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Featured writing

Kyoto Journal update Dec. 2020

Ken Rodgers, KJ managing editor

I greatly enjoyed talking with author Alex Kerr about his new book, Finding the Heart Sutra, on our WIK Zoom session on Sunday Nov. 29th. (A recording is available here—thanks to Lisa Wilcut and Rick Elizaga for their technical support!) As an additional reference I had intended to mention that our most recent issue (KJ 98  ‘Ma: a Measure of Infinity’) contains two pieces directly connected with the Heart Sutra, by long-time contributor Leanne Ogasawara. An essay, ‘The Heart of the Matter: Translating the Heart Sutra’ traces the fabled “journey to the west” of Xuanzang, the Chinese pilgrim priest who gathered and translated important scriptures including the Heart Sutra, and an interview, ‘Between Form and Emptiness’ explores how contemporary sculptor Maya Ando incorporated the philosophy of the sutra into her recent show, ‘Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form,’ including a large installation piece based on the Ryoanji karesansui garden.

 We selected the theme of ‘Ma’ before coronavirus redefined social dynamics, but its premise of “space between” and “pause” held resonance for contributors; what might otherwise have been a rather abstract philosophical concept became much more personal. Articles, essays and stories delve into myriad aspects of ma: architecture, garden design, overtourism and empty Kyoto, a Zen enigma, isolation and figurative cave-dwelling, calligraphy, the contemplative gaze, VR and the formless mind, ma in music, and in da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper,’ lost landmarks, and even photographer Hoshino Michio’s search for totem poles. If you have not yet encountered this issue, you can find it here [https://kyotojournal.org/current-issue-print-edition/]. Since various Covid-related factors made it impossible to print, it is a digital issue. Over 200 pages, downloadable for around 500 yen or US$5.

At present we are finalizing our next issue, which will also be in digital format: KJ 99 ‘Travel, Revisited’ — which includes a review (also by Leanne) of both Alex’s book and another recently-released commentary on the Heart Sutra by translator Frederik Schodt, better known for his defining 1983 publication, Manga! Manga! Other contributors to this post-Covid reassessment of the urge to discover fresh horizons include (in random order) Rebecca Otowa, John Brandi, Renée Gregorio, Hans Brinckmann, Pico Iyer, Chad Kohalyk, Nigel Triffitt, Elliot Rowe, Jeff Fuchs, Natalie Goldberg, Kimberly Hughes, Bernhard Kellerman, Naoko Fujimoto, Yuyutsu RD Sharma, Greg Pape, Robert Brady. Luo Ying, Amy Uyematsu, Siddharth Dasgupta, Robert van Koesveld, Prairie Stuart-Wolff, Yahia Lababidi, Edward J. Taylor, Roger Pulvers, Teo Wei Ger, Matthew Krueger, Rachelle Meilleur, Matthew Krueger, Winifred Bird and Joji Sakurai. Publication in (hopefully) mid-December, to be announced on KJ’s Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kyoto.journal/. Recommended kotatsu reading for the New Year break…

 Alternatively, anyone in Kansai inspired by Alex’s invocation of Manjusri, the lion-riding, sword-wielding Bodhisattva of Wisdom, could consider a trip out to Abemonju-in in Sakurai, to visit a superb tableaux (including Sudhana, the boy-pilgrim who entered the jewel-cave of Maitreya’s Tower) clearly derived from classic representations in “Manjusri Mecca,” Wutai-shan in Shanxi province, China.

Photo below courtesy of Mark Schumacher’s excellent www.onmarkproductions.com site (thanks Mark for attending the Zoom session!)

Alex Kerr’s ‘Heart Sutra’

Review by Preston Keido Houser

Kerr, Alex. Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan. Dublin: Allen Lane, 2020. 297pp. Ebook and paperback.

I’ve been exposed to the Heart Sutra for several decades now (I hesitate to use the word study since the sutra seems to put the critical faculty to sleep even as it awakens awareness). It is one of those amazing historical texts with which one has difficulty finding fault — an error-free scripture.

Perhaps I’m missing something. Therefore, I seize any opportunity to see what others can make of this criticism-defying text. We need all the help we can get. One must accept gifts graciously, and Finding the Heart Sutra by Alex Kerr is indeed a welcome gift. Often the first Buddhist scripture to behold, the Heart Sutra usually makes more “sense” as one of the final, send-off texts in life, as Kerr points out in his Introduction when referring to friends David Kidd and Marguerite Yourcenar — a springboard in more ways than one.

Kerr employs a straightforward approach to his manuscript: Introduction, a transliteration of the Heart Sutra, followed by a ten-part, section-by-section, word-by-word exegesis and commentary — refreshing to be reminded of people, places, or concepts that may have faded. The Dalai Lama, Andy Warhol, Thich Nhat Hanh, Nagarjuna, Mencius, Gore Vidal, Shakespeare — a metaphysical menagerie that populates the commentary. Kerr’s style resembles an informed chat concerning serious matters, again, refreshing in that he does not let the reader get too bogged down in technicalities — it makes for an energizing read.

More of a handbook than a scholarly treatise (although the scholarship is there), Finding the Heart Sutra is akin to a field guide… or perhaps a memoir of a traveling companion… or a mirror journal written to oneself — that’s the impact of the Heart Sutra. Along with commentary, Kerr has provided notes, references, glossary, and a Who’s Who. Oh, and the icing on top: wonderful calligraphy in Kerr’s hand, especially the airy emptiness (空).

Thanks to the Heart Sutra, and now Kerr’s enlightening contribution, I know even less than I did when I first encountered this mind-blazing text… and I’m probably better off for it. As Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan succinctly wrote, “I’m younger than that now.”


(For the hardback or kindle editions of the book, click here.)

Alex Kerr will be interviewed on Nov 29 at 11.00 am Japan time by Ken Rodgers in a Zoom event hosted by Writers in Kyoto. For details and registration, please click here.

Featured writing

The Witches Play Macbeth

The Witches Play Macbeth
by Marianne Kimura

In Birnam Wood, we’d all meet, all the witches, to dance. We’d twirl and skip under the stars with the god Pan. No dull churches for him: he could be found only in groves and grottoes, riverbanks and the little sandy edges of the Forfar Loch, where grasses grew.

Sitting on a rock, he played his reed flute, a sad tune, and we would weep.

His furry legs and hooves tapped out the rhythms on the rocks.

Hecate, the goddess of the witches, also joined us. She particularly appeared when the moon was full. She would just step out from behind an oak tree as if she’d been there all along.

