Dave Sutton had been in Nagasaki a little over two months when his Japanese teacher finally invited him over for dinner. Dave had been getting ten to twenty minutes of extra conversation practice during lunch time with him after his morning classes every school day. Slowly they had built a rapport.
Dave was in Nagasaki for an intensive course in Japanese with the hope of getting his language skills good enough to do graduate research on Japanese literature. He had vague notions of reading Endo Shusaku’s Silence…or reading hibakusha literature from Nagasaki…or, just doing anything to stay away from the cold of Chicago and avoiding his ex-girlfriend. So now, what had once seemed like a dream was a reality. And the teacher who was volunteering little parts of his day to make Dave’s dream come true had invited him to his home.
“Don’t expect too much,” Nikaido Sensei said in English.
Nikaido Sensei was an old Mitsubishi man, someone well-traveled, who had picked up a lot of English over the years working with foreign engineers and occasionally traveling abroad. His classes were famous for his bright personality and his tendency to indulge in “kankeinai hanashi,” long tangents that took the class away from the textbook.
When Dave arrived at Nikaido Sensei’s house on the hills of Nagasaki overlooking the bay, there was a note on the door written in English: Come In. Dave entered the house, took off his shoes, and said, “Ojyamashimasu.” To that, Nikaido Sensei simply replied, “Come in, come in,” in English. His Japanese teacher was in the living room hard at work on what looked like a massive art project.
“There is food in the kitchen.”
And so there was. There was a plate with a ham and cheese sandwich, some rice, and a cup of black coffee. Now, Dave understood why Nikaido Sensei had told him not to expect too much. Still, Dave was hungry, so he ate it without complaint, all while Nikaido Sensei continued to work on his art project—a model of some kind, massive in scale, that looked like an island village.
“Here, paint these,” Nikaido Sensei said, handing him little toy cars. He saw that Nikaido Sensei had already set up small brushes and paints.
Dave started painting. He didn’t ask any questions; instead, he examined the model in silence. The model seemed to be of an island city. There was a massive wind turbine at one end. Scattered here and there were large generic block apartment buildings.
“This seems very detailed.”
“Mmm…yes, the details are important. But mostly I just work on this model out of habit. Old men like me need hobbies. You know, after I retired from Mitsubishi, I spent a week doing nothing at all. I studied some English, had lunch with old friends, read the newspaper. Many of these friends had been retired for a long time. After one week, I thought I would go insane. After two weeks, I had a long think about how all these Mitsubishi retirees were doing…to my eyes, they were half-dead already…it was like a zombie movie. That’s when I decided I would go back to school and get my certification to be a Japanese teacher. So, I did that and started teaching at our Japanese language school…and for a while that was enough. But then I decided I needed more to fill up my time. That’s when I started working on this model.”
“It’s…big…”
“It didn’t start that way. It’s Takashima, my old hometown. It’s an island close to Nagasaki City. It’s about fifty minutes away by ferry from Ohato Port. You probably know Gunkanjima, Battleship Island. It’s quite the tourist attraction now. Well, Takashima is the island before that one. You should go there sometime. There is not much to see now, but in its day, it was a busy place. See, this is my old high school.”
Nikaido Sensei pointed to a building on a hill…or was it a mountain? Then he pointed to a field near the high school. “That is where my brother and I always used to play baseball.”
“I’m guessing this is the port building.”
“That’s right.”
“You sure have put a lot of work into this.”
“At one point, they were thinking of using this as a decoration in the port building. ‘They’ meaning one of the nonprofits that work on the island. By the way, the island looks totally different now. This is the way it used to be before…”
“Before?”
“Well, a lot has changed.”
Dave finished painting his miniature car.
The night passed quickly as they worked. Eventually, they stopped working on the model and went into the kitchen to share glasses of shochu and talk in Japanese.
A week later, Dave visited Nikaido Sensei again. This time when he arrived at his teacher’s house on the hill there was pizza waiting for him.
“I got takeout pizza for us,” he said from the living room where he was working on his model. Dave hadn’t eaten since earlier that day, so he took a moment to eat a few slices before proceeding to the living room. The model had grown since the last time he was there. Little by little, it was filling in with details.
“Today, we’ll be working on the old high school.”
