"I’m thinking of finally getting rid of your old study desk. Could you come home and sort out what you want to keep?"
It was just the other day that I got that call from my mother. My parents are in their seventies now, and they want to start decluttering the house to tie up loose ends for their twilight years. My old bedroom at my parents' house was eerily quiet, looking exactly as it did the day I moved out, as if time had simply stopped in that one specific square of the world. The afternoon sun spilling through the gap in the curtains hasn't changed a bit. My bookshelf and the CDs crammed into it are completely untouched. Seeing them brings a rush of teenage memories; oh right, I used to listen to that stuff.
My wooden study desk sat quietly in the corner of the room. I sat in the chair I hadn't used in decades and ran my hand over the slightly dusty desktop. I pressed the large red, green, and blue buttons for the desk lamp, but it didn't turn on. It was unplugged, of course, but I didn't want to plug it in and see if it still actually worked. Faded prize stickers from old snacks were still clinging to the edge of the desk, no doubt slapped on there by a much younger me. When I pulled open the drawers, a haphazard assortment of relics peeked out from the back: an old purikura photo-sticker book, worn-down pencil stubs, and a tiny glass bottle of those scented beads that were all the rage in elementary school. Feeling like I was unearthing a time capsule, I took them out one by one. The black pencil smudges staining the bottom of the drawer and the smell of aged wood instantly transported me back to the air of my childhood.
Among that pile of junk was a single old postcard. Dog-eared and slightly smudged with pencil, it was from "Mai-chan," a friend who had moved away to a distant prefecture when we were in elementary school. The address on the front and the writing on the back were both penned in that distinctly round, childish handwriting. On the reverse side was a horse drawn painstakingly in colored pencil, accompanied by a brief message: "Take care." This year is the Year of the Horse. This postcard was from exactly three zodiac cycles ago. This slightly faded piece of paper had been sitting here for thirty-six whole years.
Mai-chan was a petite girl, but so active she could easily hold her own against the boys. When the lunch bell rang, she was always the first one sprinting out, her fine, short hair bouncing. We used to play together on the playground equipment in the schoolyard and collapse into fits of laughter over the silliest things. Yet, regardless of the season, those small hands of hers were always clad in white cotton gloves. Perhaps it was hand eczema. A few times while we were playing, I caught a glimpse of raw, red skin painfully peeking out from the cuffs of her gloves. Even so, I never once asked her what was wrong. In my child's mind, I think I sensed it was an unspoken boundary. I was too young to truly understand the pain she carried, and more than anything, I was terrified of stepping into whatever shadows might have lurked behind her bright smile.
Taking detours on the way home from school was another of our great joys. Still wearing our yellow school hats and carrying our red backpacks, the two of us often frequented a tiny candy shop everyone called "Okiya." It was a decrepit wooden building that looked like it might tilt over at any moment. By late afternoon, blocked by the mountain's shadow, the rather dim interior was crammed wall-to-wall with cheap sweets. It was run entirely by a quiet old woman who lived alone, always sitting in the tatami room at the back of the store. I remember one time we played the bouncy ball lottery there. You'd pull a paper slip out of a plastic container, and depending on your number, you'd win a bouncy ball of a certain color and size. We used to play with those bright lumps of rubber all the time, dropping them onto the gritty 80’s asphalt and watching them ricochet wildly into the air. That day, I drew a dud, a completely ordinary, tiny, solid-colored ball. While I was sulking, Mai-chan managed to hit the jackpot: a beautiful, marble-patterned bouncy ball as big as a child’s fist.
"Here, you can have it!"
Her eyes crinkling with joy, she didn't hesitate for a second before pressing that massive ball into my hands. I can still vaguely remember the slightly stiff texture of her white cotton glove, the feel of her small but strong fingers, and the proud, triumphant look on her face.
By the time I left for university, my hometown had undergone massive redevelopment. The company housing where she lived began to be demolished shortly after the year 2000, and today it’s been entirely paved over by new scenery, leaving not a single trace behind. The townscape has changed so drastically that I couldn't even tell you where "Okiya" used to stand. Much later, well into adulthood, I learned that the word okiya historically referred to a geisha or courtesan boarding house. That dark, old building where the old woman quietly minded the store alone... Could it be that she herself was involved in that line of work in her youth, and the name of that little candy shop was a lingering echo of her past? The truth is lost to time now. Only the dimness of that shop at dusk remains etched in my memory.
Mai-chan moved away to a distant prefecture at the end of the second term, on a bitterly cold, windy day in December. It was the kind of freezing day where the sky was a heavy, leaden gray and your breath bloomed white in the air. Not long after that, this New Year's card arrived in my mailbox in January. That slightly clumsy, colored-pencil horse, and the words "Take care." The New Year's cards we exchanged that year were the very last things that connected us.
I lifted my eyes from the postcard and looked around my childhood room once more. Under some sky, somewhere in Japan, what kind of adult has Mai-chan become? What kind of life is she living? Has she finally been able to take off those white cotton gloves? I have no idea where she is or what she's doing. But those memories from back then still remain at the very bottom of my heart, glowing with an undeniable warmth.
I stared quietly at the old postcard for a little while longer. The faded drawing of the horse seemed to be staring right back at me from the past.
"Take care,"
I murmured softly, returning her own words to her across a gap of thirty-six years. And then, I gently dropped the card into the trash can.
Goodbye, Mai-chan.