She could sing and, knowing their names, she called to the owls.

We were real witches, so we were untouchable, like fog or foam on the sea, as far as the witch hunts went. We looked like real men or women, and acted like them, we even lived among humans.

But we witches had special powers that made us too clever to be captured. It wasn’t voluntary or something active that we did. It was like we had an invisible shield around us so we couldn’t be accused of witchcraft or imprisoned.

No one was safe, man or woman, from being accused, except of course, ironically, we real witches. We were never caught.

However, governments did apprehend and imprison ordinary people, the unlucky, usually those without money, social connections and political power. Aged, outcast, impoverished, eccentric people who were disliked by their neighbors or involved in disputes were accused of being “witches”.

If there was a bad harvest, or if someone suddenly died, or if there was a freak weather incident….these events were due to “witches”. A convenient scapegoat was then chosen and tried.

Our local feudal lord, Findley Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, accused almost 100 innocent women of using cats in spells to make freak storms imperil his ships crossing the North Sea. According to the anonymous writ denouncing the women, they had done the spells by swinging stray cats around their heads and casting them from cliffs into the choppy waters.

A few months later he denounced beautiful young Maeve, a servant in his castle, saying that she had bewitched one of his horses and made it go lame.

Maeve’s trial, and those of the women who had “stirred up the winds”, ended with guilty verdicts and vicious executions.

We real witches felt great sympathy for these innocent victims.

Then, our festivities weren’t quite as festive. Our heads drooped, our dances slowed. Pan also seemed troubled and pre-occupied.

With each new human victim of the witch hunts, our outrage grew and we, the real witches, became more and more convinced that something needed to be done.

A lesson needed to be taught, and we were the ones to do it.

“There are whispers that Maeve refused Macbeth’s kisses. That was why he accused her of making his horse lame”, Elayne, my sister, told us one evening in Birnam Wood as we witches gathered in a circle for our festivities, “he had her tortured for days in her cell in revenge. Finally, she was burned alive in the public square.”

“Let’s burn him in revenge!” George, the blacksmith, said.

“We’d best wait for Hecate to come, when there’s a full moon. She must decide what is to be done!” a woman’s voice called out.

But I was so furious that I didn’t want to wait for Hecate’s permission or ideas. The full moon was weeks away.

“It is Findlay Macbeth who has accused and tried witches and stirred this pot until it boils. Let’s go after him!” I said impulsively, feeling a fit of self-consciousness blushing when everyone stared at me.

“But he must know it was us!” said Gellis, a young herbal medicine healer, “just having him die in a riding accident or due to the plague will not carry our imprimatur. He must know us by our colors when this fatal game is over. He must see. He must understand that the hands of witches have personally brought him down.”

“Yes!” I agreed with enthusiasm, “yet we must vanish in time!”

Three of us were selected. Me, because I had suggested targeting Macbeth and now I was somewhat responsible for the mission; Gellis, because she was quick with spells; and Jonet, because she was good with theatrics, prophecies and poetry. We called ourselves Witch One, Witch Two and Witch Three.

“We’ll wait on the heath, on the road to Forres”, I suggested, “When he finds us on his way back from the battle he’s fighting now against the Norwegians, we’ll fill his head with poisonous and fantastical ideas.”

Just then there was the sound of hoof beats galloping and into the clearing rode my gallant husband, Banquo.

Banquo jumped down from his horse and he gave me a passionate kiss. He was a witch who could only attend our dances and festivities occasionally due to his demanding schedule as a fighter, a soldier and a skillful administrator in Findley Macbeth’s administration. He was a mole, working for Macbeth as a spy for us witches.

“Sorry I’m late”, he said, “We’re still fighting the Norwegians. I couldn’t get away easily until after it got dark. Did I miss anything?”

I explained about our plan to use dooming prophecies to take revenge on Macbeth for the women who had been executed. I was a bit nervous. After all, he worked side by side with Macbeth.

“I’ll help you”, he said levelly, “Macbeth deserves whatever revenge you can devise.”

A murmur of approval rose up in the crowd.

“Macbeth is hoping to be promoted”, Banquo said. “His fondest hope is to become king.”

“We maybe could use that”, said Jonet.

“You can reveal to him a prophecy that my descendants will be kings, not his. That information will send him over the edge. He’ll no doubt try to have me killed.”

 “Witches aren’t immortal”, I said quietly but firmly, “there’s no reason for you to put yourself in danger.”

“No problem. I can take care of myself.” He gave me a sly wink, “I’m a witch too, remember.”

We had some weeks to prepare. Battles involving Macbeth and the other generals and thanes raged on the inhospitable heath for weeks and we knew we’d have to wait until these bloody conflicts ended. We needed Macbeth to be alone and unhurried, not preoccupied with fighting. Instead, we spent time with our familiars and tried to get into our roles. For our familiars, I chose my gray cat, Graymalkin; Gellis selected her favorite toad, Paddock; and Jonet decided to ask Harpier, not a pet exactly, like the other two, but a wild raven she sometimes did spells with, to help.

There was one more problem. As wife of Banquo, the Thane of Lochabar, I knew Findley Macbeth socially due to the fact that the thanes and we wives attended parties for the king. In those days, Banquo was posted in Forres, near Glamis, due to the fact that Lochabar, his estate in the northern Highlands, was remote and inconvenient and no battles ever happened there. Banquo and I were provided with a little house in Forres, near the barracks, in which to live.

So of course I would have to disguise myself. And Gellis and Jonet felt that elderly wise women would make the most convincing witches as they would be the most stereotypical and expected type of witch.

To practice, we did spells to transform ourselves into three elderly women, withered and wild in our attire of torn black capes and long skirts variously moss green and dark violet. One day we gathered in Jonet’s garden, next to a hawthorn hedge during a lightning storm.

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” I shrieked, ex tempore, into the storm.

Rain drops splashing down her face, Gellis exclaimed, gripping my wrists, “When the hurly-burly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won.”

Jonet’s turn next. I wondered what she would come up with. She had a gift for poetry.

“That will be ere the set of sun.” A mischievous smile on her lips, Jonet said the words in a voice like honey, smooth and magical.

We had to please, or Macbeth wouldn’t listen.

We needed to be good.

We shivered pleasurably, holding hands now in a circle, the wind blowing our shredded garments into a thousand fighting banners.

 It was my turn.

“Where the place?” Short and practical, a counterpoint to the poetic and lyrical.

