Fourteen cigarettes. At the rate she was smoking, Faith estimated that this wouldn't last her much more than an hour. Given how she had felt without one, she could not possibly risk running out.
Not even stopping to tell her coworkers she was going, Faith hurried to the parking lot an jumped into her car. Her current cigarette had burned down to the filter, so she lit another off it and tossed the butt out the window.
Faith did a quick mental survey of the nearby stores. The closest place that sold cigarettes would be the local gas station. Without wasting another second, Faith revved the engine and sped out of the parking lot. She reached the gas station in record time. Parking hurriedly, she rushed inside, stopping only for a moment to light a fresh cigarette.
"Ten cartons of L&M Red please!" she said to the surprised clerk, as she rummaged in her purse for her credit card.
"I'm sorry ma'am, we don't have that many," the clerk replied, raising an eyebrow. "And I must ask you to please not smoke inside the store."
"Ok, make it one... no, two cartons then," Faith said desperately, finally finding her credit card.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you will need to put out your cigarette." The clerk was becoming annoyed.
"Ok, ok, I'll put it out in a second," Faith said hurriedly. "Just let me get the cartons first."
She held out her card to the clerk.
"Ma'am, you need to leave, now." The clerk pointed at the door.
Faith stared at the clerk for a moment, then realized this was going nowhere. Throwing her hands in the air, she turned and walked out the door.
She needed to think. How could she get more cigarettes if she couldn't enter a store? She had been smoking so hard during her encounter with the clerk that her cigarette had already burned down. She pulled another from her pack and lit it up.
Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by the blare of a car horn.
"Hey, are you crazy?" a driver yelled from beside a pump. "You can't smoke here! This is a gas station!"
Exasperated, Faith ran back to her car, jumped inside, and slammed the door shut. She felt unbelievably stressed. Normally a cigarette would calm her down, but now it seemed to barely keep her functioning. Although, as she sat and thought, she did notice that she began to feel calmer...
She also noticed that it was becoming harder to see out the windows as the car filled with smoke. Could hot-boxing the smoke in her car be having the calming effect? Maybe this was a way to make the smoke last a little longer. She was down to eleven now, so she would need all the help she could get.
Faith imagined herself living in an old-time diving suit, with smoke being pumped in instead of air. Despite the situation, she couldn't help but laugh at the thought. Still though, perhaps there was something to that.