The Premonition

by Banana Yoshimoto

I had a premonition of setting out on a journey and getting lost inside a distant tide as the sun went down, ending up far, far away from where I started.

A sudden rustling in your chest. A premonition of understanding. You feel you might be on the verge of uncovering something . . . You’re a little fearful, oddly excited, and somehow forlorn . . . Like there’s something coming around the next corner that’s going to turn everything you know about yourself on its head.

“It’s nice how the same person always comes back. So you don’t feel lonely.”

it was a little like living in Moomin Valley, where the sun never sets. 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.”