“Upon the heath”, answered Gellis, in perfect rhythm.

Jonet’s turn again.

“There to meet with Macbeth.” Eyes now flashing against the gray sky, she spat out his hated name with musical glee.

On another occasion, while practicing at dusk, and hidden in the tall reeds on the banks of the Loch of Forfar, we devised an impromptu and macabre routine.

I started by asking Gellis, “Where hast thou been, sister?”

A loon swimming in the loch swooned down into the mirrors of black water without a sound.

“Killing swine”, she tossed off after the slightest pause. Witches were, of course, always and without any reason, being accused of causing the deaths of farm animals.

Jonet shot me a glance.

“Sister, where thou?” she quizzed, eyebrows arched.

In haste to prove my mettle, I jumped into a story I made up on the spot about a sailor’s wife who had refused to share her chestnuts with me. As a result I added that I would take revenge on her poor husband, vulnerable in his shaky little vessel, the Tiger, and on his way to Aleppo, Syria, to buy spices and silks from the Orient.

Does that seem unfair to you?

Why should that innocent man, a small spot in the ocean, pay for his wife’s bad manners?

But women are always the targets, are we not? The victims of the witch hunts, almost always women. We are accused of being lustful and lascivious, tempting men to sin, and of being nearer animals than men.

So my purpose was to balance the scales a bit.

I like animals and if the sailor’s wife and I are closer to animals, then I should stand with her.

So I chose the husband as my victim.

Witches are said to be vengeful, but that is a crusty lie if ever there was one.

We like when things are fair, when the scales are evenly balanced.

One grey morning, as a storm was scattering sleet like seeds in handfuls across the streets, an exhausted-looking man knocked at my door. This messenger, a witch sent by my husband, had traveled all night on foot. After I let him in, he told me that the Norwegians had just surrendered. He had some further news for me: Macbeth was going to be promoted to Thane of Cawdor but didn’t know it yet.

 Gellis, Jonet and I had only a few hours to prepare and station ourselves near but not too near the castle of Glamis, on the road from where the battle had taken place. We had to look like we were creatures of the green-gray heath, like wild birds sheltering out of the wind.

Along the road through the heath, there was an old slab of yellowish stone, almost as tall as two men, called the Serpent Stone by locals because ancient Picts had carved two entwined figures that looked like snakes on its surface. We had decided to stand beside it.

 It would lend us a mystical, antique atmosphere, but the Serpent Stone was a good walk away and we had to hurry. The weather was hideous and cold; the sleet had turned to hail, and thunder punctuated the air as we hurried on foot. We were out of breath when we arrived at the icy Serpent Stone, and we quickly did the necessary spells to transform ourselves into ancient crones: Witches One, Two and Three.

We waited some time, enough to become quite cold. There was a stiff gust of wind, and then we saw the two victorious generals, Macbeth and Banquo, come riding from the west. Macbeth made as if to continue on, but Banquo, of course, stopped and dismounted and then Macbeth had to stop as well.

Insinuating that he was unhappy about stopping in the bad weather, Macbeth loudly complained, “so foul and fair a day I have not seen”.

Banquo ignored him and tried to cover over any awkwardness by asking an innocent traveler’s question: “How far is’t call’d to Forres?” But, slightly shaking and nervous, he couldn’t wait for an answer. Pointing at us, he asked in a loud stagy voice, “what are these so wither’d and so wild in their attire?”

But Macbeth, with a scowl on his face, was pulling on the reins of his horse, as if making to continue the journey. No doubt the weather was unpleasant and he wanted to be back home to a warm fire.

Afraid to lose his audience, Banquo loudly started speaking as fast as he could: “That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, and yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught that man may question?”

He had brought the topic around to divination!

We watched silently.

We tried to assume hostile, and sullen poses. We knew we were more likely to find success in seeming to have no interest.

We watched, tense, yet secretly elated, as Macbeth slowly dismounted and walked over to Banquo, whose long speech, delivered like a magician with his hands in the air, gave the impression that he was conjuring us: “You seem to understand me, By each at once her chappy finger laying upon her skinny lips: you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.”

Macbeth held up his hand, cutting off Banquo from saying anything more.

He stepped in front of Banquo and commanded us: “Speak, if you can: what are you?”

I chanted “All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”

Gellis, in an ethereal white veil, like a ghost, intoned in an otherworldly voice, “All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

Over the wind, Jonet, in a long black gown with a hood, screamed, “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” She thrust her broom in the air regally like a monarch’s scepter.

At Jonet’s provocative words, Macbeth’s mouth dropped open and his piercing cold eyes almost seemed like they would explode in fire and set his thatch of sandy thin hair ablaze. Jonet, the oracle, fixed her eyes straight ahead.

Now Banquo knew that we had caught the trout, and he played it up: “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that sound so fair?” Patiently, he turned to us and repeated the prophecy as if it were already a near-certainty: “My noble partner you greet with present grace, and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope, that he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not.” He paused for effect, letting us seem to consider his words, creating dramatic effect.

Banquo continued, “If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow, and which will not, speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favors nor your hate”.

We had arrived at the part where we would have to tell Banquo’s dangerous fortune. My words would put my husband in peril from this cruel and ambitious man.

But I had to keep to the script.

“Lesser than Macbeth and greater”, I said in a piercing whisper, staring intensely ahead at the air, not at my husband.

“Not so happy, yet much happier”. Glennis’ voice was chipped ice.

“Thou shalt GET KINGS, though thou BE NONE”, Jonet wailed as if in a trance, adding, almost mockingly, “So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!”

“Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!” I shouted, defiantly putting my husband’s name first.

We turned around and ran a few meters away so Macbeth wouldn’t hear our disappearing spell. Then we huddled together and said the magic words that created the necessary illusion we had vanished into the air.

Days later King Duncan was stabbed to death in bed while visiting Macbeth’s castle. Rumors flew about the identity of his killer, but nothing was proven. Banquo, of course, was there that night and knew very well that it was Macbeth who had done it.

Macbeth, as expected, was crowned king. He continued to treat Banquo with obsequious kindness and had us moved into a larger house.

However, we were certain that Banquo would be an eventual target, so we made sure to get a witch, my cousin Seyton from Edinburgh, hired as a servant in Macbeth’s castle, to spy for our side.

Seyton indeed played an important part.

Macbeth, asking around, found two men who agreed to kill Banquo after Macbeth told them many lies about how all the wrongs he’d done to them were really Banquo’s fault. But Seyton, busying himself nearby by polishing some swords, was eavesdropping on that whole conversation.

