Put This In Your Pipe

From the diary of a nicotine fiend on the first day of his last attempt at quitting cigarettes, circa October 2007:

Whatever kind of cave dweller has the biggest brow, that is what I am convinced I look like today. Am I Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? The feeling goes on right now and all through the day: eyes screwed back deep inside my head looking out from under the shadow of what feels like a big enormous sloping brow. All the weight on the top of my head has rolled itself up to the center of my frontal lobes. Every other part of my being is more a foggy memory; of something, I remember having once in what must have been good old days. Because of the disconnect from the rest of my self, typing this out feels like my fingers are being operated from a mechanical claw at the carnival, trying to pull free the really good prize at the bottom of the pile.

Sense of smell has improved remarkably, for such a short amount of time, a matter of hours -- though visiting the restroom across the hall has made me question how much I should relish this heightened awareness of the olfactory.