RANGE: The Filthy Hobit is everywhere, but he prefers areas officially or socially designated NO SMOKING, confined spaces such as elevators and men’s rooms, all public means of transportation, hospital rooms, small restaurants, crowds, and your place. HABITS: A spark, a flash, a puff of smoke . . . the promise of pleasure, the thrill of strong desire and, afterward, a lingering presence, and a sense of unfulfillment. . . irradicable traces left behind, one lung chests, sudden losses of health, homes mysteriously burning down . . . these are the works and pomps of a most odious fairy creature. To nonsmokers, the Filthy Hobit is a nuisance, especially to nonsmokers with a white shag carpet, a sensitive pet, or the sort of allergies that might (or might not) be symptoms of severe sexual repression. Offended by the insalubrious heap of butts, the fetid breath, the stench of a Cuban cigar, the asphyxiating cloud of. a pungent pipe, and the scorch mark of the veneer, they believe themselves to be the principal victims of the Filthy Hobit. How wrong they are! The Filthy Hobit is the true bane of the (somewhat shortened) existence of his own devotees, the Smokers. It is they who, unable to locate an ashtray, must befoul their cuffs and pockets, they whose teeth and fingers turn amber in deference to his filthy ways, they who halfway through the greatest film ever produced, concert ever performed, exhibit ever staged, or love ever made, become distracted—nay obsessed—by the thought of having a cigarette. And it is the Hobit who always hides the ashtrays, who inspires his addicted legions to light the wrong end of a filter tip, and who makes matches disappear. It is he who inspires his victims to use the gas stove and burn their eyebrows off. The Hobit it is who deludes the chronic cougher into believing there is one left in his or her pack, until he or she gets home, and there isn’t, and he or she spends a sleepless night searching behind sofa cushions, foraging through the trash for a butt with a drag or two left in it. . . . HISTORY: Filthy is an indigenous American creature, known to the native tribes as To-Ba-Ko, which we might translate as Dragon, the Tragic Puff. Outraged at the Europeans’ treatment of his native friends, he has carried out a four-century-long campaign of revenge, by afflicting upon their descendants wheezes, mattress fires, withdrawal symptoms, catarrh, yellow fingers and cancer. SPOTTER’S TIPS: The desperate look in the eyes of a man patting all his pockets, or a woman turning her pock-etbook inside out. A pile of ash in the corner of a window sill—like a house-flies’ crematorium. A waste basket bursting into flame. And a hollow, bitter laugh that sounds, curiously, not unlike a coughing fit.
棲息地 この嫌煙権を主張する
妖精たちは、 最近いたるところ
に登場するようになっている。
以前は、 映画館や電車のなか、
あるいはエレベーターとか冷房
中のタクシーのなかなど, 禁煙
の表示がある場所に限られてい
たけれども, 肺ガン予防のキャ
ンペーンの効果もあってか、こ
のごろは、レストランなどのタ
バコを吸わない人もたくさん集
まる場所にも出没するようにな
り,吸っている人の隣りにいる
だけで60パーセントの煙を吸っ
ていることになるという政府機
関の発表以来, すっかり市民権
関の発表以来、すっかり市民権
を獲得したような大きな顔をし
ている。 レストランで食後の一
服さえ楽しめない時代なのだ。
愛煙家にとっては, 喫煙権とい
うものも認めてほしいしだいで
ある。
習性 ここで一服の楽しみ, 強
烈に吸いたい欲望, 緊張をほぐ
す一服, これらにストップをか
け、いらいらの原因をつくりだ
している。 この妖精たちのいい
ぶんは, 自分まで肺ガンに巻き
こまれたくない、というもので
あるが, 愛煙家たち, とくにへ
ビースモーカーたちは肺にた
くさんの運動をさせていること
とおなじなので,医学的にも肺
が強くじょうぶになることが証
だいい
明されているのである。
ち肺ガンだけにめくじらをたて
なくても、 ほかにもっとたくさ
んのガンがあるではないか。そ
れに嫌煙家たちのこんな道理が
とおるのなら、いつの日か、 乳ガ
ンになるからといって, 恋人や
奥さんのバストを愛撫すること
さえ禁止されてしまうだろう。
マッチを吹き消したり, タバ
コのフィルター側に火をつけさ
まだ
せたりなどのいたずらは,
序の口のほうで、不意に襲われ
る心臓発作や呼吸困難, 原因不
明のわが家の火事･･････これらは
みんな嫌煙権の妖精たちのしわ
ざなのである。
歴史 西部開拓時代, 白人が丘
のうえでおいしそうにトバコを
ふかしていたインディアンから
取りあげ、追いはらってしまっ
たのがことの始まりである。 だ
から土地を追われたインディア
ンが、独特のまじないと呪いで
もってこの妖精たちをつくりだ
し, 白人の家を火事にし、喉を
指を黄
痛めさせ,肺ガンにし,
色くさせたりしているという説
もある。
私立探偵の情報 あらゆるポケ
ットを必死になってさぐってい
る男の肩, ハンドバッグをヒス
テリックにひっくりかえしてい
る女の胸などにいる。
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Habitat
These anti-smoking rights sprites have been turning up everywhere lately. Previously they were limited to places with no-smoking signs — movie theaters, trains, elevators, air-conditioned taxis. But riding the wave of lung cancer prevention campaigns, they’ve now started appearing in restaurants and other places where non-smokers gather in numbers. Ever since a government agency announced that simply sitting next to a smoker means inhaling 60% of their smoke, these sprites have been strutting around as if they own the place. These days you can’t even enjoy a post-dinner cigarette in a restaurant. Smokers would very much like their smoking rights recognized too.
Behavior
The sprite puts a stop to the pleasure of a quick smoke, the fierce craving, the tension-relieving puff — creating a constant source of irritation. Their argument is that they don’t want to be dragged into getting lung cancer — but smokers, especially heavy smokers, are essentially giving their lungs a great deal of exercise, and it has been medically proven that lungs become stronger and more robust as a result. Besides, why single out only lung cancer when there are so many other cancers out there? And if the non-smokers’ logic holds, then someday they’ll probably ban men from caressing their girlfriend’s or wife’s chest on the grounds it might cause breast cancer.
Blowing out matches, making people light the filter end of their cigarette — these are just the milder pranks. Sudden heart attacks, breathing difficulties, mysterious house fires — all the sprites’ doing.
History
It all began during the era of westward expansion, when white settlers snatched tobacco from Native Americans who were enjoying a peaceful smoke on a hilltop and drove them away. So one theory holds that the dispossessed Native Americans used their unique incantations and curses to create these sprites — setting white men’s houses on fire, making their throats hurt, giving them lung cancer, and turning their fingers yellow.
Field Intelligence
Found on the shoulder of a man desperately patting down every pocket, and on the chest of a woman hysterically emptying her handbag.
168