When Macbeth had finished talking to the hired killers, he dismissed them and Seyton led them to the door and in a low murmur told them they could have money provided they would accompany him to the stables. Seyton sat them down in the stables and proceeded to persuade them to only pretend to kill Banquo.

As it turned out, the two men had actually not put any credit in Macbeth’s story blaming Banquo for everything and they were relieved to have a way out of their agreement with Macbeth.

So the groom gave them some more gold and arranged with them to perform a fake attack.

The groom and the two hired killers went to the spot to wait for Banquo and Fleance. They flagged Banquo down and explained the situation. And then all of them played out a simulated ambush, with some staged shouting and screaming and throwing of rocks and mud. Then the hired killers went back to the castle, after one of them cut his finger and wiped the blood on his face to make it appear he had been violently fighting. That’s why Macbeth says “there’s blood upon thy face” to him.

Another important decision we made was for the murderers to tell Macbeth that Fleance had escaped. Then the witch’s prophecy would be still possible, a nagging weight on Macbeth.

Our plan included Banquo dressing up as a bloody ghost and materializing before Macbeth in order to drive him a bit mad. We hadn’t planned on having the haunting scene take place so soon after Banquo’s “death”, but that evening Macbeth was holding a dinner party, which Banquo and I had been invited to attend. As Banquo laughingly told me later, “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by ignoring his kind invitation.”

So Banquo used a knife to cut a shallow harmless wound in his finger and wiped his handkerchief in the blood and wrapped his head in the handkerchief. Also, he rubbed mud and dirt on his cheeks, then he raced to the castle and stole into the grand hall just as King Macbeth was grandly greeting his guests.

Of course it had a wild effect. And because Banquo was an adept witch, he knew how to make himself only visible to Macbeth and not to the other dinner guests or even Lady Macbeth. On and off, like a firefly glowing intermittently, he appeared and disappeared, shaking his blood-stained hair at the by now horrified and trembling monarch or mischievously taking Macbeth’s seat before Macbeth could sit down.

As the noble Lady of Lochabar, I was there, of course, pretending to be dismayed and distressed both by the strange madness of our new monarch and by the unaccountable absence of my husband.

The dinner party ended very early after a broken and pale Lady Macbeth dismissed all the guests. I walked back home alone under the trees, my heart singing.

Going into the bedroom, I opened my clothes closet and found my husband half-asleep on some pillows on the floor there.

He pulled me down next to him and gave me a hug.

In the dark I touched his face and hair. His hair was clean, though slightly damp.

“How did you wash out all that blood and mud?”

“I jumped in the river on the way home and scrubbed,” Banquo said.

“I’ll have to live in this closet for a while”, he continued, “We can’t have the servants seeing me and gossiping about how I’m really still alive.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I was thinking what a relief it would be to no longer have to worry about my husband being killed by Macbeth. It had been an utter strain on us since we hadn’t been sure how Macbeth would go about it. Now Fleance, our son, who was 20, was on his way back to Lochabar, where he would hide out with our gamekeeper; and my husband was safely in a closet, where he couldn’t fight in any wars or be attacked by Macbeth.

“Don’t worry, I’ll feed you properly”, I giggled, tickling him under his arm.

A few months passed and one night, when it was a full moon, Gellis, Jonet, Banquo and I went to the clearing in Birnam Wood to dance.

Hecate stepped out from behind her oak tree and, unusual for her, had an awful scowl upon her face.

“Why, how now, Hecat? You look angerly”, I whispered, dismayed.

Hecat spoke at length, quite poetically:

“Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of ll harms,
Was never call’d to bear my part
Or show the glory of our art?”
And which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.
But make amends now: get you gone,
And at the pit of Acheon
Meet me in the morning: thither he
Will come to know his destiny.”
Your vessels and your spells provide,
Your charms and everything beside.
I am for th’ air; this night I’ll spend
Upon a dismal and fatal end.
Great business must be wrought ere noon
Upon the corner of the moon……”

After a few more theatrics, she casually adjusted her enormous midnight-blue shawl around her shoulders and swooped off on her broom into the freezing night air.

The moon was far away and she would need hours to get there.

In the silence of the wood, Jonet, Gellis and I couldn’t help but squeal with excitement, our breath white swirls of crystal mist.

Despite the fact that Hecate was upset that we had made and carried out our plans without consulting her, she had forgiven us and she was even helping us: we now knew we’d have to go to the pit of Acheron, the local nickname of a little natural cave in the side of a rocky hill near Covesea.

And we’d have to tell Macbeth his fortune again.

The next day Macbeth showed up and we were waiting for him.

My favorite prophecy continues to be the one about the forest of Birnam Wood coming to high Dunsinane Hill. Jonet and Gellis will never agree with me; they both like the one about how none of woman-born shall harm Macbeth.

Banquo, of course, enjoyed the part where he came dancing out of the shadows like an apparition, spinning and lurching around in a golden paper crown and borrowed scarlet cape.

Macbeth, unhinged, kneeling in his agony and elation, was red and gray, his face, his hands, mottled. I remember that.

In fact, I find I cannot forget it.

Now that it’s all over and Macbeth is dead and buried in the churchyard, this story is just a memory, our devious plot, our fantastical and successful adventure.

About which we witches reminisce.

And moreover, we still attend the witches’ dances in Birnam Wood.

The End

Book launches at Home with Malcolm Ledger

John D. presenting ‘Kyoto: A Literary Guide’ (photo Malcolm Ledger)

Authors’ presentation and social event, Nov 15.
Report by Felicity Tillack (photos by her unless otherwise stated)

On a beautiful November Sunday afternoon in northern Kyoto city, the WiK members congregated for a special social and celebratory event. 

The main reason for the gathering was to support authors whose books were published in the time of corona. As Rebecca Otowa mentioned in her talk, “Authors this year have had no publicity, no support, nothing.” 

Equally enjoyable was the chance to see the beautiful home of Malcolm Ledger, and the autumn colours of the hills and forest around it.

Photo by Malcolm Ledger

Members arrived around 2pm, and had a fine selection of dips and drinks prepared by Malcolm and his partner. Old friends and new acquaintances got a chance to meet and mingle.

Then Malcolm led tours around his impressive house. A renovated ryokan, the building is 60 years old and boasts 17 rooms. One is available to rent via Airbnb, so that guests can have a more personal experience. Other rooms include Malcolm’s library, a comfortable catio and rooms set aside for enjoying listening to the sound of the river.

