Here we have another wonderful piece that didn’t fit the usual mold but was far too good to pass up.
Solace in a Cigarette Box by Yi Jung Chen
The smell of tobacco was always the first thing that announced his presence.
For thirty years, Zhang Jie had known her husband, Chen Cheng-po—whom friends affectionately called Mù-ki-sian—not by the heavy clatter of wooden sandals on the porch, but by the faint, earthy fragrance that lingered on his coat. He was a man who lived through light and shadow, capturing the blinding Chiayi sunlight on canvas, turning quiet avenues into vibrant, living monuments. But in the damp darkness of March 1947, the sunlight had gone out.
The soldiers had taken him days ago during the peace negotiations. The city lay paralyzed under a cloud of gunpowder and iron silence.
In the suffocating gloom of the holding cell, hours before the end, Mù-ki-sian had sat against the cold stone wall. His wrist bones were raw, bruised purple by iron shackles. Yet, his expression was eerily tranquil, his sunken eyes reflecting not terror, but a profound, enduring sorrow for his beloved island.
Across the iron bars stood a young soldier—barely out of his teens, wearing a uniform two sizes too large. The boy’s face was pale as chalk, his jaw clenched so tight muscle twitched near his ear. He was terrified, not of the prisoner, but of the regime he served and the atrocity he was ordered to enforce.
With calloused, bruised fingers, Mù-ki-sian meticulously smoothed out the foil lining of a discarded cigarette box. He looked up at the boy. There was no hatred in the painter’s gaze—only a quiet, dignity-filled warmth that pierced the soldier’s defense.
“Take this to my wife,” Mù-ki-sian whispered, his voice dry as autumn leaves, yet unfaltering. “Please. Let a painter leave his final word.”
The soldier’s eyes darted toward the guardhouse, his breath hitching in his throat. His lips parted, trembling, but only a raspy breath escaped.
“You… you shouldn’t have come back for peace,” the boy swallowed hard, his voice barely a wheeze, eyes wide with horror and unconfessed guilt. “They won’t let you live.”
Mù-ki-sian offered a faint, melancholy smile—a fleeting light in the abyss. “A man must protect his home. Just take it to her.”
Late that evening, the young soldier crept down Zhang Jie’s narrow alleyway, his eyes darting frantically toward the dark corners. His hands, encrusted with motor grease and smelling of cold gun steel, trembled violently. When Jie opened the doorway, the soldier refused to meet her eyes. His face was twisted in a grimace of fear and shame, sweat slicking his forehead.
“From… from the Master,” the boy choked out in a panicked rush, thrusting his knuckles through the door. He jammed the crumpled cigarette box into her hands before yanking his arm back as if burned, clutching his rifle with knuckles stark white. Without another word, he turned and dissolved into the shadowy fog.
Jie retreated into the quietest corner of the courtyard and opened her palms. Inside lay the paper cigarette box.
With unsteady fingers, Jie unfolded the foil lining. There, written in faint, hurried pencil strokes that remained unmistakably firm, were his final words to her:
“Do not weep for my fate. Keep our children safe. Protect the paintings beneath the floorboards until peace returns.”
The next morning, the glittering golden rays of the Chiayi sun pierced through the heavy fog. Then, the sharp crack of gunfire tore through the morning silence, shattering the dawn like fine salt. Jie stood frozen in her home as the echo reverberated across the mountains. The sorrow of his unclosed eyes seemed to travel through that tiny slip of paper, piercing straight into her heart and the hearts of her children. Even the sky above appeared to weep, pouring down an unrelenting, silent rain.
Later that afternoon, when his body was brought home, resting motionless in their son’s arms, Jie cradled the small cigarette box against her chest like a sacred relic. Behind the public honor of his sacrifice for the citizens lay a mother and child left with the deepest, unhealable wound—blood mixed with tears upon the dark body of politics.
Jie wiped her face, swallowed her grief, and walked toward the back room. One by one, she began lifting the wooden floorboards, sliding his vibrant oil canvases into the dark, dry earth beneath. The world outside was descending into a long, suffocating martial winter, but she would guard his light in secret.
The faint, feather-light scent of tobacco seemed to rise from the floorboards, crossing ridges and winding toward the horizon like Mù-ki-sian’s painted clouds. It was a silent testament—an enduring reminder to cherish the true form of freedom and democracy until everlasting happiness returned to their island home.
