Little steps

The train to Wakayama was the first step.

They say the first step is the hardest, but let me tell you, that’s a complete and utter lie cooked up by some serial procrastinator just to give themselves a pep talk.
The second step is harder than the first. Take a bicycle, for example. Getting on? Piece of cake, that’s step one. Keeping your balance, pedaling, and managing to brake before your face smashes into the windshield of an uninsured Toyota Corolla? Way harder—follow me here: steps two, three, and four, objectively more difficult.

This little—not so little, if I’m being honest—train ride was less a change of scenery from point A to point B and more a sort of epiphany.

The train was packed to the brim, people glancing at their watches, others skimming newspapers, and the majority, naturally, glued to their phones. There was this collective sense of urgency, because obviously, the stock market crash in some country you’ll never visit, which has zero impact on your daily life or the national economy is totally the end of the world.
Showing up ten minutes late to work—my personal record is one hour and seventeen minutes, and not only am I not ashamed, I’m downright proud—and having your boss yell at you in front of the other employees while threatening to dock the overtime pay they weren’t going to give you anyway? I’m guessing that’s also the end of the world.

Maybe worlds like that should end. I mean, watching them, I couldn’t help but think everyone was frantically rushing to nowhere. You could say I was headed nowhere too, but at least I was walking.

When the train pulled into Wakayama, everyone spilled out like it was some violent pilgrimage to their respective destinies—the exact equivalent, if you need a visual, of pouring water into an ant nest. Same reaction, same timing. Me, I decided to wait until the end, dodging unnecessary collisions.
It took less than ten minutes for the station to empty completely.

First step, done.
Now it was time to check the urn and the absurd provisions I’d chosen for the trip.

“You could carry me in a bag,” said Haruna—my wife, this is where I introduce her—flitting from my left shoulder to my right and back again, not inside the urn but floating.
Something I don’t need to clarify but will anyway: I was probably the only one who could see her.

“Come on, that’d be utterly degrading,” I replied, my head swiveling side to side to keep up with her.

“Being dead is degrading, darling. The packaging’s the least of it.”

“You’re looking… grayer than usual, Haruna.”

“Dead people things…” she mumbled, chuckling.

“Yeah, I don’t get it.”

“You’ll get it eventually, love.”

“Did you just drop a death omen on me?” I shot back, mock-offended. “On me, your oh-so-charismatic husband who’s undertaking this absurd journey to grant you eternal rest?” I added with a theatrical flourish, because, well, that’s how we rolled.

In life as in death, some things never change.

“No, you goof,” she said, grabbing my cheeks and tilting my head up to meet her gaze. Not forward, but up, because—of course—floating must be ridiculously fun, and doing it literally over my head? Hilarious.
It was like our wedding night, minus the physical weight and the, ahem, lascivious demands of the moment. “About my ashes…” She continued.

“No. Don’t say anything, don’t advise me, don’t give me tips. I’ve got this.”

“I wasn’t talking about that specifically, I meant—”

“I’ve got this,” I said, puffing out my chest.

“Don’t come crying to me later…” she huffed, crossing her arms.

Now I was taking the second step—metaphorically, not literally. From the station, you could see Mount Kōyasan. Probably could’ve seen it from the train, or even entering the prefecture—after all, it’s a mountain—but I hadn’t paid attention to that during the ride.
I needed directions. Getting to the mountain looked relatively straightforward; navigating it without getting lost, tumbling down some steep drop, or falling victim to who-knows-what? Not so straightforward.