They worked mostly in silence, painting little plastic trees and the sides of buildings. Finally, Dave broke the silence, practicing his Japanese. “You used to be a student at that high school?”
“Yes, a long time ago. My brother was two years older than me. We both played baseball. But he was the talented one on the team. Do you like baseball?”
Dave shook his head.
“That’s right, I forgot. Dave-san likes literature. You will write wonderful scholarly works on Japanese literature.”
“In Japanese, I hope.”
“Whatever Dave-san does will be wonderful.” Nikaido Sensei continued painting the school with his miniature brush. “I’m glad I am sharing this with you. I feel like I need someone to look at this. The way the island is now, if I put this in the port terminal like that non-profit wants…well, it too will turn to dust and rot.”
“Do you go back often?”
Nikaido Sensei shrugged. “It’s all just rotting buildings now. There is very little on the island besides government buildings, a little museum about coal, and the beach. I’m already a sad old man. Why would I go there just to be sadder?”
That struck Dave as odd. He didn’t consider Nikaido Sensei to be a sad old man. He was one of the most engaged and active people he knew, regardless of age.
“Do you know why I became a Japanese teacher, Dave-san?”
“You said you needed a way to be unretired.”
“So, so…to be retired is to be dead. This job puts me in the realm of the living. Young people, new life. You are all coming to Japan to learn Japanese, to breathe new life into dying Japan, into people like me. You will do wonderful things, Dave-san. So will the other students. They will fill necessary jobs, start families, and build little communities here…I should be doing lesson planning, but somehow, night after night I end up back here working on this model. Why?”
“Because remembering is important…maybe?”
Nikaido Sensei nodded his head. “Perhaps. But there is a time to let go of the past too.”
Dave thought about his own past. He remembered breaking up with his girlfriend, the tearful goodbyes with his mother before he left.
“But not tonight,” Dave said. “Tonight, we will paint and remember.”
Later that night, Nikaido Sensei brought out his best shochu. They shared glass after glass. Dave practiced his Japanese. He talked about Chicago and all the things he did not miss, such as the cold and the high cost of living. Perhaps Nikaido Sensei said something important about Takashima, but all that Dave could remember later was working on the details of that model.
A few weeks later, Dave and some of his friends took a boat trip out to Hashima, also known as Gunkanjima (Battleship Island). Like Takashima, Hashima had once been a coal-mining island, and like Takashima, when the mine had closed, the island had been abandoned. But unlike Takashima, it was entirely abandoned. A ghost island. The island had been registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to draw in tourists. They took the boat to the abandoned island and saw the empty, rotting buildings. Dave had to admit, it was a romantic setting—the perfect setting for a ghost story.
And perhaps there was a literary project to be done…he was sure he could find stories, perhaps even some with literary merit, about Hashima.
But then he imagined the big model in Nikaido Sensei’s house. He knew he had to go to Takashima someday soon. He had to see it for himself.
Dave told some of his friends in the class—Chinese and Vietnamese students, as Dave was the only American—that he was planning to go to Takashima sometime soon. There was some interest at first…but as the days went by and studying became more intense, the interest died down. Dave, for his part, was starting to think toward the future, toward his studies in Japanese literature. He began to read Japanese novels in small chunks. As his reading became smoother, his time reading became more enjoyable. He was making his way slowly through the works of Haruki Murakami and Natsume Soseki. Speaking was another challenge altogether, but he practiced diligently with Nikaido Sensei.
He had written down a book Nikaido Sensei had recommended—Remembering Takashima. A book of photos and captions detailing life on the island before the closure of the coal mine. He thought about looking for it in the local library, but then remembering that Nikaido Sensei had said the book was in the port building, he decided that he would wait until he was on the island to read it.
“How is the model coming along?” Dave asked Nikaido Sensei during one of their daily Japanese chat sessions.
“It will always be a work in progress. If I were ever to finish, Dave-san, I am afraid my home would die a second time,” Nikaido Sensei replied. Nikaido Sensei touched the middle of his own forehead. “Once it lived up here. Now, I must work on it with my hands or else I will forget.”
After his midterm tests, Dave found himself with an abundance of free time. The idea had been growing slowly in his head ever since his nights working on the model with Nikaido Sensei—he would go to Takashima by himself; he would camp on the island.
