Charlie

I had been engrossed in these thoughts while looking for a store where I could buy a pack for her.

I walked into one which was on the way to the warehouse, and now I was tasked with a problem I never thought I'd have.

How exactly... did one buy cigarettes?

I mean, I knew you just bought a pack, but there were a bunch of brands with different prices in front of me. Was one better than the other? Did they have different 'flavors' or something? Were some more popular with women?

It felt like the same time I went to buy tampons for the first time for one of my girlfriends, only slightly less embarrassing - though, I felt like I should've known what to do here.

"Ah, give me, that one," I said, finally picking one at random and the clerk handed it to me. I was about to give him the cash and leave when a familiar voice piped up from behind me.

"Fancy seeing you here!" Stuart said.

"Ah, yeah, I was just here for," I started to say before realizing that I didn't want to say why it was that I was there, but Stuart saw the pack nonetheless.

"Oh, didn't know you were a smoker too," he said.

"Well, not really," I said. I considered telling him that I was buying it for someone else but then it occurred to me that one, he wouldn't believe me, and that two, even if he did believe me, he might think I was buying it for a minor or something. "I used to, bad habit I know, I've been trying to quit but with the stress of the move and the house and y'know..." I made up something else instead, but then trailed off.

"Yeah, I get you man," he said, nodding. "I've been trying to quit too, y'know, I can't be doing it in front of my baby girl, but it's tough."

"Yeah," I said.

We exchanged a few more pleasantries before he wandered off for work, and I was relieved for a moment before remembering that I too, had to go to work. At the same place. With him.

Charlotte

I tapped my feet in anticipation. He would soon wake up in order to go to work, but he had promised to give me what I wanted first.

I could tell that that man didn't really understand why I wanted this so badly... but after remembering what May was like, in a strange way, that was what made me really want to do it.

May was always more outspoken and rebellious than I was - Aunt Emily often told her that she needed to behave more like me, given I was quieter, like a lady should be. But, truth be told, I admired May, and had wishes I could be more like her. That I could voice my thoughts more freely without caring for what others thought so much.

May had wanted to go to that other establishment so badly - as a final act of rebellion. And so, I could think of no better way of honoring her memory than rebelling - doing something I wouldn't be allowed to do normally. While May had talked about trying it, I never remembered her actually doing it - though it wouldn't surprise me if she had at some point.

Still, if she hadn't, this would be my way of getting one over on her. I was sure that if she could see me, from the afterlife, she'd want to see me do something like this.

I had my reservations - the things that that man described which could happen to those who smoked... they did not paint a rosy picture in my mind, but I was sure he was exaggerating.

"Alright," he said, emerging from his bedroom and dressed in that same bright vest which was such an eyesore. "I brought you a pack, but, some ground rules here... let's open a window, or better yet, let's go to that place where the roof is gone. I don't want the smell everywhere."

I almost retorted that it was my house, and that I could do what I pleased, but there was no need to get into a fight unnecessarily. We made our way to that place, with the cool night air quite welcoming.

"It isn't too late to change your mind, y'know," he said.

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"I don't intend to," I told him. "Ah, could you help me light it?"

I stuck one of them in my mouth, and he lit it up. I wasn't sure what exactly to do - but I had seen other people do it, and so I took a deep breath in, while thinking, 'this one's for you, May!'

I instantly regretted it. The most putrid taste imaginable filled not only my mouth, but my nose as well. My lungs began to burn as I took it in, and mid-puff I spat it out, coughing and hacking. No one had told me just how... unpleasant it was going to be.

"Alright, I don't want to do that ever again," I said, waving away the rest of them. I had wanted to try this as a novelty, but it was now clear why my parents hadn't wanted me to do it - because it was just terrible. In response to that, he started laughing. I might've felt indignant had this been some other circumstance, but his joy was contagious, and despite myself, I began laughing too. He wasn't laughing at me- I realized, but how absurd the situation was.

The coughing subsided quickly enough, thankfully, as I didn't need any reminders of the pain I had gone through before. We laughed like fools until it was hard to breathe from the laughter, not the smoke, whose foul odor still lingered in the air.

