With life slowly returning back to normal, I was still deeply haunted by the ghosts of Ishinomaki...and apparently, I was not alone.
One day, late in the evening, Keiko was talking with a young gaijin man who was visiting her university from Australia. He came to Japan, chasing ghosts and their stories...
"...it was astonishingly devastating what had happened on March 11th. We just returned from Ishinomaki." he said, sipping his hot tea, yet looking mentally exhausted. "Ever since our first 'spiritual' encounter, it has been rather..." I entered the living room, silently. He immediately stood up, bowing towards me as he said with much respect.
"Sorry for impeding on your private residents, Miss Tamaya-san. Please allow me to properly introduce myself, my name is Luca Nguyen, a fellow student at the university. Your sister, Keiko-san, has been very kind enough to invite us over to discuss what had happened during the Tōhoku Earthquake."
"Oh..." I lingered at the crossroads between the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. 'Who else is here?' as he constantly switched back to the second person. I did not know who he was, nor did I expect my Onee-chan to be bringing strangers into our house! "Uhm, well...welcome." as I sat off in the distance; avoiding him.
"Many apologies Tamaya-san!" Luca bowed to my sister this time "We think that our tea has finally gone cold..." meaning that it was time to leave.
"Uhm, so you went to Ishinomaki?" I asked him as he nodded "Why?"
Luca glanced at my sister as she nodded, "Please allow me to refill your cup, Nguyan-san." as she accepted his empty cup of tea. She walked off into the kitchen as I watched the young man, studying him.
"It is a long story." he began, inviting me to join him in the living room "Our father taught at the Ishinomaki University, under the leadership and guidance of your own adoptive father, Kallis-sensei."
"You knew my father!?" as this was a stunning revelation!
"Academically." Luca smiled "'I' (masculine/written as 'ore') was one of his undergraduate students at the time. 'I' (ore) was at the university when the Tōhoku earthquake occurred. 'I' (feminine/written as 'watashi') volunteered with your father in the search and recovery efforts, just after the quake."
I stood there listening as he was constantly in a battle with his first person and second person...hard to believe that someone with a linguistic issue would be a student at a prestigious university. And then there was another issue that I am certain that my sister had picked up on by now--his pronouns were switching from 'ore' to 'watashi', and then from watashi back to ore.
"I see." as that must have been a grim sight to behold, nevertheless.
"No man should ever have to see so much death and carnage as your father and we had saw that day. Even to this day...we can barely think about it without..." tears rolled down his cheeks as I felt bad for him, giving him some time to recover.
"That is why you returned?" I then asked him.
He nodded, summarizing "Over 18,000 people perished in less than 24 hours! And many who had survived to pick up the pieces of their lives, including myself, still carry the scars from that disaster."
"After the disaster, we were unable to return home for many months due to losing our passport and paperwork in the tsunami. But during that time, we had gained a foreign perspective that had changed our lives. That tsunami had changed my (ore) life..."
"We loved Ishinomaki--unlike the big cities of Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto--it had a mystical feeling to it. Like time moved slowly here. The people were very much in tune with the mountains, rivers, and the ocean..."
YOU ARE READING
To Cure A NEET
Science Fiction"Jeremy was once a successful man with a promising career, a lovely girlfriend, friends galore, and everything that he could ever desire in the world. So, how did he become a useless NEET, nearly overnight?" That is the question his sister posed in...
