Dette bliver et vildt langt indlæg, for her smider jeg lige en novelle som jeg har skrevet ind. Den hedder “A Love Story”, og den er på engelsk. Enjoy ^__^ Tag jer ikke af de mange fejl som er i den. Jeg er ikke mesterlig til engelsk. Hehe. Den vil senere blive smidt ind under Visitor under ‘Noveller af Simone Møller’. Det var mest for at vise hvad jeg har brugt hele min dag på i dag ^^”
A Love Story By Simone Møller
,,Sakamoto Takashi left his apartment, where he lives with his girlfriend and child, near Sankei-park in the Naka district in Yokohama, Monday morning two weeks ago. He never returned home. The family is sure that he has been a victim of a crime. If you have seen Sakamoto Takashi, or have any information witch can lead the police to him, please contact the police in Yokohama on 045-212-0110…” It was obvious the reporter wanted to say more, but Shizu turned off the TV. Shizu felt the hair in her neck raise. She felt dizzy. What terrible news. She didn’t really fell sad for the man who had disappeared, but she felt sorry for the woman and child who were left behind. Shizu turned her face away from the black TV screen, and faced the door leading to the dining room.
,, Have you heard? Another man has disappeared… And he has left a woman and child behind…” Shizu’s voice wasn’t loud even though she actually was shouting. Shizu behaved as her name indicated – ‘quiet’. You wouldn’t even hear her steps when she moves across the floor. She walked through the dining room, where he already sat and waited, and into the kitchen. She still enjoyed cooking for him. She didn’t remember for how long they had been dating – maybe a month, maybe a week. It didn’t really matter. He had almost immediately moved in with her. She poured the rice in a beautiful porcelain bowl. The bowl was white with purple flowers painted on the sides of it. She had to walk many times between the kitchen and dining room before the whole dish was arranged on the table in front of him. ,,I don’t think he was a victim of a crime. I think he just ran away and left his family behind. What an awful man…” Shizu said, and placed the last plate with food on the table.
He did not eat any of the food. He was just sitting there, watching her eat. Shizu felt like a big fat pig, which just kept eating. He didn’t like the food, it was obvious. Her heart was suddenly very heavy in her chest. Her eyes filled with water. ,,What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?” Shizu’s voice was a stifled whisper. She pushed the bowl with rice a bit closer to him, but he didn’t get the chance to react or answer before the sound of a ringtone from a cell phone filled the room. Shizu looked at him. He didn’t look like a person who was planning to answer the call. He didn’t look like a person who was planning to move at all. ,,Go ahead and answer it.” Shizu said. Her eyes were drawn to the little table, with the white lamp, where the cell phone was rotating around while it was playing some kind of stupid melody from a horror movie called ‘One missed call’ or something. Her heart felt sick. Why didn’t he answer the call? Was it a person he didn’t want her to know about? A lover? ,,Please answer it! Why aren’t you answering it? Is it a lover of yours?” The tears began to run down her cheeks. He was cold and in this moment, like a stranger to her. He had a lover. Shizu got up from the chair, and left the room in a hurry. She couldn’t stop crying and the sad melody from the cell phone did only make it worse. When Shizu reached the bedroom the phone finally stopped.
Shizu didn’t feel his presence in the apartment anymore. She was sure of that a foul odour had manifested itself in the whole apartment since the night she ran in to the bedroom and he never came to check on her. He didn’t come back to the apartment since that night. He didn’t even come to say goodbye. Shizu was alone again. She didn’t know for how long she had been alone now. It felt like ages. She wasn’t sure if she could actually recognize him if she saw him on the street. The only memories she had left of him was his unspoken words.
