NARRATIVE : THE WORD COFFEE
Another scenery.
Times, encounters, and words that were never meant to exist.
For a very long time, I wandered through a space covered in grey, stripped of all color. Countless fragments were scattered there, most of them broken. My breathing grew shallow, and even my senses were beginning to fade. To escape that indescribable suffering, I spent many long days thinking only of disappearing.
That illness would not allow my existence.
The grey space was turning into deep darkness.
Standing on a boundary that felt ready to collapse, just as I was about to peer into the abyss, I saw a faint color among the scattered fragments. I felt that I needed to gather them before everything was swallowed by darkness.
Spending such a long time that my memories became blurred, I continued to collect those fragments that held color. When I suddenly shifted my gaze, I realized that the grey space, which had been turning to darkness, had transformed into a landscape of color.
Those colors were the fragments of words and memories that had been overlooked and almost forgotten deep within my heart.
Upon touching them, I realized that everything that had happened until now was connected. I felt the inevitability of that "flow" there.
Among the shards scattered in the grey space, there was a fragment containing a vivid amber hue and words.
Before I wandered into that grey space, I had a special experience one chilly autumn evening several decades ago. An encounter, remaining deep in my heart, with a cup of coffee that had a transparent, vivid amber color—completely different from the coffee I had known since childhood.
That event changed my perception of coffee—which until then had been just a hobby I engaged with without much thought—in an instant. Had it not been for that moment that led me into its profound world, the amber fragment would not have existed in that grey space, and the person who is now a messenger of coffee would not exist either.
A small trigger is etched deep into one's memory, eventually becoming a key to the entrance of a new world. One such key was that single cup of coffee I encountered on that chilly autumn evening.
Even without conscious effort, trivial events chain together, influencing one another, and eventually becoming their own unique colors and sceneries.
If I were to be swallowed by that grey space again, I would not be lost. For the colorful fragments and the many words contained within them are surely there.
I hope that by continuing to weave this sentiment in various forms, transcending even words at times, I can become a "small trigger" for someone else.
So that these words and that breath may never be lost.