Pocket Biome

One day, I decided to hop on the next train for Akita City. I had the week off work and no plans. I booked my hotel on the way to Morioka Station. Once I got there, I bought some snacks and beer and had the perfect amount of time left to wait for my train.

I had an incredible train ride. The mountains between Iwate and Akita might be one of the most beautiful places in the world. I pulled myself from the window to eat my snacks, drink my beers, write a little bit. I felt incredible when I arrived.

But I didn’t have any real plans. I figured I’d go see the Sea of Japan, and then just walk around the city, go to some parks, and eat during the day. Then, at night, I’d go to bars and walk around.

On one such night, I had had about enough wandering around and stopped in a convenience store to use the bathroom on my way back to my hotel. There was only one bathroom, and the one person ahead of me was a gorgeous woman of about 23. I figured there wouldn’t be much time to talk to her, but we made eye contact and smiled a bit. Then we both looked away.

Some time passed. I said something to her about how long it was taking and she laughed. I asked her name.

“Michiko. You can speak Japanese?” She seemed surprised.

I told her my name. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from here! What about you?”

“I’m from America.”

“Oh, wow!”

“What are you doing out tonight?”

“My friend and I went out to eat!” She pointed at her friend on the other side of the store. Her friend came over.

“What’s going on?”

“Whoever is in the bathroom is taking a long time. This is Nathan.”

I said hello to her. Michiko told her a little about me. “Are you from Akita, too?” I asked her.

“No, I’m from Morioka.” She responded in English, which was surprising.

“Oh, you speak English? I live in Morioka!”

The three of us talked a bit. Michiko decided to knock on the door. It had been at least 10 minutes since I got there, and it seemed like Michiko had already been waiting for a bit. After another minute, we heard a flush, a guy came out and apologized. He looked like he had fallen asleep. Michiko went in.

Her friend’s name was Sayaka. She was studying to be an English teacher. Michiko was beautiful, but Sayaka was pretty cute, too.

“Since you live in Morioka, maybe we can hang out sometime? You can practice English and I could practice Japanese.”

We were exchanging information when Michiko came out. She wanted in on it, too. “Do you live in Morioka, too?”

“No, I live in Tokyo. I’m just here for the holiday.”

I was disappointed. We said our goodbyes.

“Good thing that guy took so long in the bathroom!” Michiko said.

They left and I finally went to the bathroom.

Later, I sent Michiko a message asking if she’d want to have lunch with me before we left town, but she had plans. We talked a little more and she quit responding. Sayaka never responded to the message I sent her.

And there you have it.


*Michinoku is an old way of referring to the Tohoku region.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

I wake up to a siren.

I’m not sure if it’s a dream or not. The sound doesn’t stop, so I brush off some sleep, get up, and look out the window. It’s not coming from my house. It’s not from the neighbor’s. I’ve never heard this kind of siren before. It goes on for a long time, urgently rising and falling.

I look out the window and it’s finally started to rain. A cool breeze blows in through the window.

The siren fades into the distance. So I go back into bed, uneasy. I wonder what it could have been, and a sleepy thought comes to mind. Maybe there was a fire somewhere. But it’s raining? As I drift back to sleep, my ears are straining to hear what else could happen. But there’s just deafening silence.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.


*this story was originally published in Sky Puddle.

I was coming out of being blackout drunk. My phone died as I made my way to the train station. I knew I had just left a restaurant, and that I had eaten with some people that I had first met earlier in the day at a beer festival. I recalled calling an older woman the devil, too.

I got to the train station about 5 minutes after the last train for my little mountain town had left. I was stuck in the city for the night and didn’t feel great. I turned around and went back to the main downtown area. I’d stay at an internet cafe.

Not right away, though. I was in between too drunk and not drunk enough to go to sleep on the padded floors of an internet cafe. And I was really just feeling kind of lonely. I didn’t know where to look for any of my friends, and I didn’t really think about it anyway. I thought of Eri, the “massage therapist,” and how she would probably be out on the corner. Maybe she’d go to the family restaurant Gusto with me. In Japan, restaurants specializing in generic Western food are called “family restaurants.” Gusto is always open and would be a good place to get rehydrated before going to sleep because they had a drink bar.

I found Eri, and after turning down a massage, I asked if she would go to Gusto with me. She said she had to work. I said I’d pay, but she said it didn’t matter.

I walked around in that red-light district. I don’t really know why. I wasn’t interested in any of the services offered there. I had been there before in a similar state, and a woman who I had met locked eyes with me. She didn’t like me. I had been more interested in her than she had liked. I didn’t understand anything about her life and didn’t understand that I didn’t understand that at the time.

We locked eyes and she turned away. I wanted to invite her to Gusto but decided against it. She must have noticed how I was just walking around, it was a pretty small area. I really didn’t want to go to Gusto alone yet. I went back to Eri to see if I could charge my phone there. She said only if I got a massage, and an actual massage would be a lot cheaper than what she normally offered.

