Kage

by Tara A. Devlin

  I always imagined that when I graduated from high school that everything would immediately get better. I would be free of those who kept me down. I would gain confidence, I would become pretty, I would have an amazing job that paid so much money I wouldn’t know what to do with it all. I would pick up a hobby, and at that hobby, I would meet the man of my dreams and we would have three children and everything would be perfect. All those kids who picked on me at school had no idea the good fortune that was waiting for me. The joke would be on them.

  But the joke was on me, as usual. The popular girls who did very little work, unless it was on their face, ended up getting well-paid jobs with their families and dating the popular boys who went to prestigious universities.

  I heard Sakura, one of the girls who delighted in putting her foot out as I walked by and watching my books go everywhere as I hit the ground, had married a guy she met at university. A guy who was now working at one of the biggest banks in Tokyo. So much for karma. I must have been a slave driver in my last life to end up stuck in the same dead-end town I was born in, working in a convenience store that was threatened with foreclosure every other month. Meanwhile, the girls who bullied me were getting married to rich men and starting their perfect families. Where was the justice in that?

  I stood up and sighed. Karate class started at 6 p.m. It was a little closer than my computer class, but I would still need to run to get there on time. I hated running.

  You see these girls on TV who are running through the sand and the wind is blowing through their hair and they smile in slow motion and you think, man, I need to get that shampoo. But in reality, I looked like a hunchback trying to stand tall and fighting the creature inside my lungs that was ripping and clawing and trying to break free. Quasimegu. That was me. I hated running. Little old ladies laughed when I ran. There was no greater shame than a little old lady laughing at your inability to do anything even slightly physical. I doubted whether I could even beat one in a race if one wanted to challenge me.

  But karate classes were expensive, and it was my second one ever. If I missed it, that would be money gone. Precious money I would never see again. Precious money I could have used for food, or perhaps to pay my late electricity bill. But you met future husbands with hobbies, right? Karate classes were an investment in my future. I couldn’t waste that money.

  I swallowed, looked around for any little old ladies, and started running.

  3

  The thud as I hit the mats reverberated throughout my soul.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” A middle-aged lady whose name I’d already forgotten waddled over and helped me up. “Are you okay? Did you break anything?”

  “Just my spine.”

  She laughed, but I was being quite serious. The instructor stepped around the people sparring nearby and patted me on the back a few times.

  “That was a nasty tumble you took there. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I think my spine’s broken.”

  He also laughed. It appeared no-one at karate class was going to take my pain seriously either.

  “Go sit down and have a rest. It’s only your second time here, you’re not supposed to be doing contact sparring at this point anyway.”

  “That was my fault,” the woman said. “I misjudged the length of my legs, I’m sorry.” The smile was for his benefit, not mine. I limped to the sidelines and waited for my spine to rip itself free and run away for a less pain-ridden body.

  “Here.”

  I looked up. A young man was holding a cup of water out for me.

  “You saw that too, huh?”

  “No offence, but I’m pretty sure the entire building heard that thud.”

  “Great.”

  He sat down next to me and I took the cup. Maybe I could pray to a water spirit to drown me on my way home. I downed the liquid and hoped that whatever might be listening understood what I was asking for. A quick death. Nothing too painful. Just end it. That was all I wanted.

  “This is your second time here, right?”

  I put the cup down and looked at the man. He smiled and put a hand up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude or anything. My name’s Teru. I’ve been coming here for about a year now. We don’t get many women joining, but ever since Jun-sensei took over the class, well…” He nodded towards the middle-aged woman laughing and slapping the instructor’s arm. “I’m glad more people are joining, that’s all.”

  “Hi Teru,” I said. A conversation was the last thing on my mind, but I didn’t want to be rude, either. Besides, wasn’t that the whole reason I was there as well? As shameless as the woman was, I had joined for exactly the same reasons. No need to be a hypocrite. At least I was being more tactful about it. Right? “My name’s Megu.”

  “Megu. That’s a lovely name. What brought you to karate class?”

  I debated ‘to get married’ but decided to take the more subtle approach.

  “I was never very athletic at school. I tripped over my feet more often than I managed to stay upright on them. You often hear about women being attacked on the streets these days, so I thought, why not learn to protect myself?” Lies. They were all dirty lies. Nobody even wanted to attack me on the streets, I was so pathetic. I could scream ‘hey, free murder, come stab me now!’ and they would keep on walking.

  “That’s great. That’s really great!” His smile was overly enthusiastic. “This is a great class, really. I wouldn’t keep coming here after all this time if it wasn’t, you know? The people are really friendly, too. I’m sure you’ll make some great friends.”

  It took me a moment to realise he was staring at me. He was waiting for me to continue the conversation.

  “Thanks for the water.” I stood up and discretely escaped to the toilets. I opened the door to the end cubicle and sat inside. This was stupid. Why was I there? I had zero interest in karate. Maybe I’d get lucky and someone would blindside me and put me out of my misery, but more likely I’d break a limb or two and spend the rest of my life in even more pain. And that man, Teru. I sighed. That was what I wanted, right? A nice, stable, wealthy husband? So why did his presence by my side make my skin crawl? He wasn’t ugly, not exactly. He wasn’t going to win any awards, but who was I to talk? Mirrors cracked and screamed when I walked by. Shit, she’s coming again, boys. Hide!

