[Short Story] An Afternoon of Unraveling Threads

On an afternoon when the air was crisp and wintry, Yoji asked, unable to hide his surprise.

"What is this, an urn?"

On the table lay a fading photograph. With out-of-focus Buddhist flowers in the background, what was captured slightly to the right of center was an urn. I don't know its exact size, but it was wrapped in a calm Japanese-patterned cloth, likely woven. It was my aunt who taught me that this cloth bag used to hold an urn is called a 'kotsu-oi'.

"You can probably tell by looking, but this is a box containing bones. It belonged to your older brother. Your mother kept this photo with her always."

My mother, who passed away three months ago, and I could not be said to have gotten along well. After giving birth to me, my mother won a major award for her hobby of photography and began working as a photographer, remaining extremely busy until just before she died. Because she threw herself into her work, neglecting housework and child-rearing, a rift formed between her and my father, and it didn't take long for them to divorce.

By the time I started elementary school, I had come to know the taste of loneliness. Always, alone. Loneliness had a rough yet aggressive taste. I grew into an adult unable to shake the feeling of being left behind by the person I wanted to be closest to.

My mother was also aware of the knot of emotions I carried. I know she approached me timidly, as I had stopped talking to her about things that happened at school, my worries, or my dreams for the future. We lived our lives maintaining a relationship that was on the verge of making creaking sounds.

My aunt came over when I had finally started sorting through my mother's belongings after her funeral. She said there was something she wanted to give me.

"I'm sure you've heard, but your mother had a stillbirth with her first child. You know, there's a small Jizo statue next to the grave, right?"

I know. When I was young and asked what the Jizo statue was, my mother chose her words carefully and told me that I had an older brother who was a year and a half older than me. She spoke, slowly pushing the words out with her tongue, about how he had lost his life at birth and that they had thought of the name 'Takayuki'.

According to my aunt, after the stillbirth, my mother spent some time huddled over, clutching the urn in its cloth cover. The house fell into disarray, and my aunt visited day after day, unable to just watch.

"At that time, your mother took a picture of the urn with our father's—your grandfather's—camera. Maybe it was just a whim. From there, your mother became obsessed with expressing herself through photography."

My grandfather's camera is old but authentic. The photo I have in my hands now is, in effect, the first 'work' my mother ever took.

My aunt left behind the photo of the urn and my grandfather's camera, which my mother had cherished even after becoming a professional.

"It's an old camera, isn't it? It has a certain charm, I suppose. I wonder if it's from a famous manufacturer. I wish I knew more about these things."

Over my shoulder, Yoji peers at the table. His shadow falls over my grandfather's camera.

"My mother was a photographer, you know. This seems to be something important. After three months, I've finally been able to look at it calmly."

Yoji rounds his eyes, which still hold a sense of innocence.

"A photo of an urn? That's kind of mysterious, isn't it?"

He doesn't ask anything more. His tendency not to think too deeply about things is what drew me to him, and our relationship began quite a while ago. For someone like me, who can't climb out once I fall into a swamp of worries, the gradation formed by Yoji's superficiality and sincerity was dazzling. And I wish to keep this color by my side.

I cast my gaze back down to the camera and the photograph. Perhaps my mother had locked away the sense of loss from my brother's birth in this picture. Along with the unresolved feelings for the child she had lost. Perhaps that was how she was able to move forward.

The way my mother approached her work with such strange intensity brought the word 'obsession' to mind. The way she faced the camera, even at the cost of leaving her only daughter in solitude, resembled both prayer and madness. Since my adolescence, I had resented my mother, and I had never once considered what might be sleeping deep inside her.

My mother's feelings belong to her. I can only feel as though I am drawing closer to her thoughts, as if pulling on the threads trailing from the camera. It does not change the fact that my own childhood was a lonely one.

Even so, it felt as if the poison that had resided within me since early childhood was draining away. In its place, a soft sense of acceptance settled in my chest, spreading radially throughout my entire body.

"Yoji, let's get married."

I spoke to Yoji while attaching the cover to my grandfather's camera. I should put these two things away somewhere. Yoji, having already lost interest in the camera, was holding a small mop and dusting around the television.

"Sounds good. I think it would be fun."

His voice came back, sounding either irresponsible or earnest, depending on how you took it. Since the apartment faces west, the sun would be shining in strongly from now on. Dust danced in the warm light, creating countless tiny sparkles. I knew it would be a beautiful day tomorrow, even without checking the weather forecast.

(The End)

I am submitting this to Kaoru Hanazawa's '#Second All Who Are Lost Literary Award'.

#Second All Who Are Lost Literary Award