The Premonition

by Banana Yoshimoto

In retrospect, I can see how special a moment it was—one that had been a long time coming, and would never come again. It makes me feel oddly sentimental to think of those days now. Like a mirage that I suddenly discovered was real, they seem to have been cut adrift from the world outside.

It was over now, but it had to be. In coming to an end, it had given me something, and only by making my way through was I able to begin to live the rest of my life.

The feeling was so stubbornly consistent that it seemed unshakable, like something that would continue, untouched, all the way until the end of the world.

That night, for the first time, in the transparent dark of early summer, I felt sick to my stomach with worry for him.

It had happened in an instant, but left a strangely visceral imprint within my chest.

was jarring to discover that my aunt was so separate from everything already, when it had been such a major upheaval for me. For her, it was all in the past. It gave me hope that I, too, would be able to see it that way some day.

“I’m sorry I didn’t remember. All this time. Do you blame me? Did you miss me?” I said.

“We were an unusual family, maybe, but we were happy. As happy as a dream.

Days that were endless, but which you could only take one at a time, with no sense of what was coming tomorrow . . . I still can’t shake it. It lives inside me like a curse or a blessing.”

Even though I couldn’t remember any of it, my heart ached all the same.

Then, as I dozed, I heard the sound of the piano. It rang out so beautifully that I found myself crying hot tears.

She was everything that was old and familiar, that I missed, that I regretted.

We saw her in our minds, bearing this burden for so long, how she stayed true, her courage and grace, the pain it must have caused. And then, ever more enthralled, we end up coming together like this in a starry wood to share a meal. That’s how it goes.

As a child, I’d always been reduced to a kind of grief by the idea that each one of the bright shining dots that the sky seemed to brim with was an entire star. That the lights of billions of stars were contained in the spaces between the tree branches I looked up through. “Why am I sad?” I’d asked Dad. “Does it make everyone feel like this?”

The night breeze drifted, and while my words were truthful, I knew they were also slipping away from something else.

And instead of confusing me, it filled me with so much longing that I thought I might cry.

But our destinies had already diverged, and each of us had grown to adulthood by our own way. We couldn’t go back. I tried to dismiss the feeling, telling myself it was junk—pure nostalgia, and disrespectful to both of our realities.

It’s kind of tragic, I thought, how we can never completely escape our childhoods.

I loved the way he walked. He always looked so confident that it made me feel a little lonely.

I’d never known a love before that could blot out the world around it like this.

Images of that future appeared before my eyes, and I welcomed them.

It must have been a dream belonging to my other self. But that me had already lost her chance to live this life.

My big sister took my hand and we went out through the wooden gate. The whole world seemed safe when I was with her. I felt like I could face anything.

I was tearful for no reason, and everyone was so kind.

I’d seen for myself how fate worked. And yet nothing had been taken away, only given.