He went to the local discount store and found a cheap sleeping bag, a flashlight, and other camping equipment. On Takashima there was still one active hotel—a surprisingly cheap one, even for a student. But the idea of camping on the island under the stars excited him.
He took the boat early in the morning. It was a short trip—only fifty minutes. They stopped at Iojima first, the resort island. From there, many fishermen got on the boat. As the ship approached Takashima, he noticed the modestness of the port building. He disembarked from the boat and entered the small building. There was not much there. In the back was a section that had closed down but looked like it had once been a restaurant. There was one shop that was looked after by the same young lady who seemed to also oversee the tourism desk and ticket counter for the boat. At the port building, Dave took a moment to reorganize his belongings and plan his day. He decided he would leave his camping gear in a locker and rent a bike from the local staff at the port building. But before Dave could even lock up his belongings, he noticed the book at the tourist counter.
Remembering Takashima.
He sat down at one of the chairs and began to flip through it.
Through simple black-and-white images with captions, the book’s early pages captured the time before the coal mines were shut down. They showed happy coalminers, their faces covered with coal dust and grime, going about their daily lives. The photos and captions depicted a community of blue-collar workers living together, creating families and lives. They also showed thriving schools on the islands, with the students competing in festivals. Then the story turned dark. There was news that the mine might be shutting down. The union organized to prevent the closure of the mine. There were protests, sit-ins, but finally the inevitable happened. Then, Dave saw a name: Nikaido. His sensei’s brother was one of the organizers. He read on. Near the very end of the book, Dave learned the horrible truth. Nikaido Toru, the brother of his beloved sensei, had committed suicide after the closure of the mine.
Dave was alone in the port building now. Dave took a moment to process what the book had shown him.
After a few minutes, Dave recovered. He approached the female receptionist at the port building, the building’s one worker, who was the storekeeper, the ship ticketing agent, and the local tourism expert. He asked how he should rent a bike. The young woman smiled at him and called someone on her cellphone. Soon there was a bike delivered to the port building.
“How long will it take to bike around the whole island?” Dave asked in Japanese.
“You’re so young,” the young lady said and smiled. “I think you can do it in three hours.”
And so, Dave started on his trip. Just as he left the port building, he saw the empty husks of the old Mitsubishi tower apartments. In the foreground were little plots for growing sweet tomatoes—a new venture on the island—though Dave didn’t quite understand it. The center of town was nearly empty. All there was to see were boarded-up buildings, artifacts of a more prosperous time. Soon Dave made his way past the one remaining hotel. Then, the large city hall, which also seemed strangely vacant. He soon found himself at the beach. It was the one place on the island that had some activity. The area around the beach had been converted into a beach village for tourists. But next to the beach were more condemned apartment complexes. Dave knew these buildings well from Nikaido Sensei’s model, though he wasn’t sure if Nikaido Sensei had grown up in one of them.
Dave found himself lingering by the beach. It was just a little after the beach-going season, so he was the only one there. He had never really been a swimmer, but now that he was starting his new life in Nagasaki, he thought he might soon become a beach bum. The thought brought a smile to his face. The weather was warm and beautiful. His bike ride so far had been pleasant. But despite the cheer he felt, there was a melancholy shadow. Nikaido Sensei’s brother had committed suicide…because he couldn’t save his hometown. Now, many years later, Dave was there to wander through the monuments of a once vibrant community.
Soon Dave continued his bike ride around the island. He stopped at the tourist sites that referred to Takashima’s role in the Meiji Revolution. He went to the site where the residence of Thomas Blake Glover had once stood, the Scottish merchant who had helped Japan and Nagasaki evolve into modernity. He continued along the road. It seemed that some of the houses were still being lived in, but many of the others were dead husks. One of the houses had been converted into a shared residence for tourists like Dave. It wasn’t long before Dave had made his way around the island. As he approached the port from the other side, he saw the remains of Takashima’s old mining industry. He also saw that there were some newer tower apartments where residents lived.
