Beauty, they say, is a cruel mistress. A demon in disguise to be precise. From the simplest to the most complex things in life are disguised and we know it, yet we care less about them. I'm holding a pack of Dunhill in my hand. Twenty sticks of slow poison.
Beauty
The front side of the pack has 'Dunhill' inscribed in silver with a 'D' in the middle. Its red carton gives it a royal look, easy to fool any smoker to buy it on first sight (like me). The flip cover of the carton has a logo made up of two Unicorns, holding a crown, giving it a more royal touch. I flip the pack and find the same logo with a message from the makers that said:
"The great Dunhill International taste is created from the world's best tobaccos, with no artificial flavorings or additives. On the path to perfection, we never look for shortcuts.
Perfectionists in tobacco."
Signed
(Dunhill)
That's the beautiful side.
The Demon
I flip the carton and I see a statuary warning 'Tobacco seriously damages health'. That's the demon right there. Hidden in disguise and that's the truth, the fact. The sticks inside kill you, although slowly but they surely will, someday. And there's nothing denying the fact that every smoker knows this. But he still breathes in and out the nicotine and the tar settles inside, forming a dark, greasy, toxic layer which will one day eat away his flesh and then eat away his life and all the happiness of his beloved ones. I flip back the other side. Twenty sticks of slow poison with each containing 10 mgs of Tar and Carbon Monoxide and an mg of nicotine. Poised enough to kill you in 7 years if you smoke 8 of these bitches everyday.
Beauty have ruined many, but then, some have survived. And then there are others who are luckier than the rest. Beauty have created them, not destroyed. I've found something beautiful. It cannot destroy me. It cannot kill me. It is my strength and it is my weakness. I light a Dunhill and I breathe and keep breathing coz I must survive.
