The Dialectic of Smoke and Cough

I developed a cough, a sticky, persistent kind of cough that just wouldn't let go. It wasn't anything serious, just the kind where you're about to make a witty remark, and it jumps in with a "cough, cough," making the atmosphere feel like the minute before a memorial service; or in the dead of night, just as a spark of insight about the origin of the universe flashes in your mind, it lets out a couple of "hacks," shattering that spark like a clumsy waiter dropping a platter of fine food. In short, it wasn't fatal, but it thoroughly spoiled the fun of life.

I went to see a doctor, a middle-aged man wearing thick glasses, his expression as solemn as if he had just presided over a failed philosophical debate. He listened to my lungs, looked at my throat, then said in a tone that permitted no doubt: "You need to smoke."

I paused, thinking I must have misheard. I said, "Doctor, I came here to treat a cough."

"I know." He nodded, his eyes behind the lenses glinting with a kind of all-knowing light. "Smoke. Especially the strong kind, unfiltered. At least one pack a day."

I felt my logical system facing an unprecedented challenge. It was like someone telling me the best cure for baldness is to sand your scalp daily. I said, "But doctor, common sense tells me smoking causes coughing, or even worse..."

"Common sense?" he scoffed contemptuously, as if I had mentioned some primitive tribal superstition. "'Common sense is the ignorance of the masses. You need to look at things dialectically. This cough happens because your respiratory system is too 'clean', too 'fragile', too sensitive to external stimuli. You need to smoke it out, desensitize it, make it 'tougher'. It's called fighting poison with poison, understand? Like stress-testing soldiers. It's tough at first, but eventually, they become impervious.'"

His theory sounded self-contained, even possessed a certain rough poetry. But I still felt something was wrong. I tried to counter him using my meager medical knowledge and basic logic: "What about the tar, the nicotine? The carcinogens..."

"Formalities!" he interrupted me with a wave of his hand. "Those are minor details. The key lies in the principal aspect of the contradiction. Your main contradiction now is the annoyance of the cough, not some potential probabilistic risk decades down the line. Besides, cigarettes contain hundreds of chemicals. Who knows if some wonderful reaction might occur between them, a double negative making a positive, neutralizing your cough? It's a chaotic effect in a complex system, something modern science can't yet explain."

His eyes filled with intellectual superiority, as if I were some stubborn flat-earther. He even wrote me a "prescription," scribbled flamboyantly: "Smoke daily, one pack. Brand of your choice, 'Warrior' or 'Forward' brand recommended."

Holding this absurd prescription, I walked out of the clinic, feeling like Kafka's K, facing an incomprehensible yet seemingly orderly castle. The street outside was sunny, people hurried along, no one knew what a bizarre intellectual adventure I had just experienced.

I didn't immediately go buy cigarettes. I went home and sat at my old desk, the same desk where I often contemplated the origin of the universe. What did this doctor represent? A variation of authority? Nonsense wrapped in seemingly profound theories? Or is life itself so absurd that something like smoking to cure a cough isn't entirely impossible?

My cough returned, burst after burst, as if mocking my indecision. It reminded me that this annoying physical presence was very real.

So, I made a decision. Not to buy cigarettes, but to start researching the cough. I pored over medical books, looked up papers, even studied acoustics, trying to analyze the frequency and pattern of my coughs. I discovered that when I focused on something interesting – like tackling a complex math problem or reading a particularly absorbing novel – the cough would subside. When I was idle, or started pondering the meaninglessness of life, it became especially rampant.

This led me to a new theory: my cough might not be purely physiological, but rather some kind of spiritual manifestation. It was my body's physiological protest against this dull, uninteresting world. That doctor, with his absurd advice, perhaps inadvertently touched upon the core of the issue – not about "smoking out" my lungs, but needing something stronger, more "interesting" to occupy my mind, making me forget about the cough itself.

Smoking was certainly an option – "stimulating" enough, "unconventional" enough – perhaps it could indeed temporarily overshadow the cough. But I felt it was a cheap thrill, a self-destructive escape. What I needed was a higher form of interest.

So, I began to write more devotedly, pouring my thoughts and experiences, including this bizarre doctor's visit, into my stories. I started learning the saxophone; though initially, it sounded like a goose being slaughtered, the feeling of complete absorption truly made the cough retreat for a while. I also took up astronomy, observing the night sky with a cheap telescope, imagining the grandeur and mystery of distant galaxies.

My cough hasn't completely disappeared. It's still there, like a loyal, albeit somewhat annoying, old friend, popping up now and then to make its presence felt. But I no longer hate it as I used to. It's become a part of my life, a reminder not to sink into boredom and mediocrity, to constantly seek out things that ignite the spirit.

As for the doctor and his smoking cure, I never saw him again. But I often think of him and his set of "dialectical" fallacies. I feel he himself is an excellent metaphor for this absurd world. He showed me, in an extreme way, that when facing a seemingly unsolvable predicament, perhaps one needs a completely different, even seemingly crazy, perspective. It's not necessarily about actually smoking, but about daring to break conventions, to question, to think, to find your own "strong medicine" to "cure" life's boredom.

Perhaps, the essence of life is just one long cough, and all we can do is try to make the coughing process a little more interesting. Even if that interest has a touch of black humor. Like me, now when I cough sometimes, I mimic the doctor's tone to the empty air: "Hmm, it seems my thought system has become too 'clean' again, need to find something stronger to 'smoke it out' with." Then, I'll grin, and my lungs feel quite a bit lighter. I suppose this too counts as a "dialectic of smoke and cough," except my "smoke" is the smoke of thought, the smoke of interest.