Smoke

It all began with an exhale. Several thousand chemicals and particles left her lungs, some in higher concentrations than others. Among the standard collections of carbon dioxide and oxygen came arsenic, benzene, nicotine, and a plethora of others, huffed out by a mother that was stressed out, overworked, and sleep deprived.

The window was cracked as they traveled down the highway, just a few inches. Cold air whipped loudly around the interior of the car even as the heater worked on full blast to keep the temperature comfortable. Through that open slip of window, the majority of the visible smoke exited the car.

In the mind of this mother, that was it. The smoke was gone in its entirety and everything was fine. For the most part, that was right. A very large percentage of the smoke left the car, never to bother them again. Most of it, but not all of it.

Some of these particles and chemicals, too few to haze the visible spectrum, bounced back off the glass of the window. Others caught the breeze and tracked back further into the car. Were her senses not already dulled by overexposure to these very chemicals, she might take notice.

She did not. She drove on, oblivious. Equally oblivious, these remaining bits and pieces found their way into the cars air currents and explored their little world. Some found their way to the fabric of the passenger seat. Others took refuge on the windshield, the floorboard, the seat belts...some even found their way back into moms lungs.

Still others found the carseat. A small, miniscule fraction of them, to be sure, but some. And of those that found their way to the region of the carseat, an even smaller fraction, found their way into the infant's nostrils.

The scent was noxious, irritating, but her cries were easily mistaken for any of the myriad of other reasons she might cry. She wasn’t hungry, though. She hadn’t wet her diaper and she wasn’t particularly tired. She just didn’t like that smell.

Of those particles that made their way up her nostrils, most were exhaled immediately. Some took rest along the lining of the trachea and much of what remained made it no further than the upper lungs. One particle made its way deep down into the alveoli, coming to rest near the bottom of the lung.

Throughout her respiratory tract, the bodies mechanisms set to work to eject these unwelcome guests. However, this particular particle, down deep in the lungs, proved itself an unobtrusive guest at the start, and the cells around it failed to react.

In time, these cells found it necessary to divide. The particle itself was drawn into this process and left its mark, small and significant. A minor change to a critical portion of the nucleotide sequence. This change did not prevent the cellular reproduction.

The cells split into daughter cells, and then did so again. Each had lost the ability to determine when to stop splitting. They immediately began to split again, and then again, and again. There was nothing more important than reproduction anymore, and there were no longer instructions on when to stop.

It would take years before this manifested as something noticeable, and even then only to the most observant of healthcare practitioners. She would be a little underweight, maybe she coughed a little more than the other girls her age.

But, that was a problem for another day. For today, for that little moment, mothers stress had been alleviated.