"But..." I said, once we were done and I had caught my breath. "Thank you anyway for this, Charles."

"Please, call me Charlie," he responded. "Ah, I'm going to be late if I don't head out soon. I'll see you tomorrow night!"

"See you tomorrow," I told him, waving him goodbye through the window as he drove off.

Charlie

I couldn't help but still chuckle when I thought of what I had seen earlier. I dumped the remaining cigarettes in a trash can, and before I started work, I opened up the ad I had set up to try to sell the house. No offers yet, but I didn't care for that. I canceled it, I would be staying in that house, and my housemate, though annoying most of the time, showed that she could also be quite endearing as well.

As a matter of fact, I thought of something that might really make her happy and made a note to drop by a store on the way back home.

The next night, I was waiting for her and found her humming a tune when she noticed me.

"Hello, Charles!"

"Like I said earlier, you can call me Charlie," I told her. At least she was using my name now, instead of calling me 'brute' or something else like that. "Anyway, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday when you tried smoking."

She shook her head. "No, it's not your fault. It was a terrible idea in the first place. I can see why my parents didn't want me to do it. And you had warned me enough before hand- I feel like a complete idiot..." I wanted to give her a snappy retort saying that that was likely because she was, but then realized on second thought that she might not appreciate that kind of humor. And anyway, I wasn't here to taunt her. I was here to offer her something. "Well, it got me thinking- with you stuck in this house for so long, why not try one of these?"

I took out a VR headset and offered it to her.

Her eyes were piqued with curiosity. "What... exactly is it?"

"It's a VR headset- ah, VR stands for Virtual Reality," I told her. "Basically, it lets you see things in a simulated environment..." she still looked confused, and I racked my head to think of a better way to explain things to her. "Ah, you've seen a movie, before right? Now imagine if you could actually stand inside of the picture. Ah... I don't think I can explain it any better than that, maybe you want to try it on and see? You wear it like you would a face mask, or a pair of glasses." Though a bit hesitant, she agreed to try them on, and I switched them to show a field of grass.

"Oh, I see what you mean," she said, extending a hand. "But... does it usually look so... fake?"

"Yeah, well, it's not fully developed yet," I told her. "But, I thought it might be nice for you to- y'know, see the world around you that you usually can't."

"I appreciate it," she said, taking it off and handing it back to me. "But... wouldn't holding a screen this close to your face damage your eyesight?"

"Weren't you not concerned at all that smoking would damage your lungs yesterday?" I asked her.

"Well, I don't know what this thing can do, or if it'll hurt my eyes," she said. "Yeah, well, I don't think it should," I told her. Then again, I was repeatedly told not to sit too close to the television when I was a kid, so she might've had a point. I didn't know how safe they were for your eyes, but I assumed if lots of people used them - they had to be, right? I mean, even kids could use them, as a matter of fact her set was a kid's set given I didn't think that an adult one would've fit her face. Something I had been right about.

"Still, the picture isn't very pretty," she said. "It's just a lot of grassy fields - is it possible to see something else, like a rose garden if you wanted?"

"I'm sure it would be," I told her. "I just need to fidget with the settings - though I should let you know that the roses won't look any more realistic than the grass."

"That's alright," she said. "So do people really use these nowadays? Why? Why do people just not go outside? Would that not be simpler?"

"Well, they use it to play games, you know, like being inside the game, mainly," I said. 'But I guess there are people who use it instead of going outside. I heard that they were using these on cows to see if they would make more milk."

"Why... would you use them on cows? Instead of just sending them outside to the fields?"

"Well, most cows are reared inside these huge factories, I think, so they don't really go outside," I told her. 'So they thought that if they simulated them going outside, they'd make more milk or something. I don't know if that worked."

"But... but that's terrible!" she cried out. "Why would you trap an animal like that! It's inhumane!"

"Aren't... aren't you technically trapped here?"

"That's different, this is my house, I want to be here!" she said.

"...hey, do you mind helping me out with something?" I asked her, suddenly changing the topic, but something had popped in my mind after what had happened two days ago.