THE SPARKLER BEGAN TO GLOW as I lit the few grains of gunpowder embedded in its tissue-paper tip. Only a few seconds later, this initial spark swelled up into a slag—a molten dewdrop dangling delicately from the end of the crooked stick; a mote of warmth, carved out from the cold. Suspended upside down, this orb of light burned most brightly from the bottom, as the resultant updraft from the tiny pocket of heat it created only drew in more and more oxygen to fuel its flame. And so on it burned in the crisp night air, bright and brittle until at last it saw fit to begin shedding sparks, and a firework was born at last.
For a moment, the crackling embers scattered wildly—each firing off in their own arcs before bursting and branching out in all directions—but then, all at once, the fizzling fountain froze over. The chirping insects in the surrounding fields and forests fell silent, and the flow of time seemed to slow to a crawl. This was a sensation I hadn’t felt in over a year—a strange phenomenon that could only be experienced here in this spot where the fabric of our world grew thin, and the fetters that kept us bound to it came undone.
Aoi was standing right beside me.
And directly across from us was Ryo.
The three of us stood huddled close together in a triangle, as if gathered to marvel at the sparks where they hung frozen in midair.
“Been a long time since we all got together like this,” said Aoi.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said with a nod. “I’ve been so busy lately that I couldn’t afford to make the trip back home. Sorry you two had to wait up for me.”
“Don’t sweat it, dude. Just glad you could make it,” Ryo said, casting his gaze up into the sky. “Man, it’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year though, huh?”
Far off in the distance, the skies overhead had begun to fade from black into a deep, navy blue. It was that most fragile time of night, just before the first rays of morning light crept up over the horizon, and for a moment, I could almost see her there with us—that pale, fleeting specter I once knew. But as of yet, there were no reports online of anyone having encountered her this summer.
“Guess Ayane-san’s not coming,” Aoi said. “Too bad.”
She was right. Based on our experiences last summer, Ayane should have already appeared by now. But tonight, she was nowhere to be found.
“Yeah, I think she… I think she finally managed to find closure,” I said. “And now her soul’s moved on to wherever it was going next.”
Where exactly that might be, none of us could say, but we should wish her well all the same. Yes, we would never see her again, and yes, even the urban legend of the Summer Ghost would likely fade into obscurity before long. But I knew I’d still remember her and think of her fondly each year, whenever summer came.
Ryo called out to me. “Hey, Tomoya. How’ve you been doin’ lately? Still hangin’ in there?”
“I’m doing all right, yeah,” I said. “Just working and studying so I can retake my entrance exams and hopefully get into art school next year. I finally managed to move out and get my own place too. That’s the main reason I haven’t been able to come back until now, actually—I’ve just been so busy with the move and my new job and everything.”
When I thought back on all that had happened over the past six months, I couldn’t help but get a bit emotional. Despite making the decision to put suicide on hold and give living a good college try for a while, I did not initially feel at all motivated to give college a try. When the day of the entrance exam for what had been my first-choice university finally rolled around, I didn’t even show up to the testing site. Instead, I went for a long walk with my sketchbook along the shoreline, stopping every now and then to sit down and draw any particularly beautiful bits of scenery I encountered.
I wasn’t sure who exactly might have noticed my absence—maybe one of my studying acquaintances realized I was missing and let the officiators know—but before I knew it, I was getting calls and texts from all sorts of people. My mother, my homeroom teacher, my cram school instructor…all of them disgruntled, distressed, and in disbelief. They all seemed to agree that I just threw my life away. Maybe I had. I applied to a number of universities and paid the preliminary examination fees for them all, but I didn’t show up to take a single test. The once-supportive adults in my life wasted no time in branding me a living failure.
And so I set forth on a crash course for graduation with no higher education or employment plan whatsoever. As word of my life choices spread throughout the school, I could feel the judgmental glances of my peers whenever I walked down the hallway. Apparently, the leading theory was that I cracked under the pressure of all the studying and expectations of me as an honor student and had something of a mental breakdown. But to be quite honest, I didn’t really care what people thought about me, though.
In the past, I was very careful not to be defiant or rebellious toward my mother and her wishes. It was something of a self-preservation tactic that allowed the two of us to go on living together in harmony. So, I wondered what exactly it was that had convinced me to drop the act and stop being so obsessed with maintaining the status quo. Perhaps my respect for her absolute authority as my parent was beginning to fade now that I was quickly approaching adulthood myself. Or perhaps my desire to express myself through artwork finally tipped the scales and overruled my fear of anything she could possibly do to me. But whatever the reason, I decided that now I was going to hold fast to this passion I held within my chest. I wouldn’t let anyone’s sharp words or derisive laughter dissuade me from pursuing this most vital urge, this compulsion to create, ever again.
After graduating from high school, I made the decision—and this time of my own volition—to start attending a preparatory cram school for those interested in applying to a university of the arts. My mother and I fought vehemently over it. Despite her claims to the contrary, I hadn’t lost all love and respect for her as a parent. I was deeply grateful for her constant efforts to support our little family as a single parent, often working late into the night just to make ends meet. I also did not think this decision on my part should constitute a unilateral severing of our familial ties.
“I brought you into this world, so it falls to me to make sure you find and stick to the right track through life.”
There was still a part of me that did respect her in the way she insisted—as my “creator,” in a sense—so I did still feel a deep-seated aversion to deliberately going against her wishes. But now that I found my own footing, I could finally see my mother for what she truly was: an equal, no more or less valid than me. Having done that, I could rationalize that there was no need for me to feel indebted to her to the point of self-erasure.
“Though I do sometimes feel like maybe I had it easier back when I was just trying to play the role of honor student,” I admitted to my friends aloud.
Try as I did to reason with my mother, I eventually grew tired of her incessant attempts to mentally break me down with cutting words and sneers whenever I discussed my life goals. But thankfully, I no longer had to deal with her much now that I’d moved out on my own. My life had grown far more peaceful ever since.
Interestingly, it seemed my father somehow heard that I was now living by myself, and one afternoon, I received a postcard from him in the mail. My constant fighting with my mother over my “poor life decisions” had become a somewhat frequent subject of neighborhood gossip, apparently, so perhaps one of the Christian households in our area who still kept in contact with my father had keyed him in. The postcard bore an illustration of Jesus Christ being held in the arms of angels, all ascending together into the sky. On the back, he wrote a short message expressing his support for my new choice of lifestyle. Ever since he left my mom and me, I always wondered where exactly my father was currently living. It felt a bit surreal to have his return address written so simply on that little postcard now. Maybe one day, after I got more used to living on my own, it might be nice to go and visit him.