Fireflies
This is an excerpt from my historical novel GIRL IN A BOX, which will be published next spring by Sibylline Press. In this passage, the year is 1904. Japanese feminist poet Yosano Akiko has gone back to her hometown in western Japan upon hearing of her father’s death. It’s the first time she has been home since running away and eloping with a romantic poet, but she receives a cold welcome. Her elder brother has disowned her and disallowed her from taking part in her father’s memorial service. So, she must watch the funeral procession from a distance as it gathers in front of the family store.
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Holding her squirming toddler, Akiko watched from a side door as monks, musicians, aunts, uncles, and neighbors—people she had known her whole life—gathered around the funeral wagon outside. Torchlight reflected off the wooden casket, fashioned to look like a tiny temple with curving roof, faux doorway and little torii gates.
The priest ushered participants to their spots in the waning light. Family members came first, behind the wagon. Akiko’s mother, looking ghostly in her white kimono, held her husband’s framed photograph, flanked by her two sons. Sister Teru stood with her husband and daughters next to Hana’s widower. Sato was there. Behind them were town leaders: men from the Sakai Merchants’ Association, along with the priest Okawa-san from Aguchi Shrine and Mrs. Otani with her daughter. Kōno was there in his monk’s robes, next to his father, representing Kakuōji Temple. The music of flutes, drums, and bells started up with drunken disorderliness before settling into a mournful dirge. A dog began to howl.
Finally, the wagon creaked into motion.
Burdened with the double loss of father and family, and disallowed from taking part, guilt compounded Akiko’s grief. And yet, she found some comfort in watching the ceremony. Funerals are important, she thought as the procession began to move down the street. Funerals give people something to do, a focus; they accept and honor grief; they distract from the physical manifestation of death; they underscore community and family ties. To be left out of her father’s funeral did as much to isolate her as her brother’s words. Yet, she had chosen this path. As a poet, she was obliged to break the blinders of tradition, to speak aloud about anger, grief, and loss. For hidden things, to make radical words.
It’s like catching feelings in flight. Like a child, who shows her friend the firefly in her palm.
I never knew that’s what a firefly looked like close up, her friend might say, peering into her hand, and what she means is, thank you, yes, that’s exactly the way I feel.
When the last straggling funeral goer disappeared around the bend, Akiko collected her things, tied her toddler snugly to her back, and left for the station on foot. With much of the neighborhood taking part, the street in front of Surugaya was quiet. As she locked the door behind her, it made a final click. I will never be locked in again, she thought, and walked away[SS1] , pocketing the key. She imagined a firefly in her hand, and lifting her palm, set it free.
