The Premonition

by Banana Yoshimoto

I’d never figured out why I got so lonely so easily. Sometimes when I was on my own at night, I’d be seized by an overwhelming sadness I could only call homesickness.

But each time I reached the verge of remembering something, I felt vulnerable. Like a traveler far from home, I lost touch with the security of feeling that I could stay right where I was.

But we had something different. Like a fairy tale—so happy you maybe knew it was too good to last . . .

No matter how the wind rattled at the window or how swiftly the scenery flew past, even if an enigmatic night lay in wait all through the quiet carriage, I’d never again be driven by the overwhelming sense that there was something I needed to recall.

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