Once the tours were complete, it was on to the main event. Rebecca Otowa was first and she gave an insightful introduction to how she became an author as well as a preview of her third book, The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper.

Patrick Hochner went next. He spoke too about the process of pitching and preparing his photo book, 100 Kyoto Sights that he collaborated on with John Dougill. 

Finally, John Dougill spoke about the anthology that he and members of his long running Poetry in Translation group had worked together to create. The editorial team included Paul Carty, Joe Cronin and Itsuyo Higashinaka, who were all present. Called, Kyoto, A Literary Guide, it is a collection of poems, in both English and Japanese, about Kyoto. Two of those attending, Ken Rodgers and Chris Mosdell, contributed poems to the anthology.

After the presentations were complete, members had the chance to pick up the books at a discount, and score the signature of the author to boot.

The evening closed with a tasty selection of sushi that Malcolm had kindly prepared. 

The event was a huge success and a wonderful chance to meet other members again and hear about the endeavours of the many talented authors the group boasts. All going well, it will not be the last chance to meet up in person this year. 

Writers in Kyoto Present the Sixth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition

  • THEME: Kyoto (English language submissions only)
  • DEADLINE: March 31st, 2021 (Midnight JST)
  • GENRE: Short Shorts (unpublished material only)
  • WORD LIMIT: 300 Words (to fit on a single page)
  • FORM: Short poems, character studies, essays, travel tips, whimsy, haiku sequence, haibun, wordplays, dialogue, experimental verse, etc. In short, anything that helps show the spirit of place in a fresh light.

Submission Requirements

  • Limited to one submission per person
  • You do not need to be located in Kyoto to participate. We accept submissions from anywhere in the world.
  • Must be submitted by Microsoft Word attachment file. (Submissions by PDF attachment will NOT be accepted.)
  • At the top of the Microsoft Word attachment (not in the body of the e-mail), please include the following: Full Name, E-mail Contact, Nationality, Current Residence (Town, Country).
  • Do not provide any special formatting to your piece. We request your information at the top with the text directly below.
  • Please send your Microsoft Word attachment file to: kyotowritingcompetition2021@gmail.com

Top Prizes

First Prize: ¥30,000, Kyoto Prize (To Be Decided), One-year complimentary WiK membership (April 2021 – March 2022), publication on the Writers in Kyoto website, and inclusion in the WiK Anthology

Second and Third Prize: Kyoto Prize (To Be Decided), Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto by John Dougill and John Einarsen, publication on the Writers in Kyoto website, and inclusion in the WiK Anthology

Publishing Rights/Copyright

Writers in Kyoto reserve the right to publish entries on the group’s website. Winning entries will be eligible for publication in the WiK Anthology. Authors retain the copyright of their own work.

Local Prizes

Japan Local Prize: A selected ceramic piece from the Robert Yellin Yakimoto Gallery 

USA PrizePhila-Nipponica: An Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan and one-year complimentary Japan-America Society of Greater Philadelphia membership

Kyoto prizes are generously provided by the Kyoto City Tourism Association.  Phila-Nipponica: An Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan is awarded by the Japan-America Society of Greater Philadelphia. This competition is also supported by Kyoto Journal and Kyoto International Community House.

The WiK Competition logo was designed by Rebecca Otowa, author of The Mad Kyoto Shoe SwapperAt Home in Japan, and My Awesome Japan Adventure.

For More Information about Writers in Kyoto 

  • Writers in Kyoto website: https://writersinkyoto.com/
  • Writers in Kyoto anthologies available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions:

Echoes: WiK Anthology 2 (2017) ed. John Dougill, Amy Chavez and Mark Richardson

Encounters with Kyoto: WiK Anthology 3 (2019) ed. Jann Williams and Ian Josh Yates

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Essential Work (Short story)

by Lisa Twaronite Sone

Not to brag, but my cash drawer always balances at the end of my shift. Not once in all of my decades behind a register has it ever gone over, or come up short.

If you understand how busy supermarkets can get, you’ll appreciate how miraculous this is. But really, it’s no miracle, just hard work and discipline.

I’ve always paid close attention, which is why I’ve always known my place in life. Since early childhood, I figured out that I had better not waste my time and energy hoping for anything spectacular. So I learned to find joy in the moment: a pretty flower in someone’s garden, a hot drink on a cold morning, the relief of sinking into a soft bed at night. I’ve always had a roof over my head, plenty to eat, and good health, and it’s amazing how few people realize this is enough. More than enough.

I’ve also been lucky to work at a job I find meaningful. What I do might seem unimportant on the surface, but I know it isn’t: humans have to eat to survive, and I’m a link in the chain that brings food from its place of origin to the people it sustains. Even before the pandemic, I knew my work was vital to keep society humming along, nourished.

My job also gives me a unique opportunity to serve, which I have come to realize is a great honor.

I start by examining every customer that approaches my register. They don’t even notice me looking at them, because honestly, I’ve never been noticeable — I’ve grown even plainer in middle age, and wearing my protective face mask these days has rendered me almost invisible. I might as well be one of those new automatic checkout machines that will eventually replace me.

There’s an infinite number of customer types, but I can fit everyone into a few basic categories.

First, there are the suffering wretches. I can feel their pain as they shuffle past me, without even looking at the bottomless despair in their eyes. Some of them are clearly homeless and disheveled, while others are well-dressed in fancy clothes. I will never know what kind of ghastly problems they have, but there’s nothing I can do to help them unless they ask, and no one ever has. So I check them through as efficiently as possible, with a silent prayer that they may find peace.

Then there are the beautiful ones — the kind of beauty that makes you stop and stare, and wonder how nature could have created something like that. But such beauty is both a blessing and a curse, so I need not do anything to help balance these people. How many of them will end up trapped in miserable marriages, or die alone? My guess is at least half of them, just based on people I’ve known. So I quickly check these customers through, too, and pray that their beauty brings them joy, not sorrow.

The rich people sometimes overlap with the beautiful people, but not always. I’m very good at weeding out those who only pretend to be rich, with their flashy designer clothes and expensive jewelry. The truly rich people wear understated clothing, but if you look very closely, you can see hand-tailoring, and their simple classic jewelry was handed down to them from wealthy ancestors. They wear everything so naturally that it looks as if it all grew from their own skin. But just like beauty, wealth is a curse just as often as it’s a blessing. I check these people through the quickest of all, and I pray their riches don’t corrupt them, and that they use it for good, not evil.

