This article was originally published in “The Happy End of Elephant Factory”.
That afternoon, the shop was playing a piano piece by Wynton Kelly. The waitress put a white cup of coffee before me. It was a slightly thick and heavy cup, and when it met the surface of the table, it gave a pleasant clicking sound. The sound was similar to that of a stone falling to the bottom of a swimming pool. That sound has stayed with me since. I was sixteen, and it was raining outside.
As it was at the port, the southern wind brought the smell of the sea with it. The sightseeing boats would go around the port mouth many times a day. I myself had taken the boat a few times. I never tired of looking out from the boat at the glorious sight of the large cruise ships and the dock. Even if it was raining, we would still stand on the deck and let ourselves get thoroughly drenched by the rain. Near the dock, there was a small coffee shop with only a bar and a single table. They played jazz music through a speaker on their wall. If you closed your eyes, you would feel like a child who has been trapped in a completely dark room. That coffee shop always had the intimate warmth of coffee and the sweet, alluring smell of teenage girls.
Now that I think about it, what had attracted me to the coffee was perhaps not the smell of the coffee itself, but a certain imagery as evoked by the coffee. In front of me was a shining mirror, a mirror that appears especially when you’re in love, that clearly reflected the shadow of me as i drank my coffee. Behind me was the scenery that had been cropped into the shape of a rectangle. The coffee was as pitch-dark as the night, and it was also as warm as jazz music. As I drank that small piece of world down, the scenery behind me gave me blessings.
It was also the momento snapshot of a small-town youth who was slowly coming of age. Look this way, hold the cup of coffee lightly with your right hand, tuck your chin in, smile more naturally… I’m taking your photo now, snap.
Richard Brautigan once wrote somewhere, “Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.” In that particular article about coffee, I liked this line the most.