Haruko Tsuji, a married woman in the middle of her 50ths, knocked on her neighbour’s door. She had her address in the Isogo district, in Yokohama. No one opened the door. She knocked for the 5th time on the door. There was still no reaction from the other side of the door. Haruko got down on her knees and opened the mail slot with her fingers and tried to get a sign of life behind the locked door. Haruko looked for some kind of movement in the area of the apartment she could see but it was in vain. She was worried because she hadn’t seen her neighbour for about a month. Normally she wasn’t the type who stuck her nose into other peoples business, but there was something strange about this. Haruko could feel it. Haruko got on her feets again. Maybe she should try again tomorrow. She checked the name on the neighbour’s door one last time before she left. ‘Shizu Oishi’. Haruko had only talked to the skinny girl a couple of times, and the only impression Haruko had gotten of the girl, was that she seemed very lonely.
A commercial for the new buildings in the Shinagawa district in Tokyo rolled over the screen. Shizu didn’t really pay attention to what she was watching. In a moment the news would be on. She turned off the television but she kept staring at the screen. She could see her own reflection in the black mirror. She had gotten very thin and she knew she had gotten pale as milk. She hadn’t really been eating since he left her. She had avoided the dining room as much as possible and she had to walk through it to get to the kitchen. There were too many painful memories and thoughts in that room, and she didn’t want to be reminded of it.
She wrapped a blanket around herself. The apartment had gotten really cold lately. She did not get the thought that perhaps it was because she had not paid her heating bill. The only thing she blamed for the coldness was the loneliness she felt after he left her.
Haruko Tsuji stood once again in front of her neighbour’s door. She knocked at the door, but as she expected, no one answered. Haruko had, as all the other neighbours, noticed a bad smell from the apartment next door. Haruko had got the idea that maybe this little lonely girl, Shizu, maybe had gotten into some trouble and now was afraid to leave the apartment, to throw out her garbage. But again, Haruko didn’t liked to interrupt other people’s personal matters, so she didn’t call the caretaker of the building to complain about the smell. Haruko once again gave up, and went in to her own apartment. She had other thing in life than wondering what her neighbours is up to, she told herself. It would satisfy her concerns for now.
Suddenly Shizu felt something new besides the sadness and loneliness. She felt a person’s presence. She felt his presence. She got up from the bed. Wrapped in a blanket she walked through the cold rooms. Shizu did have a goal in her life. The goal was to reach the dining room and she did it. Her eyes got big and full of tears of joy. He was sitting on the chair she called his. He didn’t say anything. His neck was bent over as if he tried to look at his own feet under the table. He looked like he was ashamed of himself. Shizu smiled. She smiled like she had never smiled before. She didn’t notice that the room was freezing cold anymore. She did only notice him. He didn’t have to say anything to her. She forgave him everything. He was her only love, and this time, she was going to hold on tight to him. In a few steps she was close to him again. With a gentle hand she touched his face. It was cold. He was freezing cold. ,,You shouldn’t have walked over here in this cold weather” Shizu said. She assumed that it was very cold outside since he was that cold. She took the blanket of her shoulders, and wrapped it around him instead. She wrapped it very close around him. She kissed his forehead and touched his face again and again. He was really here.
Haruko Tsuji stood in her door opening and watched how the policemen broke down her neighbour’s door. She was the one who finally called them. She was worried that her neighbour was hurt or something. She followed the policemen inside the apartment. The smell was terrible! Many times worse than she had ever imagined. Quietly they searched the small apartment. With their guns raised they entered the dining room. It smelled terrible in the dining room – a big contrast to the wonderful smells that came from the kitchen in the room next to the dining room. In the middle of the room a man sat bent over at the table. They carefully approached the man. One of the officers pulled a picture from a pocket. ,,Sakamoto, Sakamoto Takashi?”. He didn’t answer. He was dead. Starved to death weeks ago. ,,What is all the fuzz about?” a pale, skinny girl stood in the kitchen door. She looked like a corpse. Her hair was long and messy. Her lips looked blue from the cold. When she noticed it was policemen who had entered her home and not some kind of psycho-killer her frighten face turned into a big smile. ,,I am preparing some dinner for my boyfriend and I. Would you care for some too?” Shizu kept smiling. She was no longer alone.
