Lulwa’s Coffee

There was nothing in the old neighborhood quite like the smell of Lulwa’s coffee.

Every afternoon, she would sit in the corner of her clay house, on a worn-out rug, brewing coffee in a copper dallah passed down from her mother. The sound of the bubbling pot, mixed with the scent of cardamom, felt like a silent announcement that nostalgia still lived here.

I was ten, and visiting her house was my favorite thing in the world. She would always laugh and say:

“Coffee isn’t something you just drink, my dear… it’s something you remember.”

Today, after years away, I returned to that neighborhood. The faces had changed. The streets looked unfamiliar. But for a fleeting second, I could swear I smelled her coffee in the air.

I stood before her house — closed, quiet, its walls cracked with time.

I closed my eyes and saw myself again as a child, sitting beside her. She poured me a tiny cup and said:

“Taste it. This is the flavor of memory.”

؟