Yoron Island Hostess Diary (2) Rafflesia
I couldn't sleep well on the airport chairs, and morning came while I was still staring blankly with my eyes rolled back. My whole body aches and I feel feverish. As I was drinking Pocari Sweat, a middle-aged man who had also spent the night at the airport invited me, saying, 'The boat is leaving today. Want to share a taxi to the port?' A boat? I didn't even know you could get to Yoron by boat, but this was a godsend, as the saying goes. I grabbed my massive suitcase and hurried to the taxi stand, making a rattling noise.
The man tried to help me load my suitcase into the taxi, but he was exhausted by its sheer weight, so a driver who looked like Muto helped me load it instead. When the man asked, 'Why is it so heavy?', I replied, 'Because it's for six months.' I'm going to be living and working on Yoron Island. From what I heard over the phone, it's an 'island with nothing on it,' so I brought everything from underwear to a cooking pot. When asked where I would be working, I answered 'Lounge Rafflesia,' and the man's face lit up. He said, 'I go there often,' so I thought he was a local, but it turns out he's from the neighboring Okinoerabu Island. When I asked how he commutes, he said, 'By cruiser.' Whoa, is he rich? He told me, 'My friends call me Pipe.' 'Vibe?' 'Pipe!' 'Why!?' 'Because I had a vasectomy!!'
While we were having such a silly conversation, the Muto taxi arrived at the port. The sea was, to put it mildly, rough and tossing, and the boat's gangplank was just about to be raised. I entrusted my trunk to a crew member and ran up the stairs with Pipe. Climbing the narrow, swaying stairs that tilted back and forth felt like some kind of amusement park ride. What is this sense of grand adventure? It's the best.
I happened to look down at the world below and saw a taxi speeding toward us. After pulling off a spin turn at the pier, a wobbly, rich old man got out of the car and started shouting something. He pointed at the crew entrance, which was the last one still open, and yelled, 'Let me on from there!' But there was no way the old man could jump into an entrance that was violently bobbing up and down with the waves. 'Let me on! I have money! If you don't let me on, I'll demand compensation... compensa... blech!' Suddenly, the old man chummed the water in a grand fashion. 'Ugh!' the crew member recoiled, and the old man was crestfallen. He must have felt sick watching the boat bobbing up and down from up close. I was laughing my head off watching from above, but Pipe said with a straight face, 'It's a waste if you don't scatter the chum into the sea, isn't it?'
And so, the story returns to the beginning.
(To be continued)
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