On the second day of a trip to the western region of Japan, time was
running short for the train I was going to take while I was preparing to
go out at the hotel room. I walked to the closest train station
hurriedly and called my parents.
One of the purposes of this
trip was visiting my parents. When I do, I never tell them about my
visit beforehand. My life experience taught me that they will plan some
ways to attack me if I give them time. I let them know right before my
actual visit in order not to give them a chance to think of any plots.
The one who answered my call was my younger sister to whom I hadn’t
talked for more than a decade. Before the trip, I had received a phone
call from my mother who was crying and confessed that her life had been
hell since my sister began to live with them about a year ago. My
parents had kept it secret from me for a year because my sister didn’t
want me to know that she had returned to Japan from abroad and had lived
with them. Although I had known that from my mother’s phone call, I
pretended not to know when my sister answered my call as I also had
known her intention. I said, “You’re back in Japan,” and she admitted in
a very faint voice. And an unexpected new fact followed when I asked
her to put either of my parents on the phone. She told me that my
parents had no longer lived there because they ran away from home.
My mother had mentioned some kind of abuse by my sister on the
distraught phone call less than a month ago, but I never thought it was
serious enough to run away. My sister explained in a feeble voice that
they had felt excessively stressful to live with her. And she didn’t
know their whereabouts.
After I hung up the phone, I called my
father’s cell phone. He answered sounding absent-minded. I told him I
had come to see him and asked him if we could meet. He answered it was
inconvenient for him because he had somewhere to go with my mother and
there was no time to spare for me all day long. He apparently avoided me
and sounded he didn’t want to see me. When I asked him where they were
living now, he said in a vacant voice, “In an apartment near the condo
where I lived.” I had a previous engagement to meet with my high school
teacher before I was going to see my parents and the train to catch was
coming. Although I had tons of questions left, I ran out of time and
hung up the phone.
To meet my teacher, I needed to transfer the
train at Osaka terminal station. As there was 15-minute space to the
next train, I used the bathroom in the station. I was headed for the
platform where the next train would depart, walking through the enormous
station that has eleven platforms and seven different train lines. The
passages were entwined and crawling with passengers. It looked like as
much as O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. I was waiting for the
train on the platform I had made sure on the information board. When the
train came in though, I noticed a wrong destination was displayed on
the side of the train. I had checked the platform number by the
departure time. Unfortunately, Osaka Station is a gigantic station that
has numerous trains depart at the exactly same time. I had been waiting
for a train diligently at the wrong platform. I saw the right train
coming in a few platforms away. I panicked, rushed down the long flight
of stairs, ran down the long main passage, ran up the stairs and tried
to zap into the train. But on the platform I ended up, the right train
didn’t arrive. Instead, an unfamiliar, new special gorgeous train had
been parked and the full-dress station attendants were standing in line
in front of the train, giving it a salute. There were some camera crews
around them. It seemed some sort of ceremony was being held there, and I
appeared in the midst of it dashing out of the stairs. I couldn’t grasp
what was happening for a moment and was just looking around frantically
for my train. A young lady attendant approached me with a kind smile,
saying to me, “Why don’t you take one if you like.” and handed me a
small plastic flag on which an illustration of this special train was
printed. Then I realized I got on the wrong platform again because I
didn’t come here to see off this train with the flag. I ran down the
stairs yet again, and dashed up the stairs to the right platform this
time.
The platform was empty with no train and no passengers. My
train seemed to have long gone. I was standing alone in a daze, panting
for breath on the oddly quiet platform with a small flag holding in my
hand.
I was late for the arranged time and made my teacher wait,
but was able to see her again who is one of only few people that have
understood me and supported me for all the years after I graduated from
high school. A good time passes quickly. I was immensely encouraged by
her even in this short meeting and got on the train to go back to the
hotel instead of going to my parents’ home.
Because the plan to
meet my parents was cancelled in an unexpected way, I happened to have
time to go to the outlet mall that I had given up the other day because
of rain. I enjoyed hanging around there with my partner and had dinner
at the Hawaiian restaurant with a turkey sandwich and popcorn shrimps
that are rare items in Japanese restaurants and give me yearning for the
days when I lived in the U.S. In the end of a weird day filled with
totally unexpected twists, a wonderful time waited for me. My precise
plan for this trip turned to be completely different two days in a row…
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