress as untangled her legs as she got up.

Martha glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall "We can get the twenty to bus, and we can have beer afterwards."

"Really...I thought you would drive so that you could sm..."

"It's really okay Hannah" she quickly interrupted knowing where the conversation was going "I can go for a bit without a cigarette err like for hours at work and but currently that time is foreshortened when you start moaning. Come on." She stated as she pushed the dining room chair back and crossed the room, retrieved her denim jacket from the hook on the wall, checking a pack and lighter were in the pocket.

As Jessica leaned her elbow on the table cigarette burning between her fingers looked across from the table, and through the stream of smoke locked eyes with Hannah nodded some motherly encouragement at her who with a roll of her eyes accepted what she was silently being asked.

***

"Thanks, Mart, for dragging me out of the house that was hilarious!" Hannah stated as she dropped the empty extra-large popcorn carton and drink in the bin bag the stewardess was diligently holding as they walked out of the cinema.

"I thought it wise to spend some quality time with you before I go." Martha stated as she opened her handbag.

"So, you are definitely going?" Hannah asked as they flowed out into the street with the throngs of families

"Yes, I have got my contract, it's not amazing pay, but I don't need to pay for anything else, I would actually be saving money." She grinned as she flipped open her Marlboro Red pack and placed the filter between her lips as they walked through the art deco concourse "And of course still using my years of training." She stated with a muffled with her cigarette between her lips as they walked down the ramp to the pavement, she tilted her head and used her hand to protect it from the fresh evening breeze as she lit it.

"But it means leaving us!" Hannah grumbled and shivered in the cool evening air as Martha exhaled out into the dark sky.

"Look the crux of it is that they have stopped all the doctors and nurses smoking on site, we can't, and they won't let us just pop out for a quick de-stressing ciggy anymore.

"Well quit then, then you can stay here with us?"

Martha snorted and whilst looking at Hannah then took another lungful of smoke and replied with her exhale "It's not as simple as that, I am truly addicted to nicotine!"

"Oh Mart, you said to me that you can go for hours without smoking, you lasted the hour and half of the movie easily enough, just make those hours slightly longer and stay at home?"

A wry smile crept across Martha's face "How long can you go without eating?" as she looked around the cold street as the people dispersed.

Hannah shrugged "A couple of hours if I am busy?"

"Exactly after about an hour or so of not smoking if you are not distracted by like working hard or watching a hilarious movie the body starts distracting you suggesting that you really should light a cigarette. Then if you don't an hour later it's ratcheted the asking up a level and starts demanding that its missing something important and you should really give it what it wants. If you don't because you are inside or in a boring meeting, then its then a slippery slope and a few hours later you can't focus on anything else. It's like you are hungry and won't move from the sofa until fed. Your feet are almost stuck to the ground until you solve the conundrum of giving the body the nicotine it wants!" She declared and flicked the growing ash and tilted her head back slightly as cheeks deeply collapsed again as she pummelled her lungs with smoke, "I then light up," she smiled as she exhaled. "You open a pack of crisps you get the same endorphin rush from sugary fatty food as I do from nicotine. I actually need my cigarettes; my body desperately wants me to smoke them, medically because of my addiction. You don't actually need the donuts or crisps, or sweets; you just need to eat properly your breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"Yes doctor," she faux saluted. "But Mart it's really different as its food, and Mart, it doesn't stink half as much as your lit cigarettes?" she stated waving another cloud of exhaled smoke away from her face.

Martha shook her head, and chuckled, "Unless it's a spicy curry, or Roast Rat Monster Munch, come on you let's go and have a Friday night drink before the last bus home and I can explain it all to you." she said as she flicked the ash from the cigarette above the road drain and holding it just off her hip, she looked both ways and then marched them across the road in the direction of a pub for a drink.

***

Martha sipped her drink and put her Marlboro Red pack and lighter down on the outside table and then turned it around and pulled out her penultimate cigarette from the pack and placed the orange filter between her lips and rather than crushing the pack she daintily unfolded the cardboard whilst Hannah sipped her large white wine looking on quizzically.

"You know the reason why smoking is so addictive right?" she asked, the unlit cigarette bounced as she spoke.

Hannah nodded and rolled her eyes "Yeah simple - bloody nicotine, we all know that!" she grinned triumphantly and took another sip of wine.

"Correct!" Martha grinned and took the cigarette out of her mouth "You know the reason why is that nicotine is so addictive to the body?"

"It's a drug?" Hannah looked on inquisitively as Martha toyed with her unlit cigarette.

"Yes, nicotine is really clever in the human body as is mimics the naturally produced drug called dopamine, the body produces it when its happy and then craves dopamine to be happy. Just like it loves sugar and fat. It makes the human body feel great. When it's created it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, just like falling in love, or enabling the nerve endings in your lips set off by having that special kiss. It's an amazing feeling when the body gets dopamine flowing around it."

"That sounds good?" Hannah cocked her head to the side.

Martha nodded "Yes, it is, and as smoking nicotine creates this feeling inside you that is brilliant and that is why millions of us, including our parents take the rough of the smell, which you really don't notice and the occasional cough to get to the incredible delightful smooth. Every single wave and crashing hit of nicotine that flows from the lungs and reaches the brain makes the body feel amazing. It loves it" She flicked the lighter her face glowing in the flame before releasing again as Hannah interrupted.

"But Mart we know it's bad for you!" Hannah stated and had another gulp of her wine.

Martha smiled and gently nodded "I know, I know, hell I am a doctor, I've read about the damage, I have seen first-hand the issues in patients, and I am getting to that bit." She said taking the unlit cigarette back between her lips and then rummaging around in her handbag and producing a blue biro pen.

"The problem and the benefit of smoking is the application right..." she said again removing the cigarette from her mouth and rolling the unlit cylinder between her fingers showing Hannah.