  So why did it feel wrong?

  I washed my hands and returned to the room. Everyone had changed sparring partners and Jun-sensei was fighting off the over-friendly hands of yet another young woman.

  “Um…” I waved to get his attention. “Jun-sensei…” He couldn’t hear me. “Jun-sensei!” The woman giggled. He smiled and nodded his head and looked around the room. “Jun-sensei!”

  His eyes lit up and he ran over. “Megu, I was wondering where you disappeared to. Is everything okay?”

  My heart jumped for the briefest of seconds. He noticed I was gone? This handsome walking hunk of man-flesh actually noticed I was gone? Surprised didn’t begin to cover how I felt. My cheeks grew hot.

  “I was just in the toilet. I’m not feeling too well, so, uh, I think I should go home a little early today. If… that’s okay with you.” I wanted him to ask me to stay. I hated myself for fawning like every other female in the vicinity, but at the same time, he noticed me. He was the first man to ever notice me. Not in a sexual way, but the first man to literally notice I was missing for half a second. I didn’t know how to describe the feelings running through me, but they were new and exciting and I wanted more. I had to calm myself. I didn’t want to look like the other bimbos falling out of their karate uniforms for him. I was different. I had standards.

  “Okay.”

  My heart dropped. There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation or ‘no, Megu, you should stay, I would miss you terribly if you were to leave right now. My heart couldn’t take it if we were to be separated, don’t you understand?’

  “Take it easy and we’ll see you again next week, yeah?�
�

  I forced a smile. I no doubt looked like a dog pre-growl. “Yes. Of course. Next week. No problem. That’s when the next class is. Next week. I sure will see you then.”

  I left before my words could embarrass me even further.

  4

  “I need someone here early tomorrow morning to collect the magazine shipment, so don’t be late.”

  I stopped by the front door of the convenience store. “But, I’m working the afternoon shift tomorrow. Sir.”

  The boss shrugged. “Ai can’t do it. She has an exam tomorrow morning.”

  Ai. His beloved Ai. Why didn’t he marry her already?

  “But that’s at least five hours before I’m supposed to start work…”

  The boss stared at me. I stared at him. He blinked. I blinked a few more times. He was waiting for the rest of my amazing story as to why I couldn’t come into work five hours early just to sign off on the magazines.

  “Will I be-”

  “Just be here.” He closed the door to the back room with a thud that let me know that was the end of the conversation. The doorbell tinkled as I walked out through it and into the cool night air. So, that was that. Go home, have a nice microwaved two-day-old meal, watch some mindless TV, wake up, do it all over again. That didn’t sound so bad. Surely it was more variety than what was waiting for me in Hell, right? Variety is the spice of life! It was better than pushing a boulder up a hill each day just to have it come back at you the next morning. Right?

  I dropped by to feed Dusty. Drops of rain stained my coat. Perfect. I didn’t have my umbrella with me. I ran for cover and pressed the pedestrian crossing button. Make that a microwaved two-day-old meal, some mindless TV, and a nice lukewarm bath to soak the rain away before bed.

  Something collided with me. Hard.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  I didn’t know why I was apologising, but I couldn’t stop myself. A young woman looked up at me, apparently unaware I was standing there as she walked right into me. It wasn’t the first time someone had missed my existence. She bowed her head in apology but didn’t make eye contact. There were tears running down her face. “Hey, are you ok-”

  She stepped out onto the road… in front of a speeding car. I dropped my bag and grabbed her by the back of her coat, yanking her onto the gutter. The car beeped its horn as it sped by.

  “What the hell?” My heart raced a thousand miles a minute. The woman didn’t move. She didn’t say or do anything. She just lay there in the gutter, expressionless, tracks of tears staining her cheeks. “Are you okay?” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a few times. “Hey. Hey!”

  Her eyes met mine for the first time. My heart stopped and a lump grew in my throat. “Y-you just walked out in front of a car.” My voice trembled. I couldn’t stop it. “Hey!”

  The woman said nothing. She didn’t seem to realise I was even there. Rain started to fall even harder, soaking us as we sat in the gutter. The woman was staring at something on the other side of the road. I followed her gaze and felt my heart stop. There was a person. No, not a person. A shadow. A shadow in the shape of a person.

  I looked back down at the woman and opened my mouth to ask her something, but I didn’t know what it was that I wanted to say. I turned back, and the shadow was gone. My breathing calmed. It was just a person. Of course. What else could it be?

  Rain soaked my jacket and dripped from my hair. The woman showed no signs of movement. She showed no signs of anything. She was like a living doll. She just sat there. Staring.

  “We should get out of the rain.”

  It was pouring so hard it was difficult to hear my own voice over the sound of it. Cars sped by metres away. Rain splashed my face with each passing vehicle.

