Five Decembers

by James Kestrel

Tell me you understand. Tell me you know what we have been doing, all this time. I know what we have been doing. Tell me. Sachi— Then say it. You must know the words. You’ve never taught me. I’ve taught you everything you need to know. Watashi wa— He stopped. It would be no good to get this wrong. He took a breath, and tried again. He looked her straight in the eyes, and told her. Aishiteimasu. She let go of him. She smoothed her kimono and sat up straight. “Joe—I do, too,” she said. “Of course I do. And I have, for so long.”

They went to her futon. They knelt on it, facing each other. They were used to teaching each other. They knew how to be patient. They knew how to begin with first principles. How to lay a foundation and then build something lasting upon it.

If we want a better world, we should start by being better.

What they had was everything. There was no saving what they had. It had been incinerated along with everything else. They had spent three and a half years circling toward each other inside a walled garden. Outside, the world was burning down. Now the fire had come to them. Where had they thought this path would lead, when they’d set off? Was it foolishness or something worse that had brought them to this point so wholly unprepared? But now they were here, and she had no more options than McGrady had when he’d broken

Instead, he knelt down on the floor and cried until it was dark. He cried for Sachi. For the boy he’d killed. For the city that had died. For everything that might have been but would never be. He cried until he choked. Then he went out and got the shovel.

We’re in love with women who can’t stand us. We drove them away because we showed them what we were willing to do.

They bowed to each other. Then McGrady walked down the steps, and out the gate. He left with nothing in his pockets except for the few pages he’d written about Miyako Takahashi. He had no map. Getting lost didn’t concern him. He was lost before he started. Going home was the greater unknown.

were no fine points left to distinguish. They might have come from any country.

It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Fred Ball’s fault. It was a complete disaster and nobody had done anything wrong.

He went back to the paved road. He wasn’t worried about what would come next. Maybe he’d lost the capacity to be worried. Things would work out. Or they wouldn’t. It didn’t really matter. Everything that mattered was already past.

The routine kept him quiet. The quiet was growing inside him.

deep black space. It was easier to let it grow than to look at it. If it spread far enough, it would erase him.

It was amazing what things were allowed to endure, while others evaporated.