Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Nice To Meet You

- Nice To Meet You -

No one knew where she went - the villagers hadn't seen her and had no way of opening the gateway and they urged me to stay, saying that it would be too dangerous. But I had a firm idea of where she would be. Like gripping the oars of a sinking boat, I refused to believe anything else. Somewhere in this world, she was still alive, I knew, just like before. She would disappear from my grasp just like always. But we would cross paths again at some point. Even the greatest currents in the system wouldn't tear us apart permanently. This was my firm conviction.

It wasn't until two months after, when the old man was supposed to replenish the supplies that I saw the gateway again. The tunnel was there, but it looked different from what I had been expecting. It had changed its form. Perhaps every time it opened it would be in a different place, in a different shape. But somehow I knew what it was.

This time, it was a hole in the ground, just like the coffee plantation out in Chiba. I watched as a skinny man, sunken cheeks and ghastly white skin, crawl out of the hole like a ghoul from a grave. Under the moonlight, I had hesitated once, wondering where or what hell he could have possibly emerged from, but regardless, I took the chance and slipped past him into the hole.

Darkness swallowed me and I returned into the other world.

*

For weeks I had searched for her all over the city but to no avail. I passed every day in some sort of a purgatory, wandering, swimming through the crowds, suffocating and escaping suits until I finally relented, drained and utterly exhausted, in despair, and inconspicuously adopted my customary routines. I read books, drank coffee, holed up in the coffee shop with its glutinous aromatic sea and its hard-backed chairs, and watched as a thick fog of civil unrest and turmoil descended on the city. People died, cars were burnt, consumers suppressed, surveillance was invasive and privacy destroyed. I drank coffee. Then I pulled out a laptop and started writing down things I could still remember. A dying man's last attempt to promise he'd never forget he was searching for her.

Doing so, the Fox showed up one day at the coffee shop with a new proposal.

"You could have at least returned the papers," was the first thing he said.

"There wasn't any time."

"Sure there was, there's always time. Things will complete its course."

I drink from my porcelain cup.

"I can't imagine it being easy during that time."

"I might have never made it out," I say.

"But it looks like you did."

"Yes, I did."

"But she is gone now."

"And the city is unravelling at its seams. Do you know where she is?"

"Of course I don't, but -"

"Your boss might."

"Yes, but all you've got to do, is just something simple."

"What now?"

He leans in close, and in his breath I smell peppermint gum. "This is a new contract." He slides over a stack of paper. Next to it, he lays a printed photograph of someone, the size of a postcard. "And a present."

"Just don't give me more Chopin or something."

He promises he won't.

Week after week, I order the same thing like I always do. Even the barista knows me by now and each day she would make some meaningless conversation to pass the time. I never had to actually say anything but a word of greeting before she gives me a knowing smile and makes my unspoken order. Always with a custom shot of espresso. Today she asks if I had ever been to island town of Enoshima for a holiday. The view and the surf is nice. I ask if she surfs but she doesn't. She likes watching surfers. She wonders if I'd like to go to Enoshima with her some time. I say maybe, that I'll think about it. After I'm done with my writing. She asks if I'm a novelist, but I tell her I'm not very good. She wants to read it anyway, apparently. I tell her I'll let her know when I'm done.

She's a pleasant girl, with a bright smile and not a lot of make up, hair up in a ponytail, deft motions with her hands and studies environmental design nearby. But something seems to be missing in her. Would she understand what I had written? The barista doesn't have Shizuka's eyes.

Every week on the same day we had once met, I'd search for those eyes. I'd watch the crowds, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Perhaps I still had hope. As long as I could keep drinking chai tea latte, I decided I would still have hope. At least before my time was up.

If I see her one day, I would make sure to walk over to her table and sit down with my drink. She would be wearing her light grey cardigan over a yellow tank top, and a short skirt that showed off her legs. Sandals because it's the summer. Her hair swept to one side, brushed behind a shapely ear. In her eyes I would see flat black stones. Her skin would be a little tan, slightly roasted as if she had gone on vacation. I could imagine her saying, "Hey, I'm back. It was a place I had seen before in my dreams."

But she would say nothing and I would say nothing.

Then I would tell her that she ought to choose a more distinct order, something that would reflect who she is.

She would ask what I was drinking, and if she knew me, and I would tell her "No, but it's nice to meet you."