Djarum Cherry Red

by Ahu (she/her)

Yasemin always carried cherry flavored cigarettes and the mint gum she chewed to hide its scent. The cigarettes - Djarum cherry - had a red filter; a rotten strawberry red. The kind of color that would make anything- even cigarettes - look cute. The intense scent of cherry that spread when you opened the lid wasn’t really felt when you smoked it. Still, it was the cigarette I bummed the most and if I were to run into one today, I would bum it again.

I was a cloud, when Djarum Cherry was around. A single sunset would get me wrapped in scarlet. I would become a whisper when the winds were strong. Sometimes, when night fell, I’d stretch out to conceal the stars. Never the same, always carrying remnants. I was light like nothing.

The girls were all talking about the English quiz. We had only just started high school, only just met, only just begun learning English.

Yasemin interrupted our discussion of school:

“I’m not exaggerating, I counted yesterday, I’m currently following thirty TV shows,"

“Wait what? Thirty!”

“I’m serious. Mom’s gonna kick me out soon.”

She took her backpack on her lap and checked her phone, keeping it in the front pocket; careful that the teachers don’t see. The cherry flavored cigarettes and gum she chewed to conceal their scent winked at me from inside. Yasemin looked up from her phone:

“Brooklyn after school?”

Nowadays I’ve landed on the ground. Or perhaps I’m about to. I became more solid as I descended; my particles came closer together. My colors don’t change as much anymore; I don’t reflect the rays nearly as much as I did. I fly in the wind now- don’t spread out. I still carry the sunsets I’ve known, but I am cotton now. No longer afloat.

Brooklyn was a bar on the roof of a building in Taksim. The Brooklyn we were used to hearing from the TV shows would have changed its name out of embarrassment if they knew of this place. They sometimes called themselves a rooftop bar, but I don’t think you can be called that if you share the building with a sex shop and make your patrons climb up the fire escape. Men sold condoms hidden in walnuts across the street. I remember when Yasemin bought a few. For me, it was the funniest thing that had ever happened in human history; I was laughing until my belly hurt.

Brooklyn was pretty far from our school (took a bus across the bridge then a metro), but everyone was there on Fridays. Yasemin was there every single Friday- no exceptions. We all had our first sip of alcohol, smoked our first cigarettes there that year. Djarum cherry, Djarum black (clove flavored), and - if there were any left in the tobacco shop on the other side of IstiklalDjarum Vanilla. Though the latter were normally all sold out to kids who went to nearby schools by the time we arrived. Even if Vanilla was available, Yasemin always smoked Djarum cherry.

Some colors faded away as I got closer to the ground, some became more prominent. I didn’t get to choose. Sometimes I did, but not as much as I had believed I could. I look for the rotten strawberry red of Djarum cherry. I can’t find it anymore. It’s difficult now. They want me to make away my packets of air, to crush me into a cotton pad. I resist, as best I can. This preoccupies me, I forget to search for the colors I am losing. Perhaps they are already lost. How could I lose Djarum cherry red.

“I’m at Taksim station. Its past midnight so the fucking train comes every 20 minutes.”

“What are you doing at Taksim station past midnight Yasemin? Are you trying to die?”

“No it was fine, it was only me there. Then I hear this tak tak tak: a woman is walking towards the platform in these high heeled shoes. I swear 20 cm.”

“That’s impossible...”

“Aaaa, something like that. Anyways, she has this hair- platinum blonde, to the point where it’s almost white, burnt probably a million times. And her hair was very long.”

“How old was she?”

“Old, probably like our parents' age. Which is why it’s weird, because old people don’t usually have long hair. Anyways she comes up to me, she’s wearing this long coat. She asks, ‘Are you a student?’

I say ‘yes,’ she says ‘good. Stay in school’. I’m like OK, lady, wasn’t planning on leaving...

Then she goes 'or else you’ll end up like me.' And girls, I shit you not, she lifts the ends of her coat,”

Yasemin looked around our faces, holding in a laugh.

“...And she’s completely naked,”

Yasemin shrieked and then started laughing. We all followed; though I remember I was secretly horrified. Yasemin was cackling so hard she almost fell off the bench.

“When you say completely naked...”

“Nothing,” yelled Yasemin, “nothing at all.”

One day I will become a rock. My particles will collapse into the centre, closer and closer, until there is no room for them to breathe. I will roll down if I meet a hill, I will crack if I fall off great heights. But for the most part, I will sit sunken in the mud, carrying the colors that once decorated the skies. And when I become a rock one day- no doubt much sooner than I think -

I hope to have found my Djarum cherry red and hid it in my core.

by Ethan Riddle (he/him)