  “I said-”

  I stood up and grabbed the woman under her armpits. She wasn’t listening. Maybe she couldn’t hear me?. At any rate, we needed to get out of the rain, and we needed to get out of the way of oncoming cars. The woman didn’t resist. I dragged her back under the eaves of some nearby shops and sat her against the wall.

  “My name’s Megu. What’s yours?”

  She said nothing. I waved my hand in front of her face a few times and finally, like she was coming out of a dream, she looked at me. Seemingly for the first time. She blinked and then looked around.

  “W-where am I?”

  “Shiraishi,” I said. “I take it you’re not from around here?”

  “Shiraishi…” She repeated the word as though tasting it for the first time. Then her eyes widened. “No. No, I can’t be. How did I end up here? I was at home, I don’t…” She stood up, looking around like a wild dog in a cage.

  “Hey, hey, calm down. It’s okay. What’s your name?”

  “I… I don’t understand. I was at home, I don’t… Not again…”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at me. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay. Look at me. What’s your name?”

  “Aya,” she said. Her eyes darted around me. “Is it here? Did you see it?”

  “See it? See what?”

  She shook her head and covered her face. “I can’t… It won’t leave me alone. There’s no escaping it. I have to get out of here! It brought me here! It brought me here for a reason and I can’t let it-”

  The woman was rambling. Her words made no sense; not to me, anyway.

  “You mean that shadow?” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. Her eyes widened again, and she gripped me so tight I let out an involuntary gasp.

  “You saw it?”

  I nodded.

  “Where did it go?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. She let go and dropped to the ground. People were looking at us as they walked by, but nobody stopped to help. Just another crazy woman. Nothing to see here.

  “W-who is it? Is someone following you? Would you like me to go with you to the police station?” Perhaps it was an old boyfriend. Or a current boyfriend. I’d only had two in my entire life, the second of which ended in high school after a brief three-day courting period. I’d heard that people could go crazy when breaking up though. If she was in trouble, the least I could do was help get her to the police station.

  “Not who. What.”

  I doubted my ears for a moment. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “What,” she repeated. “It’s… No, I need to get away from here. I can’t be here any longer. I need to-” The woman—Aya—took off running again. A car screeched as it hit the brakes, narrowing missing her in the rain. She didn’t stop. She kept running down the sidewalk, looking around for anything that might be lurking in the shadows, waiting to grab her.

  I looked down. The woman’s purse was on the ground.

  “Shit. Hey, you forgot your-” But she was running and showed no signs of stopping. “Goddammit.” There went my quiet night at home. I pressed the light for the crossing, hopping from one foot to the other. I didn’t want to die just to give a stranger her handbag back, but the longer I stood there, the further away she was getting.

  “Screw it.” I looked both ways, ran across the road, and weaved my way through umbrellas as I tried to find her. I could see her dress, soaked and blowing in the wind as she ran with wild abandon. “Aya!” She didn’t turn back.

  I hated running. I hated rain even more. It was a perfect storm of ‘not how I wanted my night to go.’ I tripped over a man’s foot and went sprawling to the ground. Add muddy on top of that. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, there was always a way. Just my luck.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, are you ok-”

  I was on my feet and running again before the man could finish his apology. I bowed my head and focused on my feet hitting the pavement. Hard. Flat. Hit the ground firmly, push off firmly.

  Firmly. The word swam through my head. Firmly. No falling over if you do it firmly. Mud can be washed off. The rain will stop eventually. You can’t run forever. But that woman, she was terrified of something, and I couldn�
�t deny that there was at least a part of me that wanted to know more. Perhaps it wasn’t the excitement I really wanted in life, but hey, it was a start.

  The woman turned down a covered alley and I smiled. Finally. Out of the cold and into… the dark. The lights were off. All the shops were already closed.

  “Shit.” I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see anything.

  That was it. That was what she was after. She was hiding.

  “Aya?” I tried to keep my voice to a whisper, but instead it was like screaming into a cave. I covered my mouth and looked around, squinting in the darkness. “I, uh, I have your bag.” I held it up and turned in a circle for her to see. I walked down the lonely line of closed shops, feeling the darkness envelop me the further I went in. Rain pounded the pavement at the entrance, echoing throughout the long corridor.

  “Aya?”

  Something pulled me into the shadows, a hand over my mouth. I turned and saw her; wet and pressed against the wall. She touched a finger to her lips and looked around the corner. We were squished in an opening between two stores. There was barely enough space for one person to fit, let alone two. Her body was pressed tightly against me, and uncomfortable didn’t really start to cover it. I pressed my lips together and looked up at the ceiling. Raindrops echoed. Her breath was warm on my neck. I opened my mouth to say something, but she covered it again. She was listening. Waiting.

  I had no idea what was going on, but I stood there, frozen against her, and waited. When nothing came, she stuck her head around the corner one final time and then pulled me out. I handed the bag to her. My knuckles were white and my hand shook.

  “H-here.”

  “I can’t go back.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She looked over my shoulder, and then over her own. “I can’t see it, but it brought me here for a reason. I can’t be here, and I can’t go back.”

  “Do you want to go to the police?” There was a large part of the story I was missing, but I didn’t want to be rude and pry.