A Town Where Blossom Petals Fall Ever So Slowly

This morning, I read an article in the paper about my hometown, Nikko. The author wrote about the weak state of the local economy; people fleeing to Tokyo, Yokohama, Gunma, etc. It all felt gothic, trying to recall what Nikko was like all those years ago. Had it really changed all that much since I transplanted to the city? They continued reflecting on the once-burgeoning tourist industry and its shortcomings, being nestled between two mountains with no access to a high-speed rail: a half-day’s train ride in and out of town.

As they described the state of the old streets, crumbling Edo-period houses, and verdant green plots of land untouched by man, I felt a bizarre knot grow in my chest. With each word read, my heart pulsated, pangs of which so early in the morning; the squawks of herons shouting from the shallow lakebeds deep in the mountainous woods filled me with a primordial, instinctual fear—an uncomfortable fear that reminded me of my mother, caught in her youth as I am now.

I often dared to step past the cone-n-rod pylons that sat idly for months, reserving the empty plot only for the birds to peck at grass seeds as if they intended to keep it nice and tidy for the next family that moves in. “Nobody buys those old homes,” my mother would say, passing by them before dropping off our plastic bottles. I tried to carry as many as possible, hugging them tightly so they would not escape their fate, but inevitably, one would slip through and roll down the rough street.

Passing by one dilapidated house, my mother recalled her fondness for the previous occupants: the Tanabes. “Mrs. Tanabe was the grandmother I wish you had, y’know?” Her rhetorical questions always perplexed me, as if I was expected to agree without question. Sure, Mr. and Mrs. Tanabe watched me a lot when I was younger, but eventually, they outgrew me. Their old tatami mat floors were rough when I kneeled on them. I often stared at Mr. Tanabe’s ogreish feet, dragging against the fibers. His calloused skin resembled a kappa’s thick leather flesh as they dug into the floor. He also hardly ever trimmed his toenails. I thought it funny to clip them while he rested in the dayroom, sleeping silently in the spring sun. The cherry blossoms bloomed from the craning branches that scattered across the mountain afar like hibiscus flowers dotting a field of wild grass, little polka-dots of yellow blotting the stigmata.

I watched his belly bubble and deflate like a soufflé as a fan blew from behind him. The monotonous churning resembled incessant white noise. It must have been soothing to sleep with. As the fan trained on him, I swiftly chipped away at the Gordian knots, scraping away at his flesh with the dull end of a knife. I considered how best to cut, so as not to harm him, but inevitably, I got carried away: my hands untrained at filleting human flesh.

I read once in a pamphlet that our hair, nails, and skin were our life essence, and that if one were to cut any one of them, they would be killing themselves. The young gentleman who handed it to me went on and on about how he stopped cutting his toenails years ago, before passing me a dark bottle, trying to sell it for a couple thousand yen. Some of our bottles resembled those, I thought. They looked as though they had been dipped in chocolate; the opaque plastic absorbed so much light as it baked in the sun.

When I finally found the courage to slip through the thicket of pylons, I felt my tiny resistance bubbling in my chest as I fluttered through the estates, their weeds pierced through the cracks as if they were cracking open the Earth during an earthquake; they shook in the air, trembling with anger. I must have been twelve years old at the time. I felt the trembling of the soft earth below, bellowing and whining as the trees cried in pain. I ran toward them as if they were calling my name in the wind; their spores fluttering in the breeze like a swarm of beetles in flight.

The buzzing migrated from the husky bark of the oak trees that littered the mountainous forests. Their ecstatic cries reminded me of the buzzing of soot fairies in the old boards of our home; the black tracks resembling night sky ink on freshly woven canvas. My mother watched me chase them throughout the house, and yet, I was never able to catch one to show her. “Look—look,” I cried, only to reveal a thin layer of jet-black in the grooves of my palms; chuckles erupted from her covered mouth.

I used to believe the trees sang to the spirits at night when I crawled out of my futon into the dayroom every summer. When I opened the Shoji, I saw the floating wisps of fireflies’ faint twinkling in the damp air, searching for a mate amongst the true bugs of the night. The rhythm of their buzzing resembled an ensemble of violins and bamboo flutes slowly crescendoing in the moonlight perigee, gleaming as though I might take flight as they hummed around me; a faint glow wrapped around my face like the mask of a Nō performer, their Hayashi-kata conjuring in the background with their taiko, kotsuzumi, ōkawa, and nōkan.

As I watched their flickering lights, fluttering into the verdant clearing and departing from the mountain, I felt the warmth of another clutch my shoulder, gripping the muscles firmly as if to prevent me from falling forward into the cool earth.

“It’s like they’re putting on a show for us…sort of like a sand mandala, y’know? By the morning, they’ll have disappeared, save for a few lonely ones without a mate attached to them.”

My eyes became trained on my mother’s wrinkled hand before meeting her chestnut eyes. “What do you think they’re trying to show us?”

