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Dr Montgomery was apologetic.  Dr Montgomery was sorry that there was nothing that he could do.  Dr Montgomery stood up and stuck out a sympathetic hand before stealing away to the next poor customer with bad news.  Fisher was left there alone.  Sat on a plastic chair.  A waiting room the size of a toilet cubicle.  He'd already pondered about what he might do if the news was bad and he sat and stared at the walls.  He thought if he stayed there his illness wouldn't officially begin until he got home.  Death would be waiting for him there and he wouldn't be in a hurry to go and meet it. 
     Six months.  What could be achieved in six months?  Stop work?  Continue work?  Start smoking again?  Go out in style on the arm of a dolly bird as she holds his cigarette for him in a golden holder while the other arm busily excites him?  Death on ejaculation?  Was that possible?  This was probably the beginning of all the stupid ideas he would think up.  Suddenly he got up and left.  He certainly didn't have time to kill waiting around in hospitals any more.
     The walk home was full of offending images of life and vitality; children playing in parks, screeching and running around; young couples groping each other on benches, looking into each other’s eyes with the look of excitement for all the good things to come; adverts for nappy cream, life insurance, cheap weddings in Barbados, early retirement bungalows with the promise of security and peace of mind and the freedom to live one’s latter days amongst friends.  The optimism was everywhere.  Fisher walked on trying to ignore it all.  He felt like a big globby sneeze that stuck out of the nose of a beautiful young girl.  He felt dirty.  Everyone looked so fit and well.  The eighty year olds on the bowling green were waltzing around with each other between turns, the men dropping to the ground to give it twenty, the ladies juggling with the bowls and tossing them one by one into the small spaces in their bags.  None of them had a single wrinkle and all looked ready and willing to run a marathon.  He thought a stroll through the graveyard might cheer him up.
     Fifty nine.  Birthday three weeks ago.  Wouldn't even make it to sixty.  Even with the wind behind him he'd be lucky to last even a few months, the tumour grown so big on the left lung that it had almost taken on a character of its own and would be rearing its ugly head around, looking for other parts of the body to tear into.  He'd spent so much time and effort trying to stop smoking.  Dr Montgomery had been recommended as a specialist in the field and they had tried everything together to get him off the weed; hypnosis, patches, gum, willpower (that had lasted an hour), plastic cigarettes (it's my hands doctor, I need something to do with my hands), drinking tea every time the cravings started, drinking beer every time the cravings started (not recommended by the doctor, but worth a try).  Nothing worked.  Not until he visited some cancer patients.  The doctor took him around the hospice next to the clinic and introduced him to a few people.  There were the usual hard core smokers, some of whom were still trying to smoke through the various holes that had been drilled into them to enable them to breathe.  The croaking conversations Fisher had with those who could still utter a word sobered him up.  He would give up before he ended his days there.  The good doctor had quoted the statistics, the likelihood of dying from smoking related diseases, the days stripped off a smoker's life by his revolting habit, the days added with each smoke free day.  He was certain now of one thing: he never should have listened.  It was giving up that was killing him.
     The next step was deciding what to do.  He could keep going as if nothing was any different and, indeed, now he had the medication to breathe he felt reasonable.  He wasn't the type to go out with a bang and besides, a flick through the phone book at numbers for 'careful excitement for the older gentleman' made him realise he would spend the rest of his time working.  If no one could guarantee him dying at point of climax he wasn't interested. 
     Work.  He would keep working.  He would go to the factory every day and die at the machines.  The amount of time he'd slaved away at them for the last forty years, he felt it just right that he could die at the controls and get that sod of a machine well and truly stuck.  Get the electronics gunked up and clotted in blood, obstruct the gears and workings with bone and sinew, splatter teeth all over the biscuits it would have just stamped out: custard cream, wafer and pink cheek flavour.  Nothing would give him greater pleasure than stopping production and getting his pimply superior into trouble with the manager.  He would tell no one about his illness and then snuff it suddenly.  They'd praise him, say how brave he was, how he'd devoted forty years of his life to the company, never taken a day off in sickness, never been late, often done overtime.  They'd say all this, look at his place near the conveyor belt, pat his seat, even a tear or two from the normally dry eyed packaging controllers, but they'd all privately be thinking what a miserable bugger he'd been, never once joining any of them at the social club, never talking in the breaks, sitting separately during lunch, his head in the latest tome he'd borrowed.  The managers would be saying how they didn't make workers like Fisher any more, promising his name would go up on the company board in the entrance, but hissing to each other how the stupid bugger had lost them two days’ profit as they pulled the remaining bits of his skeleton out of the machines and disinfected the whole floor.  Things could go on relatively normally and then the plug would be pulled.  He decided he would only take the medication which enabled him to breathe and dump the rest of the pretty assortment Doctor Death had given him.  Of course it had occurred to him to dump them into his own mouth but there was no guarantee; someone would probably find him, probably pump his stomach, stabilise him, keep him alive, prolong his agony.  Nothing would be more tortuous than to be saved by a sexy young nurse and have her come everyday to mop his brow and offer him sips of that strange water they keep at hospital bedsides.  She'd pretend she liked him, maybe flirt a little before going home to her body builder boyfriend, ex champion swimmer and doctor of law, penis the size of a baby's arm.  The doctors would tell him how lucky he'd been, that if he stayed in bed forever he would be quite comfortable.  No, the pills weren't the answer.
     As he climbed into bed that night, Fisher looked over at the clean ashtray and last unopened packet of ciggies stood on its end to attention.  The cravings had gone and he didn't want to smoke one at all.  He knew he wouldn't have one but he allowed himself the excitement of holding the fresh packet, unwrapping the cellophane, cracking the box open, tearing off the foil revealing twenty perfectly lined up tubes of joy.  It was such a pleasure to look at, the clean lines of a packet as yet uncrumpled by the pocket, each cigarette waiting patiently to be smoked.  He placed it back on the bedside table and looked at it; the lid cocked open revealing the filter tips.  It was a comfort to go to sleep to and as he took one last look and switched off the lamp, he fell right asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and slept for ten hours non-stop.

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