GoKawiilThe letter arrived in a way I had almost forgotten letters could — without sound, without warning, resting on the table as though it had always been there. I don’t mean this poetically. I truly believe I might have placed it there myself and then failed to remember doing so, which is something that happens more often than I like to admit.
NOTICE OF TRANSFER TO MOUNT OBA: FINAL DATE ENCLOSED.
I read the letter twice, then a third time, because words had a tendency to rearrange themselves when I wasn’t looking directly at them. It’s simply how the days are now.
I folded the paper into a crane. I’ve always said I’m not good with my hands, but that isn’t quite accurate. It’s more that my hands remember things my mind pretends not to. The creases came out sharp. I placed the crane on the living-room window that didn’t open any more, the narrow one above the radiator that looked east towards the railway lines.
Tokyo below me, as it had done for many years, moved forwards without hesitation. Drones traced their polite arcs through the air. Turnstiles sang softly as they admitted the correct bodies and refused the incorrect ones. Somewhere nearby, a public announcement reminded us that Balance is Care. I mouthed the words along with it, a habit I’ve never entirely broken. Repetition, after all, has its comforts.
Mount Oba.
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When I was younger — before the corrections, before the recalibrations — Ubasuteyama was something you heard mentioned with a half-smile, as if it belonged to a children’s story no one quite believed. In the old folklore, it was the mountain where the elderly were left behind when times grew lean, necessity offered as mercy. I remember thinking the practice was cruel, but also thinking, rather shamefully, that it was clever. I’m not proud of that thought, although I can’t honestly say I regret having had it.
Now it’s not clever or cruel. It’s administrative.
I checked my reflection in the same living-room window, although the glass was dark and gave little back. Eighty-three, according to the records — a number that’s stayed consistent even when other details haven’t. My oestradiol tablets stopped arriving years ago; there was a letter about that, too, although I no longer recall what it said. My face has softened in ways I sometimes fail to recognize, and the faint swell at my chest still catches me off guard, but I’m still me. At least, I think I am.
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