There are too many categories to describe here, but at least once a day, I find the kind of person who needs balance.

It’s usually a woman, though not always. She’s often plain like me, but she carries herself as if she’s beautiful, which is the first sign. She might indeed be beautiful inside, in which case I don’t need to do anything, so it’s very important to be certain.

I always give her a chance, as I do with every customer. I smile and greet her, and sometimes, she makes eye contact and returns my greeting, or even smiles back at me. That’s a sign that everything is in balance, so I can just check her through quickly with my usual silent prayer.

Sometimes, though, she scowls and ignores me. She considers herself too far above me, to waste her time interacting with a supermarket cashier. These people frequently wear their face masks down round their chins — annoyed that something is interfering with their right to optimal oxygen, I suppose.

I’ve recognized this type of person since I was in school: the kids who were plain like me, and below-average students like me, but for some reason, they felt entitled to the best of everything. The funny part was that the more they acted as if they deserved this, the more teachers gave them what they wanted — the role in the school play even though they had no talent, the spot on the cheerleading team when they couldn’t do a handstand in the tryouts, and, saddest for me, the grades they didn’t earn.

I would turn in my mediocre homework assignments and end up with wretched grades, whereas they would do identical work and somehow end up shining. Their parents were the type who followed up every bad grade with a call to the principal to complain about the teacher, while my parents were too busy eking out a living to care about how I did in school — or even if I went at all, for that matter.

The entitled kids didn’t even have to get top grades, because they knew their parents would pay for them to go to college somewhere, whereas I knew mine would certainly not, and that my grades were far too low to get any scholarships. Of course, I later realized none of this mattered, as I was able to find meaningful work to support my simple, satisfying life — but when I was a teenager, I admit I used to gnash my teeth over the unfairness of it all, and even cry myself to sleep.

I’m happy to say I haven’t cried about anything in decades. When I meet these people now, I feel only peace, and a sense of purpose.

As I ring up the woman’s groceries, I look carefully for the perfect item, and I always find it. It’s never the frozen lobster tails or the bottles of wine. It’s always something small, like the tiny wedge of blue cheese that she intends to crumble onto her salad.

I’ve been doing this for so many years that my moves are as smooth as a magician’s. When she isn’t looking, I ring up her cheese, and then I “accidentally” drop it. It slides gently down my leg, and I push it under the shelf with my foot, to be retrieved when my shift ends — and then later that evening, I will spread it on my toast — a tiny karmic reward for me, surely, but that isn’t the main purpose.

She’ll have to eat her salad with no cheese. At first she’ll probably blame me for forgetting to ring it up or bag it, but then she’ll wonder if maybe she herself left it in her shopping basket, or dropped it somewhere? Or did she even remember to buy it at all? She’ll question herself, just a bit, or maybe even a lot. She’ll feel uneasy. When I pray for such people, I always remind myself that they’re among those who need help most of all, because they’re charging through life with a total lack of awareness — and is such a life really worth living?

Rarely, the entitled people do return to complain about their missing items, waving their receipts and demanding to see the manager. They always get what they came for, because the manager never challenges them, and lets them take a replacement item. In these cases, I make sure to return my dropped item to the shelf, so that it doesn’t skew the store’s inventory. I won’t get to enjoy it myself later, but that’s all right — sometimes, the item itself simply isn’t part of restoring the balance. The universe just wanted to send them a minor inconvenience, and after all, the exact way everything unfolds isn’t for me to decide.

One day, something a little different happened.

The woman returned to the store, and approached me, not the manager. She yanked her mask down — to enhance annunciation, I assume — and aimed a manicured finger in my general direction, as if I weren’t worthy of being pointed out directly. “My avocado wasn’t in my bag, and I’m sure I saw HER take it!”

The manager, a young man, rushed over to see what the problem was. Store managers are like everyone else — which is to say, a few of them are power-hungry sociopaths who take pleasure in the misery of others. But the vast majority just want to do their jobs and go home every day with the least amount of trouble, and this manager was fortunately like most.

“May I help you?” he asked the woman.

“She stole my avocado! I saw her! Look, she rang it up, it’s on the receipt, but it wasn’t in my bag!”

The manager was already looking down at the floor, where he spotted the little oval shadow under the shelf.

“Ah, there it is! She must have dropped it!” he said cheerfully to the woman, and then sternly to me, “You need to be more careful.”

I didn’t take his warning personally. I knew that he probably wouldn’t even remember my name if it weren’t on my badge. If he had any impression of me at all, he saw a harmless, middle-aged woman who never argued with anyone, who showed up early for her shifts, who didn’t complain if she had to stay late, and whose cash drawer always balanced.

But the woman didn’t give up. “She dropped it on purpose! I SAW her!”

The manager shifted uncomfortably and fiddled with the straps of his mask.

I did what I had always done whenever kids at school tried to bully me: I wiped all expression off my face, and pretended I was made of air. I held my breath.

The woman sneered, “I want her fired. I’m calling your corporate headquarters to say you have a thief working for you!”

And that was her mistake. She should have just kept insisting that she saw me drop her avocado on purpose, and no doubt she would have been sent on her way with an even deeper apology and maybe some really good coupons. But she went a step too far and threatened to go over the manager’s head, so he wasn’t going to play her game anymore.

“Ma’am, this appears to be an accident,” he said, and then for good measure, he said to me one more time, “You need to be more careful.”

The woman, unsatisfied, stomped out of the store — leaving behind her perfectly ripe avocado, forgotten on the floor under the shelf. I could already taste its smooth green flesh on my toast.

