✾ Cherry Blossom ✾
Ren taught me once about something called mono no aware, which he in turn learned about from his mother. Once I finally understood it, I came to like its meaning.
The pathos of things, he explained. A sensitivity to the transience of the world, answered by feelings of both sadness and appreciation. Life, in essence, is bittersweet. Ren told me that this concept is more easily felt in Japan because of the seasons there. An ever-shifting world provides a keen awareness of the passing of time, which is not something all of us can understand.
But we've all become aware of transience at some point in our lives. The grim reminder of one's first silver hair. The refreshing first blossoms of another spring. Feeling the shape of a brand new word on our tongues.
I thought of a line from Virgil's famous Aeneid. There are many translations of the original Latin, but in my favorite, the Trojan hero Aeneas says something like, "The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart."
Did Virgil not write of mono no aware? If so, there's certainly something universal about its flavor of impermanence. It might just be the human condition.
This is what I thought about as I sat there. I don't know how long I sat, but I wasn't startled by her voice when it finally came.
"Oh. Why is everyone always asking me about them? It's always them, them, them..."
A light turned on. There was a shining silver table in the center of the room, the sort you always see suspects sitting behind in crime TV shows' interrogation rooms. I wasn't sure where the light was coming from, but there was a large camera rig pointed at the table.
Sallie twiddled her thumbs, bouncing her legs beneath the table and staring into the camera lens. "You guys really are persistent about it," she said, glancing away.
"We're not persistent. We just want to know." This person's voice was familiar, but I knew I'd never be able to place it. I remember feeling like he was just too different from me. He stood behind the camera, shrouded in darkness.
"Well, I'll tell you, then. And I'm being generous, you know. I don't usually talk to people. They talk to me," she said.
"What can you tell us?"
"I can tell you that they are alarmingly enamored. And I do mean to say that sometimes it alarms me."
"Why does it alarm you?"
She shook her head. "Sometimes..." She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair. Her face fell out of the light. "Sometimes it just feels like they need each other too much."
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes."
When she leaned back into the light, she wasn't Sallie anymore.
"And how about you? Do you think they're 'alarmingly enamored'?"
"Oh, I don't think so," Ai said. "They're definitely in love, but I think that's a good thing. Don't you?"
"This isn't about me," he said calmly. "We want to know what you think."
"What I think?" she exclaimed. "Well, who am I to judge? I've never been in love. I chose comfort."
"You don't think those things can coexist?"
She frowned. It made her look her age. "Isn't this about them?"
But he ignored her. "As a person who's never been in love, what advice do you have for them?"
She leaned forward, pulling her fur coat tightly around her small body. "I don't know that I have any advice, necessarily. But I think they should keep doing what they're doing."
"Why's that?"
"Because in this world, there are people who mend your soul. I know that better than anyone. And they deserve that."
"I thought you said you've never been in love?"
"Yes, well, that doesn't mean I've never loved anyone, does it?"
"So what advice do you have?"
Ai sighed. "Fine. I suppose just...surrender."
"Surrender," he repeated.
I blinked.
"What did she mean by 'surrender'?" he asked.
Miller smiled. He adjusted his glasses on his nose. "Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender," he recited.
"Care to explain what that means?"
"I don't care to, actually," Miller said. He rested his hands loosely on the table. "He already knows what it means."
"Who's he?"
"Shouldn't you be asking, 'who am I'?" Miller said. For a second, I swear he looked directly at me.
"Who am I?" the mystery person asked.
"You're still you."
I tensed. Mom was sitting at the table now, and I'd somehow become the one behind the camera asking questions. "What?" I asked. My voice felt raw.
"I told you before, didn't I? Things like this don't matter. It'll affect your life, sure. But in the end, you're always you. And that's the most amazing thing anyone could ask for."
Mom smiled at me. Her hair was bound tightly to her head. Flour clung to her hands and arms, highlighted against her dark skin.
"And...you?" I asked. "What do you think?"
"Think about what?" she teased even though she knew what I was asking.
"About us."
She sighed. "All I ever wanted was to see you safe and to see you smile." She looked right through me. "You look so much like your father when you do."
The camera disappeared in my hands, leaving me missing the weight of it. Ren sat in front of me with his legs hanging off the table, his fingers woven tightly together.
"You have to answer, too," I said.
He ran his fingers through his hair and stretched. "Do I?"
I nodded. "Why else would you be here?"
He stared at me. "I don't know. Why am I here?"
"To answer my questions."
"Is that so?"
I felt nervous. "Yes."
"Then don't you have to ask me something?" he said.
I hesitated briefly. "Which mask are you wearing right now?"
He shook his head. "No mask. Masks aren't allowed in this room, remember?" He leaned forward and peered at me. "Unless you snuck one in."
"Fine," I said. "Then...tell me how you feel about them."
"That's not a question. That's an order."
