Childhood memo: Damn I should've never took that first ciggarette!

I can still picture some memories of my childhood, but there are moments of the past that I rather forget my name than not recalling them. This is one of the memories that if I did not mention it to you then you're not one of my best friends yet. However, as they say, what has a value nowadays will be available tomorow for free, and fortunately tomorow is now.

Back in the days of the hood, I was suspect to fall into plenty of mistakes, I avoided some, but one time I got drawn into the worst of them all. Like all other kids at my age, I was alwasy eager to know the methods I could follow to make me age faster and make a man out of me. It seemed like black markers were not enough to grow my own beard, but I needed something better, something that could make the other kids choke in shock of what i've became. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one on this quest, Haikal, a friend who lived next door was seeking the same goal, and was doing something that caught my eye. He opened my eyes into something new that never crossed my simple mind, which was smoking paper.

I still remember how foolish we were rolling magazine pape, burn its tip, and breath the burning smoke in. It was one of the times that I had hard time breathing, but we were so good at lying to each other to keep our cool. The news have spread all over the block, and I wished that Ali have never knew. Ali was a troublemaker, he wasn't from our block, but he was a regular guest. He used to steal our bikes, break house windows, scratch car bodies, and all of the other dirty work that would be fair to call him the "scarface" of the neighbourhood. However, that title was not his for long.

Since me and Haikal were one of the big heads among the kids of the block, we used to warn them from dealing with Ali, but not until we knew that he used to smoke real ciggarettes secretly. Since that moment, me and Haikal were to trying to be more friendly with him, not for his company, but for that real smoking experience. He had his own hideout right behind the watertank where is nothing but dirt and sand, I remember him taking us there while we were following him like he was the flute piper. He used to dig out the ciggarette pack from the dirt, because unlike these days, a ten years old boy holding a ciggarette was considered to be the ultimate sin. I had some fear in myself, and I was pushing it back, but the look I saw on Haikal's face made me think twice. As expected, Ali started a show just to make us feel worse, and he was teasing us as we don't dare to touch such a bad thing.

Once he was done, I picked up the ciggarette and took the lighter to fire it up without hesitation, until I realized that my throat was on fire, like the air was stuck in between, I couldn't breath it in or out. The moment I went dozing off, Haikal panicked and went home running like he was being chased by a hell hound. Ali bursted out laughing at what happened to me, until he suddenly stood idle and started shaking, which made me think that the boogeyman was present.

I thought I was fine by then, but not until I turned my head and saw Nazik's figure on my sight, that moment, I really wished that the boogeyman existed. Nazik was one of the crazy old ladies in the block, she was Haikal's aunt, but not that friendly to be called family, at least not for Haikal himself. She was less likely being a nice person, like I barely remember seeing her smile. However, when she gets mad, she could force the devil to shake like a baby. While Nazik was approaching, me and Ali stood there like we were waiting for death sentence. Luckily, Ali had the first slap that made me feel that his head had fallen off. The next turn was mine, that slap didn't just make me deaf, but it made me lose all my five senses instead. We desperately bursted out crying until our eyes went dry, the she gave us that speech that I did not understand. I was just staring at her and thinking of a way to pop her eyes out, but I thought of having a piss in the bathroom first!