An Envelope: A Collection

Aftershocks

The force of the quake had sent accessories scattering across the linoleum floor and Amanda watched the shop girls hurry to fix fallen displays. Next door, the employees were doing the same, trying to make sense of the chaos as quickly as they could before another tremor could throw things even into further disarray. Amanda shifted her shopping bag to her other hand and opened up LINE on her phone, but her message to Yamato had not yet sent. Here she was, in the center of Shibuya, and she couldn't even get reception. A quick glance around, and she realized that within the groups of college students and freeters clumped along the walls, every single person was on their phone. Probably the network was getting overloaded by the entire population of Tokyo.

Are you okay? She tried again. Are you at work? I'm going to a pay phone. Smart phone isn't connecting.

A large group had congregated outside of the suspended elevators, and Amanda wondered if the trains would be delayed. It wasn't a long ride from Shibuya to Yamato's and her apartment in Ikebukuro, but he worked in Azabu, on the complete opposite side of the city. Pulling up the strap of her purse on her shoulder, she checked the time – almost 3 o'clock. She still needed to stop by the supermarket on her way home to get ingredients for Yamato's bento for tomorrow, but if the trains were delayed...

Overhead, a short melody chimed before a voice echoed throughout the shopping mall: "Attention PARCO customers: Mandatory inspection will commence. All customers please proceed outside. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. Attention PARCO customers..."

Around her, the crowd began to head for the stairs to the first floor of the PARCO shopping mall. A security guard had appeared on their floor and began to usher customers towards the exit. As she passed, Amanda noticed a couple standing, confused, by the floor map. They weren't Japanese, and she could tell by the way they dressed that they were tourists rather than ordinary expats. Judging by the overwhelmed and perplexed expressions on their faces, they hadn't understood a word of the announcement or what they were supposed to do. For a brief moment, their eyes met hers and brightened at her beseechingly, but she simply looked down at her phone background of her and her Japanese boyfriend together, adjusted her natural beauty basic-brand coat, and followed the crowd outside.

...

With a cry of frustration, Ijeoma tossed her phone across the room onto her bed and flopped down on the couch. It was still the middle of the night back home in the States, but she wanted to get a message up on Facebook before everyone woke up, saw the news, and flooded her inbox with messages asking if she was okay. Three big earthquakes in the past hour, and a tsunami up north... and she couldn't even get online long enough to let her friends and family know that she was fine. This was what she got for not committing to a proper internet contract. Her terrible little pocket WiFi ran on the same 3G network as her phone, which rendered it just about as useless as anything else. That was the worst part about this whole thing; she was alone, cut off from everyone online, and only got snippets of news when she could get anything to load at all.

She had just begun to reach for her laptop when the doorbell rang. For a moment, she sat, paralyzed, wondering who would be coming to give her church pamphlets at a time like this. The doorbell rang again.

Ijeoma answered the phone to the intercom hesitantly. "Hello?"

"Ijeoma! Are you okay? It's Yamato!"

When she opened the door, she was surprised to find that he was wearing a suit, and his hair was styled a little differently since they had last seen each other. But he was still tall and broad-shouldered, and he broke into a wide, dimpled grin at the sight of her.