kscans

Chapter 2 - Obituary

The insistent ringing of the telephone pulled Tsukie from a dream wrapped in a pleasant rhythm.

She'd had the same dream again. Ever since she was a child, Tsukie had dreamt the same dream.

Where was that train going, anyway?

It was always the same: a train journey that never reached its final destination. Two little girls. A dream as vivid as a scene from a movie she'd seen somewhere, the white of the snow and the red of the girls' clothes standing out in sharp contrast.

The dream itself was always delightful, filled with a thrilling sense of excitement, yet upon waking, she was always left with a strange sense of melancholy. She felt a complicated mix of wanting to discover where that train was headed, and feeling as though she must never find out.

Still half-asleep, Tsukie sat up with a start and hugged her shoulders, a shiver running through her from the cold air in the room. Her eyes instinctively darted to the alarm clock on her bedside table. Three in the morning. March in Hokkaido was still bitterly cold. She'd set the timer on the space heater for five-thirty.

For the phone to be ringing at this hour...

It was one thing when she was single, but for an ordinary working person in an ordinary household, a phone call at such an ungodly hour—if not a prank or a wrong number—could only be news of a death.

She picked up the receiver with a dreadful sense of foreboding. The moment she answered, her mother's panicked voice pierced her ear. It was news that her father had collapsed from a heart attack.

Her mother repeated like a mantra that she couldn't get through to her sister, Hinako, in Tokyo, and what was she to do. Tsukie calmed her down, told her to call their uncle who lived in Sapporo first, and hung up. She wanted to rush over immediately, but it was a four-hour drive from her house to her parents' home.

Was she trembling from the cold in the room, or from the sudden news? At some point, her husband, Tetsuro, had appeared by her side.

"What is it?"

"My dad collapsed. Mom was in a panic, said it doesn't look good."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I think so. I have to call Hinako."

She found Hinako's number, misdialed and hung up twice, and finally managed to press all the digits on the third try.

When she relayed the news just as her mother had told her, her sister on the other end of the line let out a sob and burst into tears. It took half an hour to calm her down over the phone.

Her sister, Hinako, was very easy to read. She was a whirlwind of emotions, but perhaps because of that, she processed things quickly. In situations like this, she was surprisingly reliable. Tsukie told Hinako to get on the first flight back tomorrow and hung up.

The last time I had that dream, did I go to someone's funeral then, too?

As she placed the receiver back in its cradle, the thought suddenly crossed her mind and she tilted her head. She tried to recall for a moment, but now was not the time.

First things first, she turned on the space heater and began to prepare to go to her parents' house.