Bekfaya Cherry Blossoms | أزهار كرز بكفيا
"She tends a cherry orchard in Bekfaya that blooms for one week each spring. He's the botanist racing to study them before they fade. In fleeting flowers, they find lasting connection. 'Inti el zahr el dayim' (أنتِ الزهر الدايم)."
Bekfaya Cherry Blossoms
أزهار كرز بكفيا
Beauty is brief.
My cherry trees bloom for one week each spring. Seven days of pink perfection, then petals fall like snow.
Then the botanist arrives, desperate for those seven days.
I'm Thérèse.
Fifty-two, orchard keeper, body shaped by pruning and patience. The trees are my children; they bloom regardless.
Dr. Kamal Farhat studies what he can't keep.
"I need access. During peak bloom."
"Everyone wants peak bloom. No one sees the work before."
"I'll see the work. Please."
"Why do you care?"
"Because these cultivars are dying. Your orchard might be the last."
He's fifty-four.
Botanist, preservation genetics. His work might save what my trees represent.
"Dying?"
"Climate change. Disease. These varieties won't survive without intervention."
"My trees are healthy—"
"Yours are. But without genetic preservation, when they're gone..."
He comes before bloom.
Studies trees I've tended my whole life. His scientific attention matches my emotional one.
"You talk to them."
"They listen."
"That's not—"
"Scientific? Maybe not. Effective? Look at them."
The bloom arrives.
One week of impossible beauty. He samples, photographs, documents—but also watches with simple wonder.
"This is..."
"I know."
"How do you bear knowing it ends?"
"That's why it's beautiful."
"Thérèse—"
"Eih?"
"Inti el zahr el dayim." You're the permanent flower.
"I fade too—"
"You endure. Like the trees between blooms."
The kiss happens under cherry blossoms.
Pink petals falling around us. His mouth on mine is spring arriving.
"Kamal—"
"One week isn't enough. For the trees. For you."
We make love in the orchard.
Petals falling on our skin. He lays me on blossomed ground.
"Mashallah." He breathes. "You're—"
"Old. Brief—"
"Perennial. Returning. Lasting."
He worships me like spring.
Every touch a bud opening. Mouth on my neck, my breasts, lower—
"Kamal—"
"Let me make this bloom last."
His tongue between my thighs.
I grip cherry roots, crying out as petals fall. Pleasure like peak bloom.
"Ya Allah—"
"Beautiful. You're so beautiful."
When he enters me, I feel pollinated.
We move together under blossoms—his body and mine, creating fruit.
"Aktar—"
"Aiwa—"
The climax is full flower.
We cry out together—petals raining down. Then we lie in spring, knowing it lasts.
Three years later
The cultivars are preserved.
Kamal's work ensures they'll survive. He returns every spring—for science. For me.
"Worth the brief bloom?" I ask.
"Permanence in impermanence." He kisses me under cherry blossoms. "Like us."
Alhamdulillah.
For blossoms that brief.
For botanists who preserve.
For orchards that endure.
The End.