Smoke and Lukewarm Coffee

The smell of smoke woke me.

I stared at the ceiling, my legs moving through the rough sheets. The light of the spring day filtered through the balcony doors, catching the dust floating around the room. The breeze drifted through, once again carrying with it the scent of smoke and the smell of the morning air. They fought for dominance of my senses before I remembered last night.

I pushed myself up in bed. My apartment was small, but I was happy with how I had arranged everything. The bed was in the center of the room. Tall bookcases stood across from me, and a small desk and chair took over the corner of the room. The kitchen—if you could call it that—was little more than a nook with a small burner and a sink.

I suddenly smelled freshly brewed coffee. I must have missed it among the smoke. I let my eyes wander over to the balcony.

Hana stood, leaning against the railing, the trail of smoke leaking from the cigarette in her hand. She looked out upon the park below. My eyes followed the trail of clothes that littered the floor from last night. She had only dressed in her underwear, despite stepping outside. Her black hair was tied up, the wind catching only the few stray hairs near the side of her head.

Stepping out of bed, I found my shirt and pants strewn across the ground. I pulled them on, walking over to the coffee pot and pouring myself a cup. I sighed as I took a sip, then went to meet Hana on the balcony.

I leaned against the railing next to her. Below us, Hirosaki Park stretched for miles. It was the fourth weekend in April. The weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival. The sun shone warm overhead, but in the distance, I could still make out the snow-capped peak of Mt. Iwaki. The locals called it "Tsugaru Fuji" for its similar shape to the most famous mountain in Japan.

The pink blanket of the cherry blossoms spread vast in front of us. It reached the corners of my vision, and then spread even farther. Despite the earliness of the morning, the crowds had already begun to filter through the entrance way, bringing with them the excitement of a phenomenon left entirely to the whims of nature.

Hana put her cigarette to her lips. “Good morning,” she said quietly.

I wrapped my hands around the warmth of the coffee cup. “About last night, I…” I said the words without thinking. I didn’t even know where to begin.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember a thing.”

I squinted at her. What did that mean?

Another puff of smoke. “Will you go to the festival today? It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day.”

I swallowed. “Will we go together?”

Her laugh was higher pitched than I remembered. “Do you think that’s possible? Really?”

I didn’t answer her. Below us, I watched a couple getting out of a taxi in front of the park’s entrance. They seemed young, maybe high school age, maybe college. The boy had an old-style Fuji Camera around his neck. The girl was dressed in a floral one piece. They hadn’t even entered the park before he ran excitedly to the sakura tree in front of the entrance. He gestured excitedly for her to stand in front of it, bringing the Fuji Camera up to his eye.

Click.

They held hands as they walked into the park.

“So, what will you do?” I asked.

She didn’t answer my question. “Everyone looks so happy,” she said.

“Well, it’s the festival today.”

“I never understood why people are happy at the sakura festival.”

“Why?”

“Because the sakura come. They come like a lion, roaring and beautiful. And then they’re gone. Two weeks at best. If the rain or wind comes, they’re gone even sooner.” She looked at me then, and I realized it was the first time she did so since I woke. “At their most beautiful, they die.”

She put her cigarette between her lips again.

“At their most beautiful…” I mumbled.

“Spring is a time when we think life is beginning. But look at them,” she gestured forward, the smoke flowing from the cigarette between her fingers, “is that really a beginning, when they fade so quickly?”

I stared ahead, looking towards the park as if I could see the individual petals on the trees. “At their most beautiful, they die,” I repeated.

“Just like us.” She smiled at me then.

I never knew what to do with her smile. She always smiled at the wrong times. When most people would have cried or sighed, she smiled. It was unnerving, probably a bit socially inept.

I couldn’t help but love it.

“Were we at our most beautiful?” I asked.

She tilted her head, as if contemplating her answer. “I think so. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” I said truthfully. “What if there were more beautiful times ahead? Then wouldn’t that have been our most beautiful?”

“Ahh,” a puff of smoke, “well, I guess we’ll never know that.”

I watched more people enter the park. The crowd was getting thicker now as the mid-morning buses and taxis filtered through the streets. Families, lovers, cousins, co-workers—every sort of relationship was probably present underneath the sakura trees today, I thought.

Up here on the balcony, there was only smoke and lukewarm coffee.

“Then let me ask you this,” I finally said. “Can you tell me a story? One final story about the sakura.”

She hesitated before finding the words. “When I was small, my parents took me to see the sakura here. You know how the park is though, it’s really big. And with all these people, it’s really easy to get lost. Well, I must have seen a beautiful tree. Maybe by the river? I’m not sure I really remember. Anyway, I ran off, chasing down the sakura. When I got near the tree, I thought it was ugly. It looked so bright and pink from far away, but when I got near it, I realized how ugly it was. The trunk was missing bark, the sakura themselves were a little wilted. I looked around, in that moment, every other tree looked more beautiful than the one I stood under.

“So, I kept running around. But every tree I found, it was the same thing. My parents couldn’t find me for the longest time. I think I worried them a lot. Eventually the police came and picked me up. I had a handful of flower petals crushed in my fist. I remember being angry at the sakura. ‘Why aren’t you more beautiful?’ I yelled.”

She paused to take a puff of her cigarette.

“I went back to the park about a week later with my friends. All the sakura petals were gone. The entire park was green. All the pink had been replaced with green. I realized then, that I actually liked the pink. I regretted thinking that it wasn’t beautiful.”

I contemplated her story. It sounded like her.

“Let’s go to the park,” she said finally. “It can be our second time doing hanami.”

I took a sip of my coffee, but it had gone cold now. I walked inside, putting the mug in the sink and washing my hands. I splashed water on my face, running my hands through my hair.

I walked back out onto the balcony. I didn’t want to go to the park. Not today. I watched more people enter the sea of pink. It was a raging sea, the vastness of its life only outdone by the inevitable death that would follow.

I picked up the cigarette from where it rested on the ash tray, putting it to my lips. The smoke that I blew disappeared into the bright spring air as I looked out upon the park alone.