I'll Be on the Road Again
-So many times I was alone and couldn't sleep
You left me drowning in the tears of memory-
The road at night was pitch black; this far from home, there were no
street lights, and I could scarcely see but a few feet in front of me
with the headlights on. Hesitantly, I leaned back in the driver's seat
and pushed the speedometer down to twenty, cruising lazily down the
vacant country roads. My hands resting with only the slightest grip on
the steering wheel, I pressed the button that opened my window just a
bit, unable to stand the smell of animal crackers, broken crayons and
apple juice that had come to inhabit my car in the past nine years.
Frigid December air came seeping in through the crack, and I breathed
deeply despite the cold. It shocked my senses back into believing, and
that felt good.
-And ever since you've gone I've found it hard to breathe
'Cause there was so much that your heart just couldn't see-
Twenty years ago, sailing down an empty road at midnight would've felt
like freedom. Fresh, icy air would have excited me, the darkness
intrigued me, but not anymore. Now, the frigid cold felt like new coats
for Toshi and Nara, and the darkness preceded a trip to the local
drugstore for flashlight batteries. Twenty years ago, a diamond was
jewelry; now, it was commitment. Now what used to be a golden
oppurtunity had dissolved into a bitter loneliness, a dark void strung
with guilt and regret. Twenty years ago, an envelope with an offhand
note from a high-school classmate and a Kodak photograph had been
something to cherish, something to keep next to your heart. Now, it was
something to be ashamed of. Something to hide.
-A thousand wasted dreams are rolling off my eyes
But time's been healing me, and I say good-bye-
On an impulse, I wrenched off the glittering band and flung it out the
open window, breathing hard as I watched the golden glimmer recede into
the darkness. It was nothing but an empty promise. My home, my things,
my children, all paid for with his money and nurtured with his love - I
would have lived on the streets to be free of it all. All of it was
meaningless, all of it a symbol of his commitment to me; all of it a
glass half-empty, waiting for me to fill the other half with my
gratitude. How could he do this to me? How dare he vie for a place in my
heart, when it was already so full it could burst? How could he possibly
expect me to cherish him, when the only thing I had ever truly cherished
had always lain just out of my reach? How could he expect so much of
me, when she expected so little... -wanted- so little? It hurt. God, it
hurt worse than anything in the world. And I couldn't manage love when I
was full of rejection.
-'Cause I can breathe again, dream again
I'll be on the road again-
It wasn't that I hated him. Koichi was a nice man; he wanted the best
for me, always had. I had no one to blame but myself for all this - I
had been the one who had agreed to it, when my parents pushed the
subject. He was the son of a friend of theirs, looking for someone...and
I was happy. I was happy buying goldfish at a hundred yen a pop, taking
them in for check-ups every week or so just so I could see her face. I
was happy walking past her office every day on my way to the café, or
the drugstore, or just across the street and back again, hoping to catch
a glimpse of her from outside. Even the racing heart, the cold sweat,
the butterflies in my stomach were better than the dredge of
predictability that came with every day, the nausea that welled up in my
stomach at another grueling day of this charade. I didn't want this,
didn't need it, not so long as I had her. Not so long as I had the
fantasy of her in my head, not so long as my dreams kept me loving her.
But what were they, in the end, but dreams?
-Like it used to be the other day
Now I feel free again, so innocent
'Cause someone makes me whole again...-
I had been weak. I had been weak, and now I was paying the price. As I -
in a voice low and full of masked dread, on that fateful day almost ten
years ago - had promised Koichi my everlasting love, another part of me
had begun to melt away. It was as if my heart were being slowly and
carefully pulled out, each nerve and vein separating bit by bit until
nothing was left but an empty chamber and a puddle of blood. It was a
feeling I later recognized as lost hope, and the melting was complete by
the time Toshi was born. They called it postpartum depression, but they
didn't know. No one had ever really known, because no one had ever
really cared. Of course, it wasn't as if I'd have told them if they'd
ask. She was something I liked to keep to myself, a secret pleasure that
I could feel extravagant in longing for. My best kept, most indulgent
secret, a blessed secret that traveled with me everywhere and kept me
alive. A faded photograph, a pair of high-school-girls, an everlasting
dream, and it was all I had to remind me that once upon a time, I had
had something to live for.
