Akirame 3 - アネモネ(anemone)
pilgrim
kirinji - Aliens
Nicha’s driving a rented Japanese sedan through ice-covered road.
She might just swerve off the highway and kill us both. International driving permit sure is convenient.
We haven’t talked since leaving the airport. Twenty something hour flight. Both exhausted. Both tired of each other’s face. Just listening to elevator music on the stereo. Mindlessly staring out the window. Snow covered hills. Snow covered trees.
I wonder if this is her first time seeing snow. Snow is tragic. Freshly fallen snow is like sand but not quite. I want to embrace it. I want to bury myself in its pure whiteness, but it bites my skin and wet my socks. It rejects me. Then it gets dirty. It turns black and clumpy. Then I hate it. I kick it, stomp it, but it’s too solid now. I can only wait for it to melt and disappear.
“What are you thinking?” Nicha asked.
“A whole lot of nothing.”
“As always,” she said.
We’ve been on the road for an hour. It’ll take three more to reach the town of ██████, a rural town in the south of ████ dotted with ancient monuments and ruins. Anywhere you look you’ll find rolling hills with canals that run through them like veins of the earth. I hate to admit, but this place does have a lot in common with the northern province I so despise.
It’s been six years since I left ██████ behind.
Too many things have happened to me in six years.
Unrecognizable is what the people of ██████ will think when they see me again.
It’s been six years.
These great white hills and their leafless trees are the same: winter will always be the same.
But the people will change.
Nicha glanced at me for a moment then back at the road.
“The heater not warm enough?” she asked.
“Yeah… My body haven’t adjusted.”
“I’ll turn it up. Also, there’re gloves in my backpack if you’ll just reach to get it.”
“Thanks…”
I got her backpack from the backseat and unzip it. Hunting knife… Two packs of cigarettes… Zippo lighter… Lip balm… Buddha amulet… Thermos… Some KitKat… And finally, woolen gloves.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I said as I wore the gloves.
“Do you mind?”
“Not really. It's just… I didn’t know.”
The sun had long deserted the sky by the time we drove into ██████.
I think this is the part where a chill go down my spine and I tear up because of nostalgia.
But no.
Yes, the moon is bright and the night sky is full of stars. The two rows of lamp posts along the bridge over the river still glow the same warm shade of orange. The town is sleeping exactly as I had left it.
The streets are quiet. Stores are closed except for a few bars and restaurants. I should be the dad dressed up as Santa, coming home after a long day of hard labor to enjoy the cookies my kids made. “I'm home, and I’ve got presents!” That's how I’d imagined my return.
But no, I'm on a wheeled stretcher. Naked, cold, and shaking. Nicha in a nurse costume is wheeling me around the emergency ward. I shouldn’t trust her. I can't trust her. But I'm at her mercy. I can only accept whatever drugs or whosever blood she injects into me. Or at least that’s how I’m feeling.
Colder than this winter night is the harrowing emptiness resurfacing in my chest. A realization that I'm standing at the edge of the world. There is nothing beyond this point except a single unopened box. Open it and there'll be nothing left unknown. Yes or no. I or o. Zero or one.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to open it.
But not now.
Not right now.
Nicha stopped the car across the road from a flower shop.
“Wanna go somewhere before checking in to the hotel?” she asked.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said.
Author’s Note
I don’t even know what this story is even about at this point (lol), but I think it’d be irresponsible to abandon it and not give it an ending.
I’ll make something up.