"Why are you being so stubborn? No one else was like this."
He smirked that familiar smirk. "What? Aren't I always like this?" he asked.
"How do you feel about them?" I asked finally.
"You mean us," he said. "How do I feel about us?"
"About us."
"I feel a million different ways," he said. All at once, he stood. He was the first person to leave the table. "It depends on the day, the minute, even the second. I can't pin it down in words so easily."
"That's the whole reason why you're here. You have to give me a clear answer."
"Maybe, Copper, there aren't any clear answers. Have you ever thought that it might be ok that way?"
"I've never thought that."
Ren smiled knowingly. "Sure, you have."
"But I'm nervous," I said. "I want to know how you feel."
"I'm by your side right now, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that enough?"
"No. What if you leave? What if I'm not enough?"
"If I leave? If you're not enough? How does my leaving have anything to do with you being enough?"
"If you leave, it's because I'm not enough," I said.
Ren shook his head. "Were you 'not enough' for her?" Ren asked.
"Who?"
Ren came to stand behind me and pointed at the corner of the room. The light got brighter. "Her."
Mom waved at me sweetly.
"No. She got sick. I was-"
"And how about him?" Ren asked.
For the first time since I was a child, I saw my father. He smiled at me. I remembered all at once the feeling of his thick arms around me, solid and safe, and the scratchiness of his orange beard. The same old constellation of freckles spilled across his face.
"I don't know, he..." I said. I stared at him. "Wasn't I enough?"
Dad just kept smiling. "Who do you think named you, son?" he said. "You're the most beautiful thing I ever saw." He held his arms out wide. "In the whole universe." Dad leaned forward and winked. "Don't tell your mom, though. That's between you and me."
"Did you know you still thought about him?" Ren asked, ducking into my view.
I shook my head. "It was so long ago."
"Maybe," Ren said. "But isn't this a gift from him?" He reached out and tugged on a lock of my hair. "He's a part of you, isn't he?"
I crumbled a little. I knew I was no longer the one asking the questions. "Yeah."
"So," Ren said, "because I know you'll worry about it, I'll tell you." He leaned close to me. I felt his breath on my ear. "It's true that I feel a million ways about us. About you. But all those different ways fill me up. You're enough, Beau. So come back home to me."
When he let me see his face again, he wasn't himself any longer. He was me.
"You're--"
"Beau," he said in my own voice, "how do we feel?"
"We?"
"The both of us. I just can't decide," he said. He started pacing around the room, leaving patches of light wherever he went. "We could leave. We could just be done with all these questions, all the uncertainty. We could be in control."
"Is that an option?"
"Of course," he said. "It would be sad. But they'll have their memories of you the same way you have memories of them."
"Isn't that cruel?"
"Maybe. But it's the way the world works. Nothing's forever, even if it hurts."
Slowly, I shook my head. "I don't know."
"If you don't know, then there's only one question you have to answer."
"What is it?"
He stared at me. The table disappeared. It was just the two of us in the room, light clinging to him and darkness to me. "You spent so much time wondering if you're enough, you never asked yourself..."
I always wondered why people call dying 'going into the light.' Doesn't that mean that the world is, by contrast, dark? Is it ok to think that way? Is it comforting?
"...are they enough?"
Under his gaze--my own gaze--I just knew. I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice came out hoarse and whispery. "Yes."
Suddenly, my head hurt. A lot. Actually, my whole body hurt. The room was gone. Everything went pitch black.
"Beau?"
My eyelids felt heavy. It took great effort to force them open even a sliver. When I did, I was struck by how bright everything was. For a second, it was all I could think about.
And then I saw Ren's face. He was crying. Sobbing. I'd never once seen him cry so hard, so openly and sorrowfully. Whatever pain he felt, it had gotten past his skin and wormed its way into the delicate material of his soul.
"Don't cry," I said, but choked a bit. A nasty cough seized my lungs, and my ribs complained loudly.
"You're awake," Ren said, taking my hand. He kissed my knuckles over and over. "You're alive."
"It's ok," I said. I held his hand as tightly as I could, but I felt so weak. My head was pounding so hard that my eyes might just have popped out. "It's ok."
"It's not ok," he said shakily. "You--I was so terrified."
"It's ok," I said again. "Come here."
I would later learn that in that moment, I was pumped full of all sorts of drugs. It took great mental energy to keep all my body parts from falling apart or withering away. The both of us had tears on our cheeks and on our lips. Ren was aching, too, severely dehydrated and starving away, massively sleep-deprived.
It had no right being the greatest kiss anyone has ever kissed. And yet, as his lips--clumsy with desperation--pressed to mine, I knew in my battered soul that it was a kiss the world should remember. Even if it didn't. Even if it wouldn't.
"It's ok," Ren finally agreed.
The moment passed, supposedly. But I was never really convinced that it did.