An Endless Sea

“Hey, wake up, will you!?”

An unfamiliar voice called out to Tetsudo. He opened his eyes and saw a man in uniform standing over him. His moustache was trembling from annoyance.

“Are you kids waiting for a train or something?” The man asked with hands on his hips.

“Uh…” Tetsudo rubbed his eyes. “Sort of, we don’t know.”

“If you don’t know, then get up! You can’t just sleep here!” The guard yelled at him, and signaled to get up.

“Sorry,” Tetsudo said and sat on the floor. “I’ll be leaving in a second, I’m just going to go to the toilet.”

“Alright, just don’t make me come and throw you out.” The guard warned him and walked away.

Tetsudo got up and stretched. He looked to his left and saw Yai, already woken up and looking at the giant map in the middle of the station’s lobby. He picked up his backpack and went over to her.

“What are you looking at?”

Yai looked at him – her face was tired and worried. She pointed at the old map.

“To Niigata we still have to walk eighty or something kilometers. Maybe even ninety.”

“So, what are you suggesting? That we go by train?”

Yai nodded.

“It would take a week more to go by foot to Niigata, but I don’t know if you have enough money for train tickets from here.”

“Let’s see then…” Tetsudo pulled out his wallet from the backpack. “1000, 2000…”

Tetsudo counted all the money with Yai looking over his shoulder, afraid someone might see him and try to steal something.

“7,050 yen. Let’s go and see if they are enough for tickets.”

They went to the ticket window and asked about the price.

“There are a few different lines that go to Niigata.” The cashier said.

“Well, what is the cheapest route?” Tetsudo asked.

“Uh, let’s see… That would be through Nagaoka, which is three thousand yen per ticket.”

Yai and Tetsudo sighed in relief.

“We’d like to buy two tickets.”

*

The slow burn of the sun above tired out the sitting passengers. Yai and Tetsudo looked out of the window – the train moved faster than the day could. The sudden morning had become lunch and there were no shadows around the moving trees and bushes. The fields of yellow grass looked vacant, slowly burning and fading away like all the ashes spread across them.

The birds on some trees looked confused at the rails – they were loud for a second and then would die down and not produce another sound. Except the feeble buzzing of the wires, but when it’s lunch, these wires are hotter than a heated stove. The birds, however much they loved sitting and singing on the warm wires, knew that their legs would be burned if they sat now. And dusk was not coming soon.

As the train moved farther and farther away, Yai and Tetsudo could see the endless sea from afar. So blue, so beautiful. The golden skin it had was even prettier. But to get to it there were still a lot of mountains and valleys, rivers and cities.

“Tetsu...”

“Yeah?” He answered without looking away from the window.

“You don’t have enough money to go back now,” Yai said.

“You’re gonna pay for my ticket back,” he turned to her. “It’s only fair, no?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Yai smiled.

They got back to watching the forest slowly fade away and give way to houses, big or small, hundreds of them. They were probably near Nagaoka now. Soon they’ll be in Niigata.

The train moved slower and slower. It has like Niigata was a black hole – the closer they got to it, the more time became disoriented and the slower they moved. The day was becoming an unfixable mess of time, space and distance. Tetsudo could not wrap his head around it. He looked out of the window for an hour, yet only 15 minutes had passed. The trees were so quick, yet it was the train that was fast.

Tetsudo thought for a minute if his mom would somehow realize he wasn’t home. He had been checking with her every night, calling even, and it has seemed that she wasn’t aware of his absence. But she would be coming back home on Friday. And now it was Tuesday. Even though he wanted to spend every with the person he was meant to be with, he had to come back on time. His plan was always to come back and leave Yai after all. He hoped there wouldn’t be something that made him stay in Niigata for too long…

There were sad clouds over the empty ocean. They were watching him and Yai. A storm was coming, he just didn’t know when. Suddenly he felt a weight on his shoulder. He turned to Yai and saw her sleeping, with her head resting on him. Tired and closed eyes, short and soft breathing and her peaceful face twitching beautifully. Her arm was on his leg, lifeless and white like snow. He grabbed it and held it tightly, as tears of happiness rolled down his face, biting his lip to not wake her up.

After he calmed down, he fell asleep as well, leaning on Yai’s head and holding her hand. They and the birds smiled in their sleep. The sun burned above, but they couldn’t hear anything except the obscure songs they heard in the dream. The wind was whooshing away with the train, who made its way to an endless sea.