Wednesday, September 3, 2008
New Story - The Transplant
The Transplant
My eyes open in the dark, sound of wind and rain in my ears, trees probing the outer walls of the house. A typhoon is definitely out there, meandering northwards from Okinawa at the speed of an ojiisan on a bicycle. For a second I have no idea where I am.
“Teddo, gohan yo.”
It is the voice of my wife’s mother, so I yell back that I’m coming. I shuck the warm cocoon of my futon and lurch downstairs, balance off as I creep down the narrow stairs sideways like a crab, my oxen Canadian body knocking akimbo the junk that takes up all floorspace. The whole house is awash with used up things, useless bits like candy wrappers, old newspapers, and detergent boxes. It is like Ojuki beach where I first lived in Japan after a typhoon, when the waves that crashed against it have receded, leaving a knee-high drift of things. But unlike the beach there is no clean up crew here, and to move so much as one small item moves okaasan to bitter scowls and reproaches, then tears. Then there are the useful things, the unopened silk shirts, electric grills, and toilet paper that no one can find under the mess, and only peek out after you’ve gone out and bought another one.
I stagger into the living-dining room. It is also the TV room, as well as another storage area for okaasan’s life. Like Hokusai’s wave, life has washed in and then washed out, leaving this detritus of broken microwaves, octopus ball grill plates, and used toothpicks. I slide the door closed behind me and tuck my feet under the low table.
Miko is in the kitchen around the corner. Last week in Canada she sang when she cooked. In Japan now I hear only the bubbling of soup, the frying of parsed burdock roots, her feet on the linoleum floor. We’ve been married for five years now.
Okaasan is immersed in TV. I can see the hearing aid jut out of her profile and wonder how much she is hearing, how much lip-reading, how much guessing or feeling. Japanese TV uses subtitles for variety shows; I guess that helps.
“Taifuu ga kuru yo” she says, smiling her inevitable checkerboard smile. A typhoon is coming. Only an idiot would be unaware that a typhoon is bearing down on us. And that is what I am here. Rain beats against the back window as if we are in a car wash, the pine branches like brushes.
I decide to write. My Japanese dictionary and English books are still in transit, so I am writing sideways on a notepad meant for vertical letters. Going against the grain, as always in everything I do in this country.
Miko comes in bearing miso soup on a tray, deposits her load and goes back for more without so much as a look at me. This is where we live, two more unanchored things amid the drift.
----
A month later and it is August
It’s Obon, the festival of the dead, and Mama has me setting up ghost lanterns on the second floor. No fans turn the turgid air – we have moved out to a small apartment in the city and she is trying to save money. When I was offered the English teaching gig that came with an apartment and car I jumped at it, just to be out of her house, away from the sullen silences and sudden storms between mother and daughter.
Okaasan thanks me so much for helping her when no one else would, then slaps my hand and calls me baka when I put a cord in the wrong wooden groove. This family delights in telling me how great I am, then how terrible I am.
Later, and I am trying to retrieve a tray that has blown on the roof, dancing on the pile of junk that blocks the door out to the garden. I slip and twist my ankle slightly, then look down to see that I have crushed an anthill.
Okaasan is like a beetle, rolling her finds into her nest, but I have had enough of wading in it. For the first time I get angry with her, scold her in my subhuman Japanese. “Next time I come here I want these things moved. It’s dangerous – you couldn’t get out if there was a fire, there’s no footing even if you did, just junk. Clean it up, understood?”
She smiles, says “Hai hai hai hai” and turns back to the TV.
----
Winter comes, with a cold snap like the first warm burst of Canadian spring. Okaasan is still in the Red Cross hospital, her 10 day stay rolling out into its third month. Luckily, the hospital is within bicycle distance from our apartment. Miko comes to see okaasan everyday, I come when I can between classes.
Often Miko is talking with the doctor, his soft words punctured by her occasional shrill “Hai.” There are a lot of words I don’t understand, then one question I do. “Mr. Blown, what is your blood type?” I don’t even correct the doctor on his pronunciation of my name as I tell him I am UD. I can give to anyone.
