Remember the smoke

This morning I suddenly felt like burning trash, and the smoke stung my eyes.

I suddenly remembered.

My entire childhood memories flooded back...

When I was little, our family was poor, and we always used a wood-burning stove. My father bent an iron bar into a long stand so we could cook two pots of food at once. My sisters and I would gather firewood during the summer. Every summer, when school was over, we would get together to collect firewood from cashew and melaleuca orchards where people were pruning branches. Occasionally, we'd be lucky enough to find an orchard where they were cutting down trees to sell the wood, and we'd be happier than winning the lottery. The firewood was cut while still fresh, loaded onto bicycles, and neatly stacked by the kitchen. We'd leave it there, exposed to the rain and sun for three months of summer, and by the beginning of the school year, the wood would be dry and ready to use.

Normally, on sunny days, when cooking rice, I just need to grab a handful of firewood and it's enough for the whole day. Rainy days are much harder. Even though I cover the pile of firewood with plastic bags, it's still damp. I have to rush to dry it whenever the sun comes out. But it never dries. The damp firewood produces a lot of acrid smoke, making my eyes water as if I'm crying.

Cooking with firewood for so long, you can tell if it's dry or wet just by looking at the smoke. Dry firewood produces thin, delicate smoke that dissipates quickly into the air. Wet firewood produces dense, thick, dark smoke that's pungent and stings the eyes. On rainy days, clothes wouldn't dry, so you had to hang them out to dry before going to school. Wet firewood. Wet clothes. The smoke gets a chance to cling thickly to the fabric. Wearing a school uniform felt like bringing the whole kitchen to school, with its strong smoky smell. It even made classmates wrinkle their noses in discomfort when sitting nearby, so you'd just play alone, gazing at the sun in the schoolyard, watching the banyan tree from its yellow blossoms to its ripe, falling fruit.

Even so, I never hated smoke. It's just that later, when I went to university, far from home, I cooked with a gas stove in the city. It's the city, you know, where's the firewood to cook with? Even if there was firewood, there wasn't the spacious area like in the countryside where you could freely cook with a wood-burning stove. In the city, burning a little trash would cause a huge fuss among the neighbors, with people complaining about the excessive smoke and environmental pollution. Besides, with the times developing, my mother bought a gas stove to use like everyone else. She said it was faster to cook. There was so much to do, and fumbling around cooking with wood would take forever. And now, firewood is scarce; people have cut down trees to clear land and sell off all the land. There are no more vast cashew orchards or melaleuca forests like before. So, for so many years, there's been no smoke, no more chance of smoke clinging to my hair or clothes. People are strange; they complain when they have something and wish it didn't, then when it's gone, they miss it and regret it.

Especially when one is in the twilight years of life, the longing and regret become even more intense and agonizing. Because a little smoke accidentally got in my eyes, and I actually cried. Not because my eyes stung, but because I remembered. I remember my impoverished childhood. I regret the days of my early life with my siblings and parents. Those were poor times, but peaceful and close-knit. Now, everyone is in a different place, and their personalities have changed a lot. Like little chicks chirping under their mother's wings, sleeping together, they grow up, feathers and wings, and then fight and bite each other for food. Everyone is preoccupied with providing for their own small family, and they envy 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 hide in my memories to indulge in the smell of smoke. I remember mornings like this, just before Tet (Lunar New Year), when it was cold and foggy. My mother would often get up early to burn the pile of leaves she had gathered the previous afternoon so we could all sit and warm ourselves. We were poor, and we didn't have warm clothes. My mother said that the cold only lasted a few days a year, so we should warm ourselves up instead of buying clothes that we'd only wear for a few days, which would be a waste. So every morning, we'd get up early, squat together by the fire, warming our hands and feet. Sitting around was boring, so we'd roast all sorts of things. Sometimes we'd bury jackfruit seeds, stunted sweet potatoes we'd gathered from the garden, or unripe bananas that were still astringent. On better days, we'd have sticky corn, those were the days when the corn in the garden was starting to dry out, the kernels full of milk, and after a few days, the corn would be old and tough to eat. When the sticky corn ran out, we'd secretly pick the old red corn that was grown for chickens and bury it to eat. After eating, everyone's faces were smeared with soot, and we'd look at each other and burst out laughing. Of course, Mom knew all about our mischief, but she never scolded us. Later, whenever she talked about it, she would sigh and feel sorry for us back then.

Was the past more pitiful, or is the present more pitiful? I sometimes idly ask myself this question. In the past, there was hardship and poverty, yet people loved and supported each other. Today, there is prosperity, yet people constantly envy and criticize one another. So, between the past and the present, which is more pitiable?

I placed my random question into the smoke. The smoke lingered near the ground for a moment before quickly rising into space and disappearing. The smoke had ascended to the sky, carrying my question with it. I believe so.

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