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Hal Jordan decided to quit smoking in the middle of an unseasonably cold winter in Coast City. He would later look back on this naive and ill-informed decision the same way that he looked back on his childhood dream to become a ballerina. What a thought!

He'd smoked infrequently as a teenager, rate and dependency growing as he became more and more stressed. It had never given him any trouble before. Being a military test pilot meant that he afforded himself certain graces- like the occasonal smoke after work. By the time he recieved his ring and had the safety of a whole galactic sector on his shoulders, his smoke breaks were the only punctual thing about him. Every five hours, like a well-oiled machine, the craving hit him.

He did not consider himself to be a particularly morbid person, but he never thought of himself as someone who would make it into old age. And he was even less sure that he would be able to make it there unscathed. He was far more likely to die in some intergalactic skirmish or by assasin catching him with his guard down in civilian life than lung cancer. For this reason, the habit did not worry him.

So when he developed what Carol described as "the scariest cough in the world," she begged him to stop smoking. He liked to point out that she was being a raging hypocrite, to which she typically rolled her eyes and either hit him with the nearest soft object (pillow, newspaper) or changed the subject pointedly. Hal always laughed at this, and he and Carol went about their day. Carol was easy in this way. She was so sure of herself that she never needed Hal to be anything more than he was.

But he did have to admit, Carol had a point about the cough. It might not have been the scariest in the world, but he often found himself suprised at how awful he sounded. He felt fine, though, and blamed the cough on the unusually persistent rainfall that year. He thought the moisture in the air was what was exacerbating it more than usual. A lingering cough, that was all it was.

Except typically, a cough lingered after a sickness. The problem was, Hal hadn't been sick. So the only possible explanation was the smoking. So, after about two weeks, with prolonged episodes of hacking up his lungs after each cigarette and the time between, he gave it up for good.

They rounded up all the Strikes in Carol's apartment (a task that technically took a few days, stubborn spares rolling around in bedside drawers and loose in coat pockets) and called it quits. Carol even agreed to go cold turkey with him.

"It's one thing to see those stupid ads on TV, it's another to live with one. Gross, Hal," She'd said the day he'd announced his plan to quit. She was patting his back as he was keeled over the kitchen trashcan. When he was done he spit some foul-tasting phlegm into the bin and groaned.

The cough did a great job of beating back the cravings. In fact, every time Hal thought I could use a smoke, he felt a tickle at the back of his throat, the cough again reminding him to prioritize his health. And the cough did not abate, but it didn't worsen either. Hal counted this as a win.

So despite Hal's audibly horrible state of health, which raised eyebrows at League meetings and caused some confusing conversations with Kilowog, he was feeling pretty good about his decision to quit smoking.

Of course, about three weeks later on a drizzly evening in mid-December, he found out that he was going to die.

Best of all, it had nothing to do with the smoking in the first place, so he walked himself to the convenience store immidiately and bought back the three packs he'd thrown out earlier with Carol. He lit up on the street corner, under the overhang to avoid the pounding rain.

Thank god, he'd thought, as the storm raged around him and the smoke filled his lungs again. He coughed for what felt like a minute straight, wheezing and gasping for air, and spat one mangled red petal into a rippling puddle on the pavement. It was small and semicircular, dark where it had creased on its way up his esophagus.

Hal took another drag and walked back to Carol's apartment.