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A few years on....

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The chime of the airport bells and announcements in Narita airport are trying to tell me something. What they are saying, I’m not so sure.

Da-dum. “Flight JAL 166 to Cairo is seeking final boarding call and passengers, please Gate 21”.

Da-dum. “Flight United 78, Code Share ANA 182 to New York is beginning boarding at Gate 35, 35”.

I am sitting, picking at my lonely breakfast muffin, waiting on a flight to visit Saki in London. Saki. She didn’t want to come back home for the holidays. Not that she has anything to come home to. Not that I really do either. So here I am, waiting on my plane with an hour to kill, to sit in a seat for 10 hours, to meet a girl I haven’t seen for six months.

My girl. Yes, it feels weird saying that. I’m not sure what we are anymore - we certainly don’t date others and we are romantic with each other. Exclusive. But she is so far away, all the time, it feels dishonest to say we are dating. Partners, perhaps. Partners against the world which doesn’t have an alarm-clock heart or a neurodegenerative condition.

Da-dum. “Narita International Airport happily wishes you welcome to Tokyo, Japan.”

My muffin has a lopsided distribution of blueberries. They are all in the bottom left of the tin. The batter must have been thin and they all sank during baking. I am thinking of the scene in Casino where De Niro is admonishing the chef at his Casino for an uneven number of blueberries in each muffin. The details matter. Guests will care. What do they care about? What do I care about?

I guess I thought it would be a little bit easier after we all graduated from university. I went to Waseda and continued on to a graduate degree in physics, although I keep thinking of leaving for a teaching job. Something about the ivory tower of academia doesn’t sit well with me - I want to be in the classroom, on my feet, building something. Writing papers about theoretical minutiae seems pointless although I know it means something.

And of course, Saki did not go to college. It was a waste of time for her - of course it was with her condition. College is meant to set you up for a high-income home, and tax-savings plan, and retirement plan for your 1.3 kids who will grow up needing tennis lessons and summers on the beach. We’ll never have that together, not unless two once-in-a-century medical breakthroughs happen in the next five years.

Da-dum. “For passengers traveling on the connecting flight from Narita JAL 48 to Chitose JAL 41, your gate change is now Terminal 2, level 1, Gate 4”

So she has been many things - a bartender in Cape Town, a ski assistant in the Dolomites, a brief stint as an au pair in New York. And I have dutifully traveled to her each time, for 1 - 2 weeks, carefully planning my savings and vacation time so we can enjoy some time together. It’s been like this for years. I wonder if what I’m doing is the right thing.

You see, sure, I could find another girl. With careful treatment, my condition can go a while. But maybe I don’t have long either. And if you take another muffin off the shelf, and you open it, what might you find? In Casino, De Niro ends up right back where he started, a sports handicapper in San Diego. They took it all away, his car, his casino, his girl. But he had it, he had it all, for that shimmering light second. And there’s nothing wrong with being a handicapper.

Da-dum….

Saki and I almost had a fight the last time I saw her in New York. I was so frustrated with the way we were living. But I looked into her golden-brown eyes and that chestnut hair, and her lip quivering, and I couldn’t do it. The time is even more precious to her; a clock whose spring is fixed and slowly unwinding. How could I deny the time to her? I could not.

So I am on my way to London, the magic lantern, with the hope of spending a New Year with my girl.

They are calling my gate. It’s time to go. I hope I make it there without any trouble.

Da-dum…

Atlantic City is a song by The Band

Author’s Note: Well, the years go by and we only get older. I would say in the best way that fiction, especially about young adults, lets you dream about the future. I wanted to write about the opposite - about getting older and closing those doors you held open in your mind.

I hope you enjoyed this, and to my friends old and new, I hope this finds you well.

A wonderful little slice of story. I can’t help but suspect the da-dums to hold a vaguely threatening undertone. Hisao sort of letting his life pass in the current of Saki is a frequent theme with her character, and, actually I find it profoundly sad - he’s not really living but counting down the days he has with her here, each experience closer to his last.

But then maybe that’s all any of us are doing. Every experience closer to the last, life moves in one direction after all.

Anyway it’s a short but emotive little thing. The kind of reflection I’ve had in airports before, and oddly enough, one I think I’ve thought about when I was on my way to see a girl in New York for what I knew would be the last time. Life is funny like that. (Of course I was returning to London after, so that was worse ).

Great to see you’re still around Semisoft. (And to add to that, most of us from the forums here message on Discord in the Yamaku Academy server. I’m sure a few of the old guard would be keen to chat with you if you’re wanting to pop in and say hello, so just let me know and I’ll send you an invite).

Simple but melancholy. Not bad.

A great example of a short-form story with some weight.