The Premonition

by Banana Yoshimoto

The wish was so strong it that was almost blinding, and for a split second I felt like I might fall to pieces.

Everything was normal, except the way I felt in my heart.

“Nothing good ever comes of leaving suddenly,”

The more beautiful a night away from home was, the more regretful it made you feel.

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

But there was still nowhere else for me to call home; I’d seen for myself how fate worked. And yet nothing had been taken away, only given.