But first, I needed to pray for her, and then I had another hour left on my shift before I could balance my cash drawer, punch out, and go home.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

The Wind’s Word by James Woodham

The Wind’s Word
(all photos by the author)

intricate scripture –
each leaf’s quiver the wind’s word
on a page of air

snail on his way
down the rain soaked road
easy grace of line

shadows of bamboo
score a melody of wind
on the old stone wall

crow carries its cry
to the heights of the pine tree
then on into sky

cry of the crow pure
and meaningless as the wash
of waves on the shore

cicada insists
till its presence addresses
surfing the silence

woman in full bloom
pregnant with her future joy
swelling summer sun

sunbathing truly
is lying meditation –
breathing ocean

yellow leaves tumbling
on the tail of the typhoon
mountain sighing

under the big blue
laid out in such opulence
hills’ fall brocade

out of the mountains
momentary birdcall
lost in sky

the deserted shore
heron flaps the lake’s surface
owning shadow

lake the palest blue
the sky listens to itself
spilling birdsong

crested grebe dives
the lake gathering its thoughts
yielding grebe again

the mind’s erasure –
ninja of the poem
stealing into silence

******************

For previous contributions by James Woodham, please see the striking poems and stunning photography here.  Or here. Or here. Or here. For his previous posting, A Single Thread, see here.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Chikubujima (Edward J. Taylor)

It takes some time getting to Chikubujima. You first must take a train up to Biwa’s narrow northern shoulder, eternally bullied by the brawny peaks of Hirasan above. A boat will then take you to the island. On approach it looks in decay, centuries of guano having stripped many of the trees and eroded the slopes. Just off the boat, a photographer snipes you paparazzi style, then later will try to bilk you of 1000 yen. A flight of very steep steps begin here, leading up to the main grounds. Our group of five detours first to the shrine. Along the way, a couple of smaller shrines hug the islands ridges, one to the white snake god (which I now know is a manifestation of Benzaiten/Benten) and another to the black dragon god of rain. It is easy to imagine the latter, rolling slowly across the waters of the lake, to wreak fury on the islanders who’d chosen to live in the middle of one of the oldest lakes in the world. No one lives there now, except for a handful of priests. One of them sells religious trinkets in a small structure that seemed to defy gravity. For a couple hundred yen you can buy two small disks, write prayers on them, then fling them sidearm through the torii arch that rests on a rocky promontory below.

We wander down a small path to find a cluster of buildings that offers the required view and place to sit. Lunchtime. Above us, cormorants play gargoyle in the bare trees. Now and again a hawk will cruise by, eyeing our food but acting cool about it. We follow the trail a bit more down to the water, where we find what has probably been an old boat launch. Compared to the busy port on the other side of the island, this is very low tech, with a mere two pieces of rope. I wonder how many monks escape at night, to row over to mainland bars and brothels.

We walk back through the shrine and up to the Buddhist buildings above. There used to be more of a fusion here, but now the two religions have been sent to their neutral corners. The buildings are amongst the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, with gorgeous curved roofs, faded wood, and detailed animal carvings. Hōgonji’s main hall elicits respect as it climbs skyward above the trees. Among other things, there is a carving of En-no-Gyōja here (though under a different name), a long hall built from the wood of warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s boat, and Kannon statues showing her in all her various manifestations, as if it were Oscar night. Plus the obligatory statue of Kobo Daishi standing proudly overlooking all.

I stop by the noykojo and get my last stamp of the Saikoku Kannon 33 Temple pilgrimage. I’m quiet for a while after this, and I’m not sure why. When I started this pilgrimage in June 2002, I did it for my former father-in-law, then diagnosed with stomach cancer. I’m not much one for prayer, but I want to dedicate the spirit of my efforts to him and his fight. Little did I know then that I’d lose my own son four months later, with my father-in-law following three months to the day after that. I suppose my quiet today is due to their being with me as I close this sacred circle.

As we make our way back down to the boats, dragonflies swirl above us, appropriate to an island where the spirits of the dead are reputed to live. The ride back is cooler, the humidity and clouds of the morning burned off, the sky rich and blue, the details of the surrounding peaks vivid. A short walk off the ferry in Omi Imazu we find a quiet stretch of beach and baptize ourselves in the waters of the lake. Later, back in Kyoto, we’ll take sacrament in the form of pizza and beer.

**************

For more by Edward J. Taylor, please check out this travel piece along Korea’s east coast, or this account of the Hoshi Matsuri, or this personal account of Japan’s hosting of the World Cup, or this article on visiting Cuba, or this lighthearted look at walking along the Kamogawa.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Interview with Lisa Twaronite Sone

Lisa Twaronite Sone

1) Could you tell us a little about yourself?
I moved to Japan to flee family expectations, and also to chase a guy. 

I first arrived in 1985 to study at Doshisha for a year, where I met the Kyoto native who would much later become my husband. He wasn’t the reason I came in the first place, but he’s definitely why I kept coming back.The family stuff was pretty mundane: I loved my parents very much, and basically got along well with them, but my mother had wanted me to be a lawyer, and she never quite understood my choice to go to journalism school instead of law school. Putting thousands of miles between myself and my family (particularly in the Dark Ages before the Internet, when phone calls were pricey and my primary means of keeping in touch was the letter) allowed me to start adult life on my own terms.  

2) How did you get into working for Reuters?
I was one of those starry-eyed idealists who wanted not only to concentrate on the craft of writing, but to give a voice to the voiceless, shine a light in dark corners, and work tirelessly & objectively to relay the truth to all corners of the world. Reuters and Dow Jones (where I worked before Reuters) are both reputable news agencies with long histories, and I was grateful to have had the chance to play my small roles at both.

3) What are the main attributes needed for work at Reuters?
Wire reporting requires writing quickly, tightly and accurately under daily deadline pressure. A commitment to news is helpful (see my answer to #2), as is an ability to churn out copy with the intensity of a gerbil spinning on an exercise wheel, while trying not to spiral into despair at the thought that most reporters will be replaced by artificial intelligence sooner than we think.

4) What are the plus points and minus points of working for Reuters? 
I can’t understate how wonderful it was to work with so many truly brilliant colleagues over the decades. Other plus points included a steady paycheck, and the knowledge that people were actually reading what I wrote.  The minuses….well, the main one is that overall, the news model is changing, and traditional reporting jobs are disappearing. It ‘s like a big game of musical chairs, and there just aren’t enough seats when the music stops. 

5) What other writing have you done?

I’ve been writing all kinds of things ever since I learned to write! I have a stack of unpublished fiction that I wrote just for fun, but never thought of publishing because I was so focused on telling the truth for a living. 

6) What are your plans for the future?
 
I can imagine living year round in our little Kyoto house someday, hiking in the mountains, writing, reading, tending the garden and cooking meals for visiting friends & family. But since my life has never unfolded exactly as I planned it, I will honestly say that I don’t know.

Featured writing

The Heron Catchers (Pt 2)

This is the second part of an extract by David Joiner from his work in progress. For Part One with an introduction by the author, click here. (NB Because of WordPress rules, the formatting has been changed.)