He was at the port building again. It hadn’t seemed like that long since he had left. But three hours had passed. Dave wondered what to do with the rest of his time. Somehow, he made it through the day. He found his way to the top of Mount Gongen and enjoyed the view. He lingered at the beach a bit more. But at the end of the day, though he had nothing left to do, he still felt like he should stay on the island.
He returned his bike, paid the fee, and got his luggage from the port locker room.
He could have inquired about the shared residence…or he could have stayed at the very reasonably priced hotel…but instead, Dave found his way to the abandoned apartment block near the beach. He had no way of knowing whether this particular block was the one Nikaido Sensei’s family had lived in. Likely he had lived in one of the houses further up the hill.
He entered the building…surprisingly, it was unlocked. He walked down the hall to one of the first-floor apartments and tried all the doors until he found one that was unlocked. He stepped into the dark, stale room.
There he unfurled his sleeping bag and laid down. He thought about how much his life had changed since Chicago, since breaking up with his girlfriend and quitting his job. He had studied Japanese at university and had searched for a way to make his studies relevant, but now that he was here, preparing for a graduate degree in Japanese literature, his whole life seemed surreal. However, it was the confidence that Nikaido Sensei had shown in him that made Dave certain he was on the right track.
The night was quiet, and there was no light in the room other than his flashlight. He wondered to himself if he had made a mistake. Maybe bugs would crawl into his sleeping bag as he slept. He wondered whether he should just sleep outside or go to the hotel and get a room…
But, in the dark of the room, somehow, Dave was relaxed. The night air was quiet, and soon he was asleep.
When Dave opened his eyes, he felt sunshine on his skin. He was in a different place. He was walking up the hill…to school. There were two young boys walking with him. They were each carrying a baseball glove, and the boy to his left had a baseball with him. Intuitively Dave understood that these were the Nikaido brothers; one was his teacher, and the other was his teacher’s older brother. They were walking to school. As they walked, Dave looked down at a bustling port area. It was alive with people and activity.
“Oy, Mariko was checking you out in class yesterday.” It was Nikaido’s brother. And he was talking to Dave. But Dave wasn’t Dave. Dave was someone else.
“She does that to every new guy that comes to class. That’s just her way,” Dave responded in Japanese, intuitively. As Dave spoke these words, he understood that he was not himself.
The day wore on…as (his dream-self understood) it usually did. Dave, but not Dave, found himself in a classroom where a teacher droned on and on. It was only the younger Nikaido brother, Dave’s future teacher, who seemed focused. The rest of the class was restless, almost disrespectful. After class, the younger Nikaido brother explained his attentiveness in class: “We can’t live on this island forever. There is a great big world out there. If I study hard, perhaps I can find a good job outside this island.”
The older Nikaido brother disagreed. “I want to stay here, mine coal, and hang out with my friends every day…if I can’t become a professional baseball player, then what’s wrong with staying with your family and friends?”
“Don’t worry, you will be a professional for sure!” Dave but not Dave assured him. The younger Nikaido brother, however, didn’t seem so sure.
Later that day they were on the baseball field. They were attending team practice. They were all on the baseball team together. They were being watched by the cute girls in the stand, including Mariko, as they caught fly balls and grounders for practice.
Dave but not Dave knew he was no good at baseball. Somehow, as he gripped the baseball bat, the wood seemed not wood but plastic. Magically, when the ball came his way, he knew what to do. He hit one, two, three deep into the outfield.
“Sugoi! You’re getting better!”
When the sun started setting, the three of them began their walk home from the baseball field. As they left, the girls in the stand waved to them, including Mariko.
They walked, laughed, and talked together. The sun was beginning to set, and as it did, Dave could sense someone watching them. There were two big moons becoming visible in the sky like eyes, and he began to perceive things. Giant fingers were placing trees on the hillside. However, only Dave but not Dave seemed to see those fingers. The two Nikaido brothers walked on, oblivious.
As the sun set, however, these two eyes started to shape into a face—the face of his teacher. Nikaido Sensei was watching them. As they walked, Dave but not Dave realized that they would never reach home. They were meant to stay that way—forever, three young boys on an island, together, after baseball practice, walking to a home that only existed in a moment in time.
Dave woke up. He was still in his sleeping bag. It was early morning. Instinctively he sat up, unzipped his sleeping bag, and began to rub his body to make sure no bugs had snuck into his sleeping bag. Happily, his body and sleeping bag were bug-free. He did the same thing with his backpack and other baggage.
