There’s this recurring dream I have—I don’t realize it’s a dream when I’m in the middle of it. I’m a little girl, and I’m lost. So basically, I’m miserable and worried. But there’s a mood of familiarity and reassurance, too, like I’m wrapped in my favorite sheets. Sad yet comfortable. I don’t know where I am, and yet it’s not strange to me. I’m in a place I shouldn’t be, but I want to stay there forever. Still, for child-me, the sadness seems to be winning out, and I’m desperately trying to hold back the sobs welling up from my chest. Dry tears turn into clear grains of sand that cling to the corners of my eyes.
Overhead, the stars are gleaming. It’s like someone has mistakenly cranked up the luminosity to ten times the usual, until the starry sky is absurdly bright. It’s so blinding that each point of light seems to pulse with a ringing noise. Within the folds of my ears, the sound of the stars blends with the whoosh of dry wind, my own heavy breathing, and the crunch of weeds beneath my feet. This whole time, I’ve been walking through those weeds. Far in the distance, a range of mountains seems to encircle the world. Beyond them rises a white wall of clouds with a yellow sun perched on top. The white clouds and sun are there at the same time as all the stars. Beneath this sky in which all of time seems to fuse together, I walk on.
Eventually, I come upon a house and peer in through the window. All the houses here are buried beneath a tangle of plants. Most of the windows are broken, and their tattered curtains whisper in the wind. Weeds grow thick inside, but oddly, the dishes, keyboards, textbooks, and other objects scattered about look brand-new.
“Mom!” I yell, but my voice comes out scratchy, like the air has been let out of it. I concentrate on my throat and try again: “Mom!” The ivy-covered walls swallow my shout like I never said a word.
I’m not sure how many houses I peer into, how much grass I walk over, how many times I call out for my mother. No one answers; no one appears. I don’t see a single animal. My shouts vanish without an echo into the weeds, the crumbling houses, the piled-up cars, the fishing boats balanced on roofs. No matter how far I walk, there is only wreckage. Tears well up again, along with overwhelming despair.
“Mom! Mom, where are you?!”
I walk along, sobbing. My breath is white. The moisture in it cools the moment it leaves my mouth, chilling the tips of my ears even more. My fingers, each with black mud packed under the nail, and my round little toes inside their Velcro shoes are so cold they hurt. Meanwhile, my throat and my heart and the back of my eyeballs feel uncomfortably hot, like they have some special disease that doesn’t affect any other part of me.
When I look up at the sky again, the sun has sunk below the clouds and the world is blanketed in a transparent lemon yellow. Overhead, the stars still shine absurdly bright. I’m crouched in the weeds, exhausted from walking and crying. As I curl up inside my down jacket, the wind blows against my back, and little by little stealing my warmth and exchanging it for helplessness. My small body grows heavier, as if it is being replaced with mud.
But it’s only just begun.
I feel like I’m watching myself from a distance as this thought occurs to me.
The climax of the dream is still coming. My body will freeze, and my heart will grow numb with worry and loneliness. Resignation will flood through me, and I won’t care anymore. But…
I hear a soft rustling from far away. Someone is walking through the field of weeds. To me, the plants felt prickly and hard. But beneath the feet of this person, they sound as soft and gentle as fresh spring buds. I lift my face from between my knees as the footsteps approach. Slowly, I stand and look over my shoulder. I blink hard, trying to clear the mist from my eyes. Past the swaying weeds, as if on the other side of a sunset-colored sheet of tissue paper, I see a human form. Wind billows her loose white dress, and golden light frames her long hair. She is a grown-up with a slender, delicate frame, and her mouth is curved gently upward like a fingernail moon at dawn.
“Suzume.”
She calls my name. The moment she does, I feel as if I’m sinking into a warm bath. From each point touched by the wave of her voice—my ears, my fingers, the tip of my nose—warmth spreads through my body. The snowflakes swirling in the wind turn to pink petals dancing around us.
It’s her—the person I’ve been looking for all this time.
“Mom,” I whisper, but I’m already awake.