Fictional Spring · Dazaiosamu
Homecoming
On a gloomy day, I plan to wash the carpet left sitting so long,beating out thoughts like cat hair and bits of nail clippings,coughing softly toward the white wall. The new year is about to begin.Our lives still reset every day.No matter how hard we try, we cannot leave a trace.And so the days vanish, day after day.Even the cat grows old.The carpet hangs dripping wet over one corner of the washbasin.The washing machine stops its roar.The clothes and the duvet cover used in winter, inside that little black hole,fall silent at once,making one feel that in some future summer there will be no cicadas left. The rain outside grows heavier and heavier.Slowly I wipe the mist from the glass.Those vivid memories lie spread across the bed,mingled with the broken calls of a partridge in the distance,and grow more elusive still. The tree grows/dies at a speed we cannot perceive. I cannot say how many years later, when I return to my childhood home,no one answers the door.According to an unfamiliar neighbor:“It is now the end of spring.”I cling to the peephole and peer inside.The couple with whom I once spent a brief time seem to have left this place many years ago as well.