-For sure
I'll find another you.-
Reaching into my flannel-lined coat, I withdrew the scrap of paper from
an inside pocket, and flicked on the overhead light. Drawing in my
breath ever so slightly at the sight, I ran my fingers over the dusty
surface, cradling her face with a fingernail. As the car ambled smoothly
along the desolate country road, I lost myself in a haze of memory. How
it felt to be impassioned, how it felt to care. How it felt to devote
yourself to someone without regret, without denial, and make yourself
about them. -Who am I without you?-
-Could you imagine someone else is by my side
I've been afraid I couldn't keep myself from falling-
The age-old question rang in my ears. Who was I without her? An empty
shell, going through the motions. A shameless failure, in love with a
woman who had never cared for me, and cared for by a family that I had
never wanted. A miserable wreck in denial, a plaster smile painted onto
a straining face, a time bomb that kept ticking but could never quite
feel the release of explosion. As I had defined myself by her, without
her I had no definition. I was but a ghost, a shade of a woman called
Kaori, who felt nothing and everything all at the same time. A woman
called Kaori, who did not know rejection when it stared at her with
beautiful blue eyes, who could not accept love when it welcomed her with
open eyes. A rebel without a cause, a lesbian without a lover, and
someone who was apt let everyone down. Someone could not listen to her
heart, because it had always been consumed with a woman called Sakaki.
-My heart was always searching for a place to hide
Could not wait for dawn to bring another day-
"I tried, dammit!" I screamed to the starless sky, "Don't you think I've
tried?" Falling back in the seat, livid at the world, I felt tears
stream down my cheeks and didn't bother to wipe them. It wasn't as if I
had meant it to be this way. I found alternate routes through town,
without passing by the veterinary office. I kept the photo in my
dresser, rather than in my jacket pocket. I kept the memories tucked
away, put the longing aside, and tried to channel my love into something
new. And when I couldn't...well, I tried to make the lie convincing. But
for all my efforts, the memories still haunted me, and it wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair to me, it wasn't fair to her, and most of all, it wasn't
fair to them. Koichi, so enchanted with a woman he didn't know could
never love him; Toshi and Nara, counting on a mother's love that didn't
exist. Even Maeko, so little, who had barely seen the passing of a week
on this planet - I was letting Maeko down, even now. Last week in the
hospital, when they'd brought her in swaddled and pink-cheeked in a
gingham fuzzy blanket, when I'd felt her weight in my weary arms for the
first time, all I could feel was revulsion towards her. I wanted to hand
her back, tell the nurses they'd made a mistake, that she wasn't my baby
and I didn't want her. I hated myself for it, but I didn't want her.
-You're not the only one, so hear me when I say
The thoughts of you, they just fade away-
Poor little Maeko. She deserved so much better than me. They all did.
When it came to that, I should have left them ages ago, but somehow I
had thought this might be good for me. Having this...this semblance of a
family, it might help me to pick up the pieces. Might help me emerge
from her shadow after all those years; help me get over the relationship
that would have, should have, could never have been. Yet the more I
tried, the more I found I had liked being her shadow. Even if I couldn't
so much as touch her hand, lingering at the sidelines of her life was
preferable to losing her completely. But what was I supposed to have
done? -I'm sorry, Koichi, but I'm leaving you to obsess over a girl I
went to high school with.- It was too late. It had been for some time.
-'Cause I can breathe again, dream again
I'll be on the road again-
I slowed to a stop at a fork in the road, switching on my high beams to
better read the road signs. To the left, a short, squat sign decorated
with colorful images - supposedly in that direction lay a shabby motel,
a few fast-food restaurants, and a gas station. That road extended for
miles into the distance, and far away I caught a glimpse of a few pairs
of headlights and a lit restaurant sign. But the sign on the left was
wooden, tacked onto a plank nailed into the ground, most likely put
there whoever owned this vast land. The words -Dead End- were scrawled
onto the splintering surface of the wood in a paint that had begun to
chip, and the road it advertised curved sharply at a patch of scruffy
trees, its ending unforseen by the likes of me. For a moment, I
considered it; turning to the left, that is, high-gearing it towards a
bright future in a land unknown. Perhaps checking into the little motel,
having a quick meal at a diner in town, and calling up my old friends in
Osaka, Kawasaki, and Nagoya to see if I could stay with them. Chihiro
always had room for me. I could stay with her, just until I got on my
feet again. I could move somewhere exotic, maybe travel, see the world.
