Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Literary Fiction Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN-10:  1495975320 Pages: 52 Copyright: Feb 16, 2014 ISBN-13: 9781495975325 Price: $0.99 (eBook) The story of a man turned into a societal pariah overnight. “Evan woke up craving a cigarette.” Thus begins Sudden Addiction, the story of a man turned into a societal pariah overnight. His new status leaves him alienated in a hostile world, cut off from work and neighbors, uninterested in food, frantic only to satisfy his new compulsion.  Excerpt Evan woke up craving a cigarette. The bedroom was pitch-black. He reached out, searching the nightstand. His hand found something solid, square. He opened his eyes. The digital alarm clock glowed 4:45. “Damn!” He’d been asleep barely five hours. His mouth was dry as cotton. He groped in the dark, knocking over a glass, pushing his keys from the nightstand to the floor. No cigarettes. Not even an empty pack. He sat up, reached over and turned on the lamp atop the nightstand. He could see now. There were no cigarettes on the nightstand, nor were any on the floor close by. He got out of bed and went to the chair where he’d thrown his pants and shirt the night before. Nothing in the pockets. Not even a match. He checked the pockets of his blazer in the closet, but they were equally empty. “Where?” He racked his brain, but he could not remember where he’d put them. In fact, he couldn’t even remember having cigarettes when he’d come home the night before, could not remember taking them out of his pockets and setting them anywhere. He went into the living room. Nothing on the coffee table. Nothing on the sofa. Pulling off the cushions, feeling down inside the couch crevices proved no more successful. A search of the kitchen was unproductive, too. He was beginning to believe there was not a single cigarette in his one-bedroom apartment. He couldn’t remember ever needing a cigarette this bad. He sat down on the floor, rested his head in his hands, tried to think. “There must be a cigarette somewhere.” He tried to remember when exactly he had bought cigarettes last, retracing his actions. He’d come straight home from the office, stayed in, eaten a sandwich and watched TV. He hadn’t stopped anyplace on his way to work, either. As best he could remember, he hadn’t picked up cigarettes at all yesterday. “That can’t be right.” He was waking up, sleep fading, head clearing. Again he thought back, attempted to recall the last time he’d smoked the day before. He closed his eyes and pictured himself the previous evening, watching the TV, sitting on the sofa, relaxing. But not smoking. Try as he might, he could not recall smoking at all the night before. A frightening realization hit him like a cold shower. “I don’t smoke!”

Utterly compelling read
This short story is one on its own. I've never read anything quite like it before, although how to explain without spoiling it?

The entire story centres on Evan, who wakes up with a desperate craving for a cigarette, from there doing what needs to be done to fulfill that need that is all-consuming.

The description of Evan's experience—the desperation, the satisfaction, the salience—is utterly fascinating. The response of the world around him, and his reaction to it, is like a social study, an insight into the life of a cigarette smoker.

Sudden Addiction - for me that pretty much sums up the experience of reading this short story!