[Short Story] 'Memories Left in an Umbrella' - Part 1
"Someone Waiting for Someone"
When spring arrives, the wind at the station softens.
Standing on the platform in the morning, there is a scent as if the season has drifted in from some distant town, and I always pause for just a moment.
On this day, too, middle school students who had just put on their uniforms were waiting for the train, accompanied by their parents.
With new school bags slung over their shoulders, they wore expressions mixed with nervousness and anticipation.
It must be their entrance ceremony.
Watching such a scene, I felt that a gentle season had come around again on this very morning.
The remnants of cherry blossom petals left behind swirled in a corner of the platform.
──When I first saw that woman, for some reason, she left an impression on me.
On my way to work, there was someone standing by a pillar holding an umbrella. It was just one part of the scenery.
That day was cloudless and sunny, and there was no reason at all to be carrying an umbrella.
Yet, she stood there quietly.
I was a little curious, but I didn't stop walking and just passed by.
Somehow, only a feeling of something catching in the back of my mind remained.
The figure of someone standing there holding an umbrella on a sunny morning that day had suddenly taken up residence in a corner of my memory.
At the same time the following year, I suddenly stopped on the same platform.
There was a woman standing by the pillar, holding an umbrella in her hand.
In that moment, a soft stir spread deep within my chest. I felt as if I had seen a similar scene before.
Someone standing there holding an umbrella for some reason on a sunny morning. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now, that scene suddenly came back to me.
The way the wind swayed, and her posture, were very similar to that time.
Although my memory was still hazy, I felt that spring morning and the present moment gradually overlapping.
The third spring, and for the first time, it rained.
She was there that day, too.
Because she was there, I realized that spring had arrived.
While people were hurriedly opening their umbrellas, she alone already had hers open.
That umbrella looked somewhat like a man's. I felt that neither the color of the handle nor the shape quite suited her atmosphere.
──It looked as if she had been standing there all along, just for this day.
After a moment of hesitation, I gathered the courage to speak to her.
"…Are you waiting for someone?"
She turned toward me slowly.
With a faint smile, she opened her mouth as if searching for words.
"I wonder who I am waiting for…"
Saying that, she smiled and looked up at the sky.
Her voice was clearer than I had expected, but it seemed as if she were looking at something far away.
Having said only that, she turned back to face forward.
I couldn't say anything more to her.
After that, I never saw her again.
Even when spring came, she was no longer at the station.
Even so, I would unconsciously look toward that same pillar every year.
I was searching for the place where she used to stand within the empty scenery of the platform.
One morning in such a year, I suddenly realized something.
──I was holding an umbrella in my hand.
That umbrella I happened to be holding on my way to work.
Did I pick it up somewhere recently, or did I borrow it from someone──I couldn't even remember that.
Although I must have chosen it casually while getting ready in the morning, it looked somewhat familiar.
And, there was a thin scratch running along the handle of that umbrella.
It was a scratch made by hitting a corner somewhere long ago, and I felt sure it was an umbrella I used to use often.
I must have left it somewhere without realizing it, and I shouldn't have seen it since then──
Yet now, it was in my hand.
I didn't know why that was.
For a while, I stood there, unable to move, staring at that umbrella.
Something is snagged. I feel like I might be able to remember something.
But that 'something' still hasn't turned into words.
Still staring at the umbrella, I gently held it to my chest.
I simply started walking, as if pushed from behind by the wind.