Or I could move back to my hometown, drive past the veterinarian's
office eight times a day, because there would be no Toshi and Nara to
complain about the long car ride. I could hang the photograph on the
wall in a frame, because there would be no Koichi to wonder why. I could
dream my lovely dreams of her without being awoken by Maeko's
fire-engine wail in the middle of the night. It would be wonderful. I
would be free again.
-Like it used to be the other day
Now I feel free again, so innocent
'Cause someone makes me whole again...-
Freedom. What a cruel jest. If I were gone for even a day without
notice, Koichi would have the entire town out searching for me. He'd
think I was abducted, possibly raped, beaten, killed. I'd be on the
news, in the paper, on fliers stapled to telephone poles all across
Tokyo. They'd find me, and I'd be taken home in shame, subject to the
disapproving stares of neighbors and friends. I would break Koichi's
heart, I would, and destroy his family, and no matter how detached I
felt from them, I couldn't do that. Love blinds you from the strangest
of things, but this was one thing it couldn't shield me from. Their pain
would be palpable, and I would be responsible, and no amount of sweet
dreams could fix that. And yet the thought of turning the car in reverse
sickened me to the point that my stomach stirred, and so I had but one
option, one dismal venue for the end of this farce. A bittersweet idea
that I had toyed with for some time, and had pushed itself to the front
of my mind a week earlier at Maeko's birth. A shift in my seat, a hand
on the wheel, the flashing dim of the headlights, and a turn to the
right.
-For sure
I'll find another you-
Slowly, ever slowly, the numbers on the speedometer rose from twenty to
forty to sixty, and I cleared the curve ahead to meet with a stretch of
open road flanked by trees on either side. As I flew down the road with
steadily increasing speed, a sense of calm overtook me as I thought of
Koichi. I could leave my husband and children innocent - sad, but
innocent, and oblivious to the truly shameful nature of the one they so
loved. They would not know my core of desperation and denial, but my
façade of cheerfulness and courage, and it would be better for all of
us. If I was lucky the minivan might combust on impact, leaving no
incriminating traces of an event staged and planned. In my idyllic
state, it didn't even concern me that I was combing over the details of
my suicide, blissfully unaware of what consequences lay ahead; all I
could think was that it was finally over, and there would be no more
lies. No more hiding, no more secrets, no more longing for what I could
not possess. Only an endless sea of darkness and flame.
-Sometimes I see you when I close my eyes
You're still a part of my life-
Rounding the last corner at a speed close to one hundred, my eyes fell
upon what I had been so longing for: a solid stone wall at least five
feet high, a segment of the barrier that divided this farmer's land from
the fields neighboring his. But even as I flew over the cracked
pavement, past the sagging trees and tattered shrubs at a speed that
would normally have terrified me, I felt as if I were floating. Similar
to the feeling of the tender touch of her hands, akin to the warmth of
her occasional smile, likened to the soft sweetness of her voice, the
sensation was wonderful, and left me wondering why I hadn't done this
sooner. Every one of my last moments swelled with my memories and my
love for her, the deep enchantment that had led me to so many years of
longing. But somehow, while I was floating, it was all right. Somehow,
even when the pain hit like a tidal wave, even when the sounds of
shattering glass and screaming tires filled my ears, even when blood
rose and spilled from my mouth, the pain of the last ten years blurred
and left me to my beautiful dreams.
-But I can breathe again, dream again
I'll be on the road again
Like it used to be the other day
Now I feel free again, so innocent
'Cause someone makes me whole again...-
Even as my heart slowed to its ultimate stop, it was as deeply in love
as ever. As the final rush of air left my dry lips, I whispered her name
into the rising inferno. "I'll always love you, Sakaki-san," I murmured
before the darkness closed in, "Even if it kills me."
-For sure
I'll find another you...-
-I'll find another you.-
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