11. Memory

An August morning.

A high-pitched vibrating drone fills the hot, humid air.

Beneath a deep blue sky, dense green trees are saturated with sunlight.

Square stone pillars stand in orderly rows on a south-facing hillside cleared of trees.

A man slowly climbs the paved path running through their center, carrying a wooden bucket and a bouquet of flowers.

The ladle inside the bucket rattles dryly as he walks.

He turns off the main path, follows a gravel walkway, and stops before an old slab of granite.

When he sets the wooden bucket on the ground, it is somehow already full of water.

He pours water over the gravestone and cleans it carefully.

He places pale pink gladioli in the stainless-steel flower holders and leaves plastic-wrapped dango as an offering.

He presses the tips of the incense sticks against a flat stone. Within seconds, smoke begins to rise.

He places the incense in an ornately decorated burner, brings his hands together, and closes his eyes.

When he raises his head, his father and mother stand before him, unchanged from those days.

—Updates about family, work, health, and the rest.

—A new shop opened by the station. He went to an onsen the other day. He has taken up a new hobby. Ordinary stories like those.

He had always liked talking to the two of them this way about nothing in particular.

Before he realizes it, the incense is nearly burned out.

“Well, I'll come again.”

“Take care.”

“Don't go catching cold.”

Smiling wryly at their usual lines, he clears away the offering and looks up with the wooden bucket in hand.

They are gone.

He gazes at the gravestone for a while, then leaves.

Some unused water remains in the bucket.

Remembering his childhood, he pours it into the shallow roadside gutter.

He walks down the slope beside the leading edge of the flowing water, his thoughts drifting through old memories.