We undergo blood tests for the whole family, Miko, her sister, uncles and cousins, and myself included. By the weekend I am looking up a new word in my dictionary: ishoku, transplant. I am a transplant here, okaasan needs a transplant. Ishoku and ishoku, these two words have the same sound and English translation, but different characters, different pictograms.
On the weekend we drive back around the bay and stay at okaasan’s house. We do some cleaning, throwing rotten vegetables out of the fridge and old magazines and hair clippings out of the barber shop in the garage where okaasan worked before her hands grew numb. The relatives come over for supper and Miko explains the situation, the need, the best candidate. All eyes move from her to me, their astonishment hidden behind the unavoidable smiles. One uncle sums it up: Taishita mon. This is something else.
Just as the family starts to thank me, Miko tells them I am still thinking it over. Talk continues for hours, praise and thanks turning to veiled anger and disappointment. When I have had enough I go upstairs to sleep, to think.
I awake in the dark, Miko pressed against me. I hear her breath, shallow and sad, and can’t tell if she is awake or asleep. She holders me tighter an instant, then relaxes. I drift off again and wake up alone.
It is time to get up, I can sleep no more. Downstairs again, and all eyes are on me. They sit quietly, and now they are no more or less than people, my family, their hope warming me and burning through me at the same time.
“Kesshin shimashita. I have made my decision.”
My eyes open in the dark, sound of wind and rain in my ears, trees probing the outer walls of the house. A typhoon is definitely out there, meandering northwards from Okinawa at the speed of an ojiisan on a bicycle. For a second I have no idea where I am.
“Teddo, gohan yo.”
It is the voice of my wife’s mother, so I yell back that I’m coming. I shuck the warm cocoon of my futon and lurch downstairs, balance off as I creep down the narrow stairs sideways like a crab, my oxen Canadian body knocking akimbo the junk that takes up all floorspace. The whole house is awash with used up things, useless bits like candy wrappers, old newspapers, and detergent boxes. It is like Ojuki beach where I first lived in Japan after a typhoon, when the waves that crashed against it have receded, leaving a knee-high drift of things. But unlike the beach there is no clean up crew here, and to move so much as one small item moves okaasan to bitter scowls and reproaches, then tears. Then there are the useful things, the unopened silk shirts, electric grills, and toilet paper that no one can find under the mess, and only peek out after you’ve gone out and bought another one.
I stagger into the living-dining room. It is also the TV room, as well as another storage area for okaasan’s life. Like Hokusai’s wave, life has washed in and then washed out, leaving this detritus of broken microwaves, octopus ball grill plates, and used toothpicks. I slide the door closed behind me and tuck my feet under the low table.
Miko is in the kitchen around the corner. Last week in Canada she sang when she cooked. In Japan now I hear only the bubbling of soup, the frying of parsed burdock roots, her feet on the linoleum floor. We’ve been married for five years now.
Okaasan is immersed in TV. I can see the hearing aid jut out of her profile and wonder how much she is hearing, how much lip-reading, how much guessing or feeling. Japanese TV uses subtitles for variety shows; I guess that helps.
“Taifuu ga kuru yo” she says, smiling her inevitable checkerboard smile. A typhoon is coming. Only an idiot would be unaware that a typhoon is bearing down on us. And that is what I am here. Rain beats against the back window as if we are in a car wash, the pine branches like brushes.
I decide to write. My Japanese dictionary and English books are still in transit, so I am writing sideways on a notepad meant for vertical letters. Going against the grain, as always in everything I do in this country.
Miko comes in bearing miso soup on a tray, deposits her load and goes back for more without so much as a look at me. This is where we live, two more unanchored things amid the drift.
----
A month later and it is August
It’s Obon, the festival of the dead, and Mama has me setting up ghost lanterns on the second floor. No fans turn the turgid air – we have moved out to a small apartment in the city and she is trying to save money. When I was offered the English teaching gig that came with an apartment and car I jumped at it, just to be out of her house, away from the sullen silences and sudden storms between mother and daughter.
Okaasan thanks me so much for helping her when no one else would, then slaps my hand and calls me baka when I put a cord in the wrong wooden groove. This family delights in telling me how great I am, then how terrible I am.