He made his way out into the early morning Takashima sunshine. Dave’s mouth was dry. He found a vending machine and bought himself some cold sparkling water. Dave checked his phone and realized that it was still early in the morning. It would be another hour before the first ferry made its way back to the mainland. It was a Sunday, so there was no reason to rush back, yet Dave felt something strange in the pit of his stomach.
It was an uneasy feeling. He knew he had woken up and that this was the real world, but something felt off. Something made him want to call Nikaido Sensei. Yet, he stopped himself. He wasn’t on that kind of terms with Nikaido Sensei yet.
Dave walked back to the port building. There were a few people there, mostly hobby fishermen who were waiting for the boat back to the mainland. Dave looked at the book again, Remembering Takashima. He found the page with the picture of Nikaido Sensei’s brother—he read the Japanese again. There was the word in print—“suicide.” He remembered the vision from last night, the young boy who wanted to grow up to become a professional baseball player.
Slowly, however, he found himself making his way back to the front of the book, toward the page devoted to everyday life in Takashima. He thought of Nikaido Sensei’s model in a new light as he looked over the pictures. Each picture evoked a story. There was something to remember about this island beyond the fact that it was a coal-mining island. There had been lives here, memories…and now the island was something different. An artifact.
The boat came to take him back to the mainland. From his seat, Dave could see the island growing smaller. He said goodbye to the island. Soon he was back on shore. Nagasaki was quiet. Early Sunday morning was a time of rest. Dave thought about going back to his tiny apartment, but there was something nagging him in the back of his mind—an idea that Nikaido Sensei might not be alright.
He made a decision. He called his teacher. He would apologize for calling him so early, and then he would tell him about his trip. There was no answer. It was 9:30. Perhaps he was still sleeping. But something told Dave that his teacher, ever the active Mitsubishi man, should be awake. He tried again. There was no answer again. Dave thought once again about going back to his apartment…but it wouldn’t take him long to walk to Nikaido’s apartment from the port building. He just had this feeling…he had to make sure that Nikaido Sensei was okay.
Dave made his way up the hill to Nikaido Sensei’s apartment. As he climbed, the uneasiness in his stomach grew. He felt that something was wrong. As he walked, the dream from the night before became more vivid. He could see those two eyes in the night sky. He could remember what it felt like as the world slowly turned to plastic.
He reached Nikaido’s house. He rang the doorbell. There was no answer. Then Dave noticed that the door was slightly open. Dave pushed it open ever so slowly. He stepped in. At the doorway he took off his shoes. “Ojyamashimasu,” Dave said out of politeness.
There was no response. He noticed that the house was unreasonably tidy. Nothing suggested that a single elderly person lived there. Dave’s uneasiness grew. He now felt a cold terror overtake him. As he walked through the house, he half-expected to see Nikaido Sensei’s dead body somewhere with a tidy suicide note. As he continued to walk through the house, he saw no one. There was just the sense that everything in the apartment had been put into its proper order as if for the last time.
Dave looked around, hoping to spot a healthy Nikaido Sensei sitting down, drinking green tea. Instead, his eyes found the plastic model of Takashima. It was in the living room. But now it looked filled out. Painted. Detailed. Complete.
Dave smiled. He approached the model. It was beautiful.
The terror subsided.
He examined the model. Nikaido Sensei had managed to fill the island with little plastic people. Dave looked closer. These plastic people were not just generic figurines either. Each seemed different from the other, and as he looked even closer, he saw a plastic figure that reminded him of Nikaido Sensei. And next to him was another figure who somehow Dave knew as his sensei’s brother.
And as he looked even closer at the little plastic figure that reminded him of his teacher, no bigger than half a fingernail, it seemed to turn its tiny head and look up at Dave.
And then Dave saw the most amazing thing. The plastic figure looked, smiled at him, and winked.
Daniel Clausen has published stories and articles in such magazines as Slipstream, Black Petals, Ken*Again, Aphelion, Spindrift, Zygote in my Coffee, and Leading Edge Science Fiction (among many others). His recent novel Statues in the Cloud is available on Amazon.
Euphony Journal 