mbfitzmahan. Café Voleur de Flueur. Tokyo, Japan. July 31, 2021.
The Cafe Voleur de Flueur, dark and sultry, hides down a side street of Harajuku. This little coffee shop is a welcome refuge from the sensory overload of Harajuku’s crushing bright colors and countless Lolita fashion shops.
“This is a hard time for you, isn’t it?” I asked the manager of the cafe. “Oh, yes!” he said.
Dressed in a brown apron, reflecting the coffee he served, he sighed and thanked me. The man’s face, except for his eyes, was covered by the ubiquitous white mask. The man had sad eyes.
“I really like your cafe.” I said in my long unused Japanese. “It reminds me of a time long ago. In the ‘70s, when I was a young college student here in Tokyo.”
His eyes smiled back. “Yes, I remember that time, too. Natsukashi, desu ne? It brings back such memories, doesn’t it?”
“You know it means 花泥棒 hanadorobou, flower thief?” he laughed ironically. I pretended I understood. Then I realized that the sad eyed man meant that the French name of the cafe meant flower thief. Interesting choice of names. Did the owner like the sound of the name? Was he being ironic? Where were the flowers? The thieves?
Or was the flower thief actually the Pandemic? Heavy on metaphors. Had the pandemic, like the flower thief, stolen the beauty out of life? Out of just sitting here having a simple cup of coffee in a simple Tokyo cafe?