"Yeah, it's a cigarette?"

"Well...these things, yes, a cigarette, when lit it burns creating smoke which is slowly burning away liberates the nicotine naturally found in the tobacco leaf and it infuses in the smoke, and this enables with some help from the lungs the nicotine to easily enters the bloodstream and rushes to the brain."

"Yeah...and?" The puzzled Hannah looked on.

"Well, the human lungs are amazingly designed devices to enable oxygen which we all need to survive to enter the blood stream and waste carbon dioxide to leave, but also it easily allows drugs like nicotine to easily enter too. The lungs are like an upside-down tree, our throats are the trunk and then inside our chest there are ever decreasing branches and then finer and finer twigs and at the very end have got something like 300,000,000 tiny alveoli right at the end of the bronchi. Now these alveoli are the leaves of our lung tree, they look like tiny grapes...or maybe the green ends of broccoli..." and she stopped talking and crudely drew a picture on the back of the cigarette packet.

"You see these alveoli" she said pointing with the pen, "have something like a forty percent increase in surface area compared to the normal skin." She pinched the skin on the back of her arm for affect "They are cleverly designed to get the maximum amount of oxygen into the blood for us to live, as we are sitting here talking our lungs are taking a little bit of oxygen in it and turning it in to carbon dioxide which flows the other way, but here is the clever bit. When it comes to smoking it means is that when the nicotine filled smoke rushes in it hits the alveoli in the bottom of the lungs just like oxygen the drug is rapidly absorbed into the blood. Its then sent via the heart straight to the waiting dopamine starved brain providing pleasure and the smoke is easily exhaled back out of the lungs."

"Yeah Mart, that's all still positive!"

"It is, isn't it? The brain receives the nicotine and absolutely loves it, thinking it's the amazing dopamine!" Martha grinned and using her lighter finally lit the cigarette, her cheeks caving deeply again once it was lit and then holding the smoke deep within her chest before exhaling a huge grey cloud up into the black sky, rubbing her lips together afterwards.

Hannah waved the small amount of smoke streaming off the lit cigarette away from her face before Martha grinned moved her hand down to her side. "So why have we been told for all these years that it's bad for you?"

Martha nodded as she put the cigarette back to her lips and inhaled deeply and again held the smoke in her lungs again for another second before releasing the cloud out the corner of her mouth.

"Oh, wow, I needed that one..." she smiled "simple, the body learns easily to enjoy nicotine, and boy does it!" She placed the filter back between her lips and her face relaxed a little as she instantly took another hit.

Hannah shook her head, "The movie was only an hour and half...so the nicotine?" Hannah asked as another grey cone rocketed out Martha's lips and out under the lean too roof and the heat lamps of outside seating area of the bar.

With smoke still slowly drifting out Martha's nose she continued "Well once the brain knows it can have a synthetic dopamine hit almost exclusively on tap, without even working for it. The brain starts to look forward to it. So you go from one coughing your guts up over trying to smoke one or two cigarettes hating it, and everything to do with it, trying to work out why your friends forced you to do it. The coughing your guts up makes sense because everyone knows smoke is not good stuff to be in your lungs and, and it naturally the body tries to reject the tiny nicotine rich smoke particulates. This is because the body is trying to work out why you would do such a thing as purposely put toxic smoke into your gloriously purpose-built oxygen transfer system. Just like at Guy Fawkes night you always move the other side of the bonfire to get away from the smoke, but even then, your coat still smells of bonfire, well it's the same with smoking, the smoke gets everywhere!"

Martha grinned, ran her tongue around her lips and then placing the filter back between them, took another deep drag on her the Marlboro the cherry tip burning bright red against the dark sky as she inhaled, flicking the ash on the ashtray as she held the smoke in her lungs before releasing it as a cone as Hannah drank her wine.

"With smoking" Martha continued, "after a couple of goes of actually lighting and inhaling a whole cigarette the body realises by getting this awful pungent, toxic smoke deep within the lungs it can get this extremely pleasurable dopamine style hit so by the time peer pressure has persuaded you again that its honestly really good idea to repeatedly cough your guts up, you reluctantly light cigarette number four or five. Your brain, its clever, it has learnt what to expect and knows and anticipates that after the smoke has done its awful polluting thing, you get that delightful nicotine rush. The brain knows that is coming and then well you just keep going feeding the delightful nicotine to the brain. Maybe the following day, it is no longer your friends pushing you to light that cigarette, it's your own fucking brain encouraging that you need to keep lighting them. So, you do. You keep pummelling your lungs with toxic smoke as it really likes getting the nicotine rush. So over time expects to get these positive signals and tingly feelings from the powerful nicotine as it works it magic as floods your blood system and hits the expectant dopamine receptors in the brain."

Hannah flicked her long hair over her head and scratched it as Martha again hungrily pulled hard on her cigarette, the pushing the smoke out in front of them both, "Mart you are giving me the positives, almost sounds lovely, its seriously tempting." She glanced almost longingly at the pack on the table. "Shit, Mart, you are almost making me want to actually smoke one as it sounds amazing, but you are a doctor, come on what's the truth about the negatives, other than you continuously stink of smoke, have to cough like continuously and again and well probably die early!"

Martha paused and as she thought she absentmindedly rubbed her nose with her thumb and gently shook her head and flicked the ash off the cigarette again, "Sadly there are several, firstly for some people the body settles on let's say five cheeky cigarettes a day, it's only a pack every four so days or if you are good maybe a couple every other day. That's enough pleasure for them or all that they can afford, and everything is absolutely fine and dandy, the body enjoys the occasionally extra dopamine hit, whilst bad for you the body can actually cope with it, as the lungs have time between cigarettes to naturally expel the crap and toxins that the smoke puts down there.