Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Solitude

- Solitude -

The coffee cherry remained intact and I had planted it deep in fresh soil in the empty glass jar. I had done so without a thought in my mind. Right next to Shirayuki's dead body, as if she could witness it for herself. The process was too simple, without any significance or real context whatsoever. No beginnings or endings, prequels or sequels. There were no magical spells or incantations, nor did the coffee cherry look out of the ordinary. It was just a red, ripe coffee cherry. I threw away its box. It made it seem more than it was. After planting it, I bent over and kissed the seventeen year-old on the forehead and got up and walked away. I didn't know whether she would forever lie there or if she would disappear as soon as I wasn't looking. Or maybe she might come back one day.

She never did.

I reached Tokyo in a blur. I don't remember anything about the trip, other than it being ordinary, oddly quiet. There were no Images or strange voyeuristic impressions. It was like the System was silent. Reeling, recovering from something. Or perhaps it was just me. But if I think about it, their gunning for me shouldn't have ended there; I would not have made it back to Tokyo. They could have tracked me easily and stopped me before I got on the Uchibo train. In fact, something must have changed, that they could have sought to kill me. Maybe they didn't need to kill me. Perhaps it had to do with Shirayuki or the coffee seed or Kaneko and her facility.

I had no doubt met Shizuka's mother. She told me her foster family lived in Chiba and sent her money. It would make sense. But how could she be considered missing if they were still transferring funds?

I take Shizuka's yearbook note out of my pocket and trace my fingers over the ink. The paper feels soft under my touch. I wonder how it had felt to Shizuka when it was blank, when she had held a pen above the paper. Ready to etch the prophetic inevitable. If she had been thinking then about what would happen to Shirayuki or me, or what had happened now, or if she had known all along that I would read it someday.

Yet all this seems meaningless now. All I had been striving for was myself. I had went along with Shizuka because I was worried about my own safety. I had doubted her because of my own suspicions and then searched for her because I needed guidance. I had pushed Shirayuki aside because I wanted Shizuka. I needed something to fill the vacancy in solitude. Shirayuki had died, Shizuka is still missing and I'm left with a coffee plant.

In the past four days, the coffee plant had grown. Remarkably fast. Like Jack and his magical beanstalk. It isn't as ordinary as it seemed. All I did was plant it and for the first two days nothing happened, I had looked at it every now and then and there was nothing different. I knew it wouldn't grow in the climate of a jar in Tokyo. But yet as soon as I began to forget to check on it, it started to sprout. Now I can see the comical Dr. Seuss-like seedling perking out high and true. It's this round bean riding straight up on a tall thin green stalk. Like a lollipop. The leaves haven't unfurled yet and it's rather miniscule as if it knew there's a lid over top. But nevertheless, it's well into the third or fourth month of the cycle, as if to prove me wrong for having no faith. It hadn't exactly caught me off guard however, as extraterrestrial as it looked, I was already so used to inexplicable things happening and I had been more concerned with the numb nothingness within.

I set the jar in the middle of the table with a thunk as the Fox arrives.

He takes one look at it and whistles.

"A smart looking one, the thing. All eager and full of sass. It's only been what, three? Four days?"

"Four."

He orders a hazelnut caffe mocha. I order her caramel chai tea soy latte, with a shot of espresso. I don't know why, but I feel like having one and it feels right now. As if Shizuka is here telling me to go on and have one and think of her. And think of her I do.