***************

The Shirasagi Express felt longer going back to Kanazawa. Sedge and his friends had turned a row of train seats around so they could face each other and speak freely, but they were too tired to engage much and, except for Sedge, everyone nodded off at different points. Sedge’s mind was on Nozomi. He’d messaged her this morning after checking out of the ryokan, but an hour and a half later he hadn’t received a reply. Imagining that their shop was busy today, he felt guilty that he wasn’t there to help her. But he was also aware that she’d sent him off for the weekend with his friends, declining his suggestions that she either join them or go somewhere only with him – thoughts that kept his guilt at bay.

When they arrived in Kanazawa, Sedge’s friends thanked him for the weekend. Shinji handed Sedge a box of wagashi that the three of them had bought at the ryokan’s gift shop without his knowledge.

“These are for Nozomi. Please apologize to her for having taken you away for so long.” Masa added: “And tell her that the next time you have reason to celebrate we won’t intrude so selfishly on your happiness together.”

In less than twenty minutes Sedge was standing in front of his apartment building, relieved to be home. Entering their apartment on the fifth floor, he called out “Tadaima” across the genkan and toward their living space, not expecting to hear Nozomi’s voice. At this time of day, he knew she would still be working.

The apartment appeared to have been thoroughly cleaned, and he imagined that she had taken advantage of his absence to put it in better order. Perhaps she had felt lonely over the last two days, and cleaning had made the time pass faster. As tired as he felt, he was grateful to see the normal clutter gone.

He veered into their bedroom, intent on taking a nap. As he collapsed on their bed, the last thing he saw before closing his eyes was the bare space on the wall where a photo of Nozomi’s family when she was a child had hung.

He slept until five o’clock. Rather than go see Nozomi, who he expected back by six, he went into the kitchen to make rice, then took out vegetables for a salad, as well as tofu, miso, dashi, and kombu tororo seaweed to prepare miso soup. At five-thirty, he rushed to the Daiwa supermarket across the street to buy her favorite sashimi: scallops, yellowtail, and sea bream.

It was nearly six when he got back. After setting the table, he wandered to the window. He watched people on the sidewalk drift past, and others lined up at the crosswalk directly below, but Nozomi wasn’t among them.

Having finished preparing their dinner, he retrieved his laptop from his backpack and set it on the dining room table. He logged onto the bank account they used for their shop. He felt a tremor in his heart when he saw that the account balance was almost zero, and that a succession of maximum daily withdrawals had been made over the last three days. He tried to imagine what transactions she might have paid, but nothing came to mind that would have depleted it. Logging into his personal account next, he saw that its balance had been depleted as well. He tried to log into Nozomi’s account, but the password he had saved on his computer no longer worked. What could this possibly mean? Only two days ago his account had shown $30,000. And their business account had shown close to half of this.

In a panic, he couldn’t find his phone. When he located it and called Nozomi, he heard a message that made him dial her several more times, but to no avail: “The number you called cannot be reached. Please check the number and dial again. The number you called cannot be…”

He called their shop but she didn’t pick up.

He stumbled back to the dining room window. The gingko trees on the sidewalk, more than half of which were green with new buds, had filled with crows; between his apartment and the hotel across the street they swooped onto the branches in growing numbers. It was March 3rd – thankfully he and Nozomi had paid rent for their shop and apartment at the end of last month. In four more weeks, however, he would have nothing to pay with, and neither landlord would let him charge his rent to a credit card. He had no idea what to do.

He sat down again to email Nozomi, only for his message to be returned undeliverable a minute later. Looking for her on her social media accounts, he saw they had all been deleted. He rushed to the drawer beneath their TV where they kept their passports in an old cookie tin. Ripping off its lid, his US passport was the only one there. He dumped out the drawer on the floor and scattered its contents, but there was no sign of her passport anywhere.

He ran into their bedroom and flung open Nozomi’s closet. Where two days ago her clothes had been crowded together on fifty or sixty hangers, and out-of-season clothing folded and stuffed into plastic crates, most of her clothes were now gone.

Their marriage had recently hit six years. Before they’d married, Sedge had been in a number of relationships, and every time one ended it had been because he’d walked away. The women he’d dated had usually fallen short in some way, or he simply hadn’t been ready to marry them, though he remembered one relationship he’d ended because he felt that the woman deserved better than him. Not once had someone he loved walked away from him. For Nozomi to do so was unthinkable. Perhaps even more improbable was that she had stolen from him, leaving him with nothing. The money was important, but if she had needed it, he would have given it all to her. It was the selfishness of the act that felt like she’d carried out some sort of violence against him. How could she have loved him one moment and in the next left him like she did?

He fell to his knees in the middle of her closet and looked in horror at its emptiness. The only worse fate he could imagine was Nozomi dying. He started to weep but stopped when he realized she obviously felt nothing of the sort for him.

Gasping for breath, it occurred to him to contact the police. But he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Something made him hurry down to the lobby to check his mail, which he hadn’t bothered to do after returning from Wakasa Bay. Peering inside his mailbox, the only item he saw was a postcard.

Before reading it he studied the photograph on its front: an aerial shot of Tokyo in which the entire city was visible and yet nothing specific could be seen. The photo captured an impersonal coldness – nothing but the tops of buildings, with lines indicating streets cutting between them. Reluctantly he turned it over.

Sedge,

I had no choice but to leave you like I did, and I know that nothing I could say would make you understand. Also, I hope one day you’ll forgive me for taking all our money. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think you’d be all right. Please don’t look for me. By the time you receive this I’ll be far away.

Nozomi

“Narita City” was stamped on an upper corner of the postcard; she had sent it on March 1st. She must have mailed it from an airport hotel or from within the airport itself. Where on earth had she gone? He tried to think of what places had been high on her list to visit; conversations they’d had about traveling, both within Japan and overseas; travel articles he’d seen her reading; dreams she’d shared about leaving Kanazawa. Nothing came to mind. All he could think of were the mutual friends they had in America, and the friends she had made while spending half a year in high school as an exchange student in California. But these weren’t relationships that would have torn her away from him and away from her life in Japan. He couldn’t imagine where she’d gone, or for what reasons.

The unremembered conversation they’d had at the ryokan loomed in his thoughts. Had she explained herself to him? Or had she pretended that everything was normal and that she looked forward to seeing him again? So much could be said during a fifteen-minute call. Or so little. Or even nothing at all.

He imagined their conversation – or whatever it had been – burrowing into the cold bottom of Wakasa Bay, lost to him perhaps forever.

********************

For samples of David Joiner’s previous writing, see his piece on Izumi Kyoka or this extract from his forthcoming novel entitled Kanazawa. For information relating to his Vietnam novel, Lotusland, see here.

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