I went up, and she kept asking if I was sure a regular massage was all I wanted. “That and Gusto,” I said to her. She wasn’t interested. I plugged my phone in and took my shirt off. She put a towel over my back and started rubbing. I asked her why she massaged over a towel and she was shocked. She asked if it was ok to touch my back directly, and I agreed. After 5 minutes at best, she asked if I was sure that I didn’t want anything else. She said she couldn’t go to Gusto before I could ask. My phone had a little power, and I decided to just go to Gusto alone.

I don’t think I had ever been there while they were still serving dinner, and I was a little disappointed. I didn’t really want any meat, I wanted pancakes. But I had to settle for meat unless I wanted to wait for several hours. I ordered the drink bar, and probably had 5 cups of water and 3 of juice. I ate about half my meal, and then I had the drunk poops. I think I fell asleep on the toilet for a while or something. I have no idea what happened but it suddenly felt as though I had been in there for a very long time. I washed my hands, came out and my food had grown cold. I finished it, paid my bill and left.

I got to the internet cafe, and they were sold out of the more comfortable cubicles–the ones with the padded floors and pillows. There was a room with a chair left, and I took it. I took my shoes off, reclined and put my feet up and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up about 5 hours later, at 6 o’clock on the spot. I was grateful that I had gone to Gusto. I was happy that I had resisted paying for any sexual act, too. I was quite confused about what had happened while I was blacked out. I realized that a woman I had been flirting with was married to an acquaintance. Not only that but that I was at their house with a bunch of people, playing with their kids, acting a fool the very same day. At that very moment, I swore to myself to always eat before attending a beer festival. I didn’t think to charge my phone before I fell asleep, so as I looked through how I had used my phone during that period, it quickly died.

Staying the 5 hours in the cafe earned me a free light meal. I ordered it, and it took forever to come out so I tried to sleep more, but I was growing to hate the chair. The food finally came, and it was a tiny portion. I didn’t want to go to Gusto again, and it would be the only place open for a while. I had eggs, bread, fruit, and coffee at my place anyway.

By the time I got home after walking to the train station downtown, riding to my little mountain town, and walking home from the station, it felt like a week had gone by.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

The sun was setting on my final day in Japan. I was sitting in the airport, trying to think of something to look forward to. Honestly, I had planned to leave to study abroad and never come back. But I never came up with a way to follow through with that, and I was already in the airport.

I would need a friend when I got home. It would be winter break, and no one would be around other than Kelsie. I moved when I was in high school and didn’t really form a lasting friendship with anyone in the new town except for her.

The first night she had available was scheduled to be last night on Earth. Early the next morning, the Mayan Long Count calendar would complete its cycle, and people were concerned that the world would end in one way or another. Naturally, we decided to go see The Hobbit in theaters.

*

When the time came, I had actually already been dragged to see it once, but it was after I got way too high with some of my old friends and I slept through pretty much the whole movie. I waited until we were on the way there to tell her that, though.

We were in her car and it was icy out. She told me that she had been planning on going ice skating, but she broke those plans because I had just got back from Japan and she saw those other people all the time.

She always drove when we hung out. I never liked driving, and she always liked driving. She told me about a dream she had about driving. She was on a highway, a one-way, late at night, and unsure of which way she was supposed to be going. It sounded more like a nightmare to me.

We joked around during the previews, and pretty much remained quiet through the movie. For 182 minutes, I sat, considering if I should go for her hand. She never postured herself in a way that seemed to invite it. I felt like this every time we hung out, both willing to see where things could go, but deeply afraid of where things could go.

The movie finished. We stayed through the end of the credits. I didn’t want our world to end. There had been almost no one in the theater, and we stepped outside into what appeared to be a deserted, frozen wasteland. We started talking about other movies and decided we’d go back to her mom’s place to watch Hanna.

I always liked her mom. She just seemed so authentic. She advised that we help ourselves to some beer and retired to her room shortly after we arrived. In the cold, we were soon next to each other, under a blanket. I struggled to pay attention to the movie; I was much more interested in the placement of her hands.

She dropped me off at my mom’s place after the movie. The world was supposed to end in about an hour. We hugged in her car and our ears aligned like a kiss. I had to go back in for another one, and for a moment I thought I should just kiss her mouth with my mouth. Instead, I said goodbye and stepped out of the car.

I went inside and stretched out in bed. I decided I would tell her how I felt or make a move the next time we hung out, for better or for worse. I drifted off the sleep peacefully.

Our free time did not align again for the rest of my time home from college. School wasn’t too far away, but I wouldn’t see her through the spring, either. And then late one summer night, she was on the highway, a one-way, unsure of which way to go.

One world did end that night in December 2012, I just didn’t know it at the time.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.