The summer
heat and the ocean breeze mingled and settled with the swirling dust of the
rock lot. That was what, June was told, the locals called the wide pebble
filled space in front of her house. The space where two houses previously stood;
the space now inhabited by small stones and odd bits of debris. June stared
intently down at what looked a piece of ceramic pottery. It was slightly faded but
the design was of a yuzu fruit, broken
before it could complete its yellow oblong shape. She wondered whose cup, bowl,
or plate this had been before it had been washed away, broken, and deposited in
this rock lot. The rock lot swayed beneath her feet.
“Hey! Daijoubu?”
June jerked her head up and lost
her balance even more. As the blood rushed to her head, a hand came out and
caught her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
June, embarrassed, nodded and
traced the hand back to its owner. The girl who had steadied her was tall, much
taller than June, and slender in frame. Her medium-length hair was carelessly
worn, with a few wayward strands turning upward near the nape of her neck. She
dressed in a simple fashion, a loose shirt and bright yellow shorts.
Comfortable, June thought, and found herself uncharacteristically loquacious.
“Sorry
about that, I kind of got lost in what I was—its been a long, anyway that’s not
really imp—I’m Juniper but please call me June, what’s your name?” June blurted
out, the words tumbling over themselves.
The girl laughed, “Minazuki desu, nice to meet you.” Her English
wasn’t fluent, but it wasn’t too difficult to understand either. This was a
nice change from the constant barrage of Japanese that June had faced on her
trip up to Minamisanriku, the northeastern ocean-side town. She had taken one
short flight, one long flight, an overnight bus, and another bus to get here.
Her travels had been largely
without incident, but whenever she asked for directions she felt the on comings
of a small anxiety attack. Was it pronounced DO-ko or do-KO? Maybe if
she just muttered the Japanese under her breath someone would make sense of her
words for her. In any case, her appearance allowed her to swing either way—as a
Hapa by birth, with a Japanese mother and a little bit of everything European
American father, she could be seen as Asian, Caucasian, or neither.
Unfortunately when she did manage to pronounce everything correctly, the
automatic assumption was that she was Japanese and the rapid-fire responses to
her question always left her even more confused. Not wanting to embarrass
herself she would nod and walked off in whatever direction they were pointing.
“Mina to yobimasu, you can call me Mina” Mina said as a smile played with
one corner of her lips.
“Yoroshiku onegaishimasu” June tried out for the first time.
“Hey, you know Japanese!” Mina
exclaimed.
“Hardly any, but I tried to learn a
little bit before coming here. My mother’s grandmother was from Japan so she
knows some and taught me even less”
“Better than my English already!”
Mina laughed. “Welcome to Japan. Your travel here ok?”
“Yes,” the tension was finally draining
out of June’s body and she felt an intense weariness taking its place, ”it was
long but not too troublesome. Sorry for being rude but, are you the girl I am
living with?”
Mina confirmed that they were
roommates and brought June through the rock lot and up to her room.
The inside of the house was dusty
like the air outside. Surely something June would get accustomed to with time. She
preferred her living spaces clean and orderly, but she understood the
difficulties of living in a post-disaster area. Their bedroom quarters were
tight: two beds, sides facing each other with multipurpose shelves and a desk
built into the wall at the foot of each bed. Looks like there is a fine line here
between work and rest, June thought to herself. She laid her backpack down on
the empty bed and resisted the urge to do the same with her tired body. She
glanced at the clock mounted on the wall between their beds—3 p.m. If she could
just last a few more hours, that would be enough.
Out of the corner of her eye she
noticed Mina rummaging through a giant yellow knapsack. What a colorful individual,
June thought to herself before Mina exclaimed,
“Kitta! I have never had long-term roommate before, so it was in
bottom of my bag.” She took two long strides over. Cupped in her palm was a key
to the house and a keychain of a pair of silver wings.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment