Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda

Author:Riku Onda
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913394615
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

14

He’s so far away. Way too far.

My memory of the time I was alone is fuzzy, but his words still echo in my mind. As well as the abstracted, hopeless note in his voice.

I wouldn’t say what came next was a nightmare, more like watching a stream of silent moving images.

He contacted the emergency services and told me to wait there by myself while he went to look for a path down to the bottom of the cliff. My legs wouldn’t move – I couldn’t even bring myself to peek over the edge.

I don’t remember how long I waited. We weren’t that far from the base of the mountain, so it can’t have been too long. Before I knew it there was a buzz of noise down below. The commotion grew as more people arrived.

Hiro called my phone to say the authorities wanted to talk to us. He was coming to get me and then we would go down with an escort. He arrived with a member of the local fire crew, and we descended the mountain together.

“Too late?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Hiro said.

A police officer asked us numerous questions, but as we had only just met the guide it seemed apparent that the locals were not greatly interested in us. We were, to all appearances, simply hikers from the city who they could not imagine being involved in any way with his death.

The police officer and firefighter seemed to know each other, and interspersed the interview with comments such as “Not another one in that place” and “He’s got a small kid.”

After giving our contact details, we were allowed to go. Though we were prepared for the family to contact us to ask about his last hours, no one ever did. We never heard anything more, not even from the police. We were worried in case it came out that we had been using false names and aroused suspicion, but in the end it seemed that we were simply regarded as outsiders passing through. An article in the local newspaper consisting of a few lines was the last we ever heard of the guide.

He’s so far away. Way too far.

His voice comes back to me. In retrospect, it was like a prophecy.

Hiro, the guide, that day and the accident now all seem like nothing more than something that happened a long time ago.

“Did you talk to him at the time, Aki?” Hiro asks.

“At the time?”

“During our last rest break.”

“I didn’t speak to him,” I insist. “Honestly. I was off in a world of my own. I didn’t even see him.”

It was the truth. I don’t know what I was doing, but I do know that I did not see him. Or that’s what I desperately tell myself.

“In other words, at the time all three of us went off on our own, quite independently.” He stares at the empty can on top of the suitcase, considering this. Tap, tap, tap goes the cigarette on the edge of the can. He is smoking more.

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