Say Goodbye When I'm Gone by Stephen J. Golds

Author:Stephen J. Golds [Golds, Stephen J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913331801
Published: 2020-10-20T11:00:00+00:00

Nagoya, Japan

January 1967

Hinako watched her mother eating. Her mother ate slowly, proper. Robotically. A piece of rice was clinging pathetically to the side of her mouth, just underneath the fleshy down-turning of her thin bottom lip. It made Hinako feel a triumphant kind of pity.

The telephone call had come a couple of days previously, just before New Year’s Eve. She had waited over a week for it. Her heart ripping itself into confetti every single time the telephone rang into the sullen silence of the cramped confines of the apartment. An icy, gnawing depression seemed to scrape itself over her skin, the vulnerable tissue of her vital organs, every moment it wasn’t the telephone call she was starving for.

Hinako hadn’t realized how truly desperate she was to escape until the opportunity was held over her, a steak over the snout of a skeletal dog. Almost sick from the worry that something would happen to stop her from going. If they found out her real age. If the hotel suddenly burnt down. An earthquake. Her mother finding out somehow and putting a stop to it behind her back.

She wouldn’t be able to go back to her normal dreary life, not after touching the warm, bright texture of her dream