Displaced

Chapter 47

Soft chimes rang off in the distance as a gust of wind blew through the area, ruffling the curtains hanging on the nearby window and sending a sudden burst of late-morning sun directly into Yamanaka Mizuko's eyes. Her eyelids fluttered weakly, barely able to open. Eventually they parted, revealing the familiar wood of her bedroom ceiling.

A callused hand gently wrapped itself around her emaciated, wrinkled fingers. "How do you feel, mother?" said the voice of her daughter, Keiko.

"Tired," she rasped, barely able to speak. Tired was putting it lightly. Never in her one hundred and nine years of life had she ever felt so exhausted. Funny, she'd thought the same thought the day before, and the day before that. There wasn't much time left. Another day or two at most.

She could hear other voices in the room besides that of her daughter. Grandchildren chatted with each other while great-grandchildren ran about outside, laughing as they played. The sounds of her family warmed her heart. It meant so much to her that they had all traveled to Kyoto to see her one last time before she went. All except one, perhaps. No matter how she tried, her old, worn ears couldn't pick up a trace of her son's voice anywhere.

"Eisuke?" she wheezed out. Keiko didn't say anything, but the way her grip on Mizuko's hand tightened told the dying woman all she needed to know. A tired sigh escaped her withered lips. Even now, all these year later, he had not forgiven her.

"I will try to call him again," her daughter said, bitterness and anger in her voice. Keiko let go of Mizuko's hand and reached for her phone.

"No," the ancient woman said. "Leave him be. I-urk!"

The exertion of speaking a full sentence had been too much for Mizuko. Pain swept through her body as she felt something pull at her spirit, trying to rip it out of her. A series of coughs combined with groans wracked her wretched form. Her final thought before she passed was that she'd never imagined that death would be so very painful.

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Looking around the chamber, the low light of the glowing crystals combining with the bizarre sculptures lining the sides of the room lent the place a gloomy atmosphere. Mizuko wondered if this was Yomi. She found it strange that nobody else was around, but who was she to say what Yomi should be like?

The stone slab upon which she laid felt cool and refreshing, and so she decided to continue to lay atop it for a while. As somebody who had just died, she felt that it was important that she spend some time contemplating her life before anything else, and this was as good a spot for that as any. At least it was quiet here.

So Mizuko thought back on her life, reminiscing about everything from her childhood back in the second decade of the nineteenth century, to her first love and marriage to her first husband, his death in World War II, her second husband and the birth of her first child Eisuke, her second husband's tragic death, the birth of Keiko... on and on her life paraded before her eyes. It was a life filled with pain, but one also filled with joy. There were, of course, numerous regrets both large and small, but in the end, she felt simple acceptance more than anything. Perhaps with death came freedom.

A loud gurgle rose from Mizuko's stomach, and she realized she felt hungry. A spirit could get hungry? How strange.

Satisfied with her ruminations on her past life, she figured it was probably time for her to get up. The question was if she even could; for the last fifteen years Mizuko had been confined to a wheelchair, her legs no longer strong enough to support her weight. She felt better now than she'd felt in a long, long time, but she didn't know if that meant much. Looking at her arm, she found that her wrinkled, withered hand looked just as weak as it had upon her death.