Kotobuki-Kotobuki Train

I hopped on the train at the Kotobuki station. Inside the carriage, sat only one person. I walked past her and sat in the far corner, by the window. The train moved, she looked at me, and started walking toward me. A ticket controller? She sat on the seat next to mine, dressed in navy blue jeans and a red blouse. I avoided looking at her face. We traveled in silence. “Mitsutōge Station,” I heard the announcement. The train stopped. Nobody came in. Nobody left. We moved again. “Shinjuku Station,” the speaker announced. What? The train stopped in the middle of a rice field. I saw three people carrying baskets of seedlings to the sowing machine. “Shinjuku Station,” the speaker repeated. We kept standing in the field. The sowing machine started placing rice in the ground.

She turned towards me. “Did you know that Selva sells discounted lotus? I always buy it…” She talked with the cadence of a corporate mindfulness video. After a while, I stopped hearing the words and registered only the sound or silence. Breathe in. Breathe out. Signal. Blank. 1. 0. She was like a human metronome on 800ms intervals. Then, she raised her tone and stared at me. Did I miss a question? I stared back at her. Then she slapped me. Heat radiated from my cheek, and my ear rang. I knew I deserved it. But to this day, I don’t know why. She stood up and returned to her previous seat. I pressed the burning cheek to the cold window, looking at the trees and mountains. When the speaker repeated “Shinjuku Station” one more time, she stood up and walked to the door. She pressed the open button and jumped out onto the grass between rice fields. She just stood there. Motionless. Looking at the empty space between the train and the agricultural workers. The train doors closed, and we moved again.

“Kotobuki Station,” the train speaker announced. We stopped at the platform. Under the platform shelter’s metal roof, a man in a black suit stood, holding a brown suitcase. He entered the train, looked at me, and decided to sit in the far corner of the carriage. The train driver pointed at me, then at the light signal. The train moved.

I stood up and walked to the seat occupied by the man with the suitcase. He glanced at me, then looked out of the window. I grunted. He looked at me. I could count his breaths. One. Two. Three. He shook his head, lifted the suitcase from the seat, and put it on his lap. I sat down. We traveled in silence for a while. He glanced at my hands, but didn’t look at my face. When the speaker announced “Mitsutōge Station,” I asked him, “Did you know that Selva sells discounted lotus?”