Later, and I am trying to retrieve a tray that has blown on the roof, dancing on the pile of junk that blocks the door out to the garden. I slip and twist my ankle slightly, then look down to see that I have crushed an anthill.
Okaasan is like a beetle, rolling her finds into her nest, but I have had enough of wading in it. For the first time I get angry with her, scold her in my subhuman Japanese. “Next time I come here I want these things moved. It’s dangerous – you couldn’t get out if there was a fire, there’s no footing even if you did, just junk. Clean it up, understood?”
She smiles, says “Hai hai hai hai” and turns back to the TV.
----
Winter comes, with a cold snap like the first warm burst of Canadian spring. Okaasan is still in the Red Cross hospital, her 10 day stay rolling out into its third month. Luckily, the hospital is within bicycle distance from our apartment. Miko comes to see okaasan everyday, I come when I can between classes.
Often Miko is talking with the doctor, his soft words punctured by her occasional shrill “Hai.” There are a lot of words I don’t understand, then one question I do. “Mr. Blown, what is your blood type?” I don’t even correct the doctor on his pronunciation of my name as I tell him I am UD. I can give to anyone.
We undergo blood tests for the whole family, Miko, her sister, uncles and cousins, and myself included. By the weekend I am looking up a new word in my dictionary: ishoku, transplant. I am a transplant here, okaasan needs a transplant. Ishoku and ishoku, these two words have the same sound and English translation, but different characters, different pictograms.
On the weekend we drive back around the bay and stay at okaasan’s house. We do some cleaning, throwing rotten vegetables out of the fridge and old magazines and hair clippings out of the barber shop in the garage where okaasan worked before her hands grew numb. The relatives come over for supper and Miko explains the situation, the need, the best candidate. All eyes move from her to me, their astonishment hidden behind the unavoidable smiles. One uncle sums it up: Taishita mon. This is something else.
Just as the family starts to thank me, Miko tells them I am still thinking it over. Talk continues for hours, praise and thanks turning to veiled anger and disappointment. When I have had enough I go upstairs to sleep, to think.
I awake in the dark, Miko pressed against me. I hear her breath, shallow and sad, and can’t tell if she is awake or asleep. She holders me tighter an instant, then relaxes. I drift off again and wake up alone.
It is time to get up, I can sleep no more. Downstairs again, and all eyes are on me. They sit quietly, and now they are no more or less than people, my family, their hope warming me and burning through me at the same time.
“Kesshin shimashita. I have made my decision.”
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Creative Onanism
Since respondents have been few and submissions nil, looks like I will be creating content for this blog out of my own fevered brain. Stories, poems, advice, all my unfinished scraps of digital scribblings will start making their appearance here soon. You have been warned.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Looking for Links
Hi all!
Although we have been trying to link to expat art sites, most of these have turned out to be Flying Dutchmen created long ago and not kept up. If you know of any good sites to link or places to post CFPs, send them along to exilesjournal@live.jp!
Although we have been trying to link to expat art sites, most of these have turned out to be Flying Dutchmen created long ago and not kept up. If you know of any good sites to link or places to post CFPs, send them along to exilesjournal@live.jp!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Photos Please!!
If you have any fascinating photos of foreigners in foreign lands, we'd love to put them up here on the website. Nothing touristy/vacation snappish. Something that captures that indelible space between worlds where you live. Humourous or haunting, whatever you'd like to contribute would be appreciated.
CFPs Coming Soon and Other Changes
Hello all!
A few more adjustments and we should be ready to start taking submissions!
Just compiling a list of some expat arts websites and groups.
My writing is also slowly coming together, so look for it!
Also, on the advice of some friends successfully publishing a free magazine, we have decided to alter the business model to an on-line publication with hard copies available for purchase. We'll see where it goes from there.
A few more adjustments and we should be ready to start taking submissions!
Just compiling a list of some expat arts websites and groups.
My writing is also slowly coming together, so look for it!
Also, on the advice of some friends successfully publishing a free magazine, we have decided to alter the business model to an on-line publication with hard copies available for purchase. We'll see where it goes from there.
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