Remember the smoke

Suddenly this morning I was diligent in burning trash, the smoke made my eyes sting.

Suddenly remember.

A whole childhood flies back with memories...

When I was young, my family was poor and we used firewood to cook. My father bent an iron bar into a long tripod that could cook two pots at a time. My sisters and I collected firewood during the summer. Every time school was out, we would gather firewood from cashew and cajuput gardens where people had trimmed branches. Occasionally, we would be lucky enough to find a garden where people had cut down trees to sell for wood, and we would be happier than winning the lottery. The firewood was chopped when it was still fresh, brought home on a bicycle, and neatly stacked next to the kitchen. We would leave it there to soak in the sun and rain for three months of summer, and by the beginning of the school year, the firewood would be dry and ready to be used for cooking.

Normally on sunny days, when cooking rice, I just need to go to the firewood pile and grab a handful to cook for the whole day. When it rains, it is even more difficult. Even though I have covered the firewood with plastic bags, the wood is still wet. When the weather is sunny, I have to take it out to dry. But it never dries. The wet wood smoke is so strong that it stings, and my tears flow like I am crying.

If you cook for a long time, you can tell whether the wood is dry or wet by looking at the smoke. Dry wood smoke is thin like chiffon, and it floats around for a while before disappearing into the air. Wet wood smoke is thicker, more abundant, darker in color, and very pungent and stinging to the eyes. On rainy days, the washed clothes cannot be dried, so you have to hang them out to dry so you can wear them to school. Wet wood. Wet clothes. The smoke has a chance to show off its talent, sticking thickly to the fabric. Wearing a school shirt is like bringing the whole kitchen to school, the pungent smell of smoke. To the point that classmates have to wrinkle their noses in discomfort when sitting near, so they just play alone, looking at the sunlight in the school yard, watching the banyan tree from when it blooms yellow flowers until the ripe yellow fruits fall all over the roots.

However, I never hated smoke. It was only later that when I went to college, far from home, in the city, I only cooked with a gas stove. In the city, where is the firewood to cook? Even if there was firewood, there was no space as large as in the countryside to freely cook with a wood stove. If I burned a little trash in the city, the neighbors would complain that it was too smoky and polluted the environment. Moreover, in the modern era, my mother also bought a gas stove to use with others. Cooking faster, my mother said. There was a lot of work to do, but still groping around to cook with firewood, who knows when it would be finished. But now, firewood is also rare, people have cut down trees to level the ground and sold all the land, there are no more endless cashew orchards or cajuput orchards like back then. So, for many years now, there has been no smoke, no more chance for smoke to stick to hair or clothes. People are strange, when they have it, they complain, they wish they didn't have it, and when they don't have it, they miss it and regret it.

Especially when people are at the age of mid-life, the nostalgia and regret become even more painful and tormenting. Because suddenly a little smoke got into my eyes and I cried. Not because my eyes were stinging, but because I missed them. I miss my miserable childhood. I regret the days of my childhood with my sisters and parents. Although they were poor, they were peaceful and happy. Now everyone is in a different place, their personalities have changed a lot. Like little chickens when they were young, chirping under their mother's wings, sleeping together, but when they grow up and have feathers and wings, they fight and bite each other to fight for food. Everyone is busy taking care of their own small family, jealous of each other.

Well, I guess I'll just have to remember. Memories are always the most peaceful place for the soul to take refuge.

And I hid in my memory to enjoy the smell of smoke. I remember the mornings before Tet like this, the weather was cold, the fog was thick, my mother often woke up early to burn the pile of leaves collected from the previous afternoon for the children to sit and warm up. We were poor, we didn't have warm clothes, my mother said that the whole year was cold for only a few days, so we should warm up, buying clothes that we could only wear for a few days would be a waste. So every morning, we woke up early, squatted next to each other by the fire, warming our hands and feet to warm up. Sitting felt so boring, we invited each other to grill all kinds of things. Sometimes we buried jackfruit seeds, stunted sweet potatoes gleaned from the garden, unripe bananas that were still sour. On the brightest days, there was sticky corn, those were the days when the corn garden started to dry out, the seeds were full of milk, after a few days the corn was old and hard to eat. When we ran out of sticky corn, we secretly picked the old red corn that had been planted for the chickens and buried it to eat. After eating, everyone's faces were covered in soot, looking at each other and laughing. Of course, Mom knew all our mischief but didn't scold us. Later, every time she mentioned it, she would click her tongue and feel sorry for us.

Is the past pitiful or is the present pitiful? Sometimes I ask myself this question. In the past, people were really hungry and miserable, but they loved and cared for each other. Nowadays, people are really well-off, but they keep looking at each other, jealous and mocking. So, between the past and present, which is more pitiful?

I put my random question into the smoke. The smoke lingered on the ground for a bit and then quickly flew into space, disappearing. The smoke went up to the sky, carrying my question with it. I believe so.

And, Tet is coming...

The question is still hanging somewhere in the high floor, the smoke has cleared, who knows if the question will reach the sky or not!

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