Her grimace showed her white blossom teeth before erupting, “I’m not sure.” She carefully sat down beside me, her weakening legs buckling as they snapped to the dayroom floor. “Perhaps they are mimicking a romantic tragedy like Romeo and Juliet. Maybe they’re telling us the history of their species—although, we might be too simple even for them—such extraordinarily intelligent animals they are.”

“Is that why they sing?”

“I suppose it’s something we share,” she said, closing her eyes as she clasped my hand. “Just listen to them sing, Juni.”

I listened to their song hum in the silence between us. I watched them slowly dissipate and return to the mountain, like a child running home from school, eager to embrace the warmth of their mother, who smelled of freshly grilled bora caught from the river mouth downstream. I could taste the smoke in the air as the lights in the distant houses ceased. I felt my mother’s fingers caress my palm, feeling the grooves in my soft skin.

By the morning, the remains of those unfortunate not to find a mate lay between the blades of verdant grass, food for the birds as the cycle of life intended. Such was the way of life: cyclical. Disrupting their song, I asked, “Mama, why do fireflies die so soon?”

Her eyes opened and trained on mine. I felt the rushing tears that would soon break over the dam rising as she came to comfort me. I wasn’t sure why I was so emotional all of a sudden as the globules of frigid, salty milk slid down my tender face. She didn’t have an answer and pulled me into her chest; my face was buried in her bony ribs, which felt like a bassinet’s fabric-covered walls. My tears soaked into her nightgown, which smelled of fresh jasmine and sticky sap. A faint push of air, held back by her teeth, soothed me to sleep as I lulled into her womb.

That morning, I felt the warmth of my mother had been replaced by a heaviness that rested atop me. When my labored eyes cracked open, the crust caught in the corners of my eyelids like dirt trapped in a crevice, I found myself lying in my futon, back in my bedroom; my paper cranes fluttered in the air, floating with fishing wire. The morning sun’s light broke through the slips in the curtains onto them as they spun, as if they were performing a mating ritual for a prospective mate before them.

I slipped out of the heavy blanket and rolled the futon up, the weight of which seemed heavier than I was used to. I heaved it into the oshiire, packing it in as if there was no remaining space to fill, before sliding the closet door closed. My muscles felt weak, like I had run around town having been chased by yokai. Then, I heard my mother humming outside; the walls might as well have been paper-thin. Returning to the dayroom, I watched her heave large, lily-white sheets over a clothesline adjacent to our clothes packed in a small basket: the same place the fireflies performed for us just the night before.

“Juni, change out of those pajamas and give me a hand,” my mother shouted, carrying the plastic basket to the other end of the line.

I shouted back in agreement. A wide grimace on my face grew as the vivacity of my mother’s youth seemed to spring from her chest. I had not seen her like this in a long time. Once I returned, I gazed upon her nimble fingers, her pale skin now flaking and frail, exposing the deep lilac just below the skin. I also felt as though I had become more youthful: the spring in my step as I ran across the tatami floors to my room, only to find that my clothes had become heavier, as if someone had sewn in more fabric at the seams. My shirt collar barely wrapped around my neck, leaning across my shoulder as if it were my father’s old hand-me-down. Wrapping a shoelace around my shorts, I ran out through the dayroom to assist her.

The crow's feet that once kissed her eyes subsided with her grimace. “Is that Papa’s old shirt, Juni?” Her inflection rose, trying to be cute as if I were no more than six.

I quickly grabbed clothes from the basket and handed them to her to pin to the line. “No, Mama.” My eyes darted at her figure, now obscured by the intermittent whipping wind crashing against her clothes.

She rubbed my head as if dismissing my response before returning to her work. Her monotonous humming disassociated her from her surroundings as if she were in a trance. After giving her the last shirt to pin, I stood beside her like a puppy seeking every drop of attention: my eyes glossy and wide.

“Can I go on an adventure?”

Her eyes widened as well. As if to depart from her motherly duties, she kneeled to the grass and grabbed my arms, responding in that same cadence that felt utterly bizarre. “An adventure? Can I come along?”

My mouth buzzed with contemplation before uttering a defiant “no.” Her eyes sank low, her eyelids falling like theater curtains. I followed up with an explanation. “It’s a boys-only adventure.”

A wave of disappointment flushed her face pale as if all of her color washed away with the salty shore. “Oh,” she said, pursing her lips for a second. “I suppose you’re right, Junichiro.”

Her eyes became trained on the dayroom as if someone were calling to her; perhaps it was my father, although I wasn’t truly sure back then. I turned to look at the dark room in the background, watching the wind chimes clang against each other. Further away, the old hotel attached to the river with its dilapidated Edo-style architecture resembled a ghost wavering in the wind as it tilted ever so slightly, swaying like a towering pagoda. Blossoming trees shook around the building; the petals breaking free from their mother to a new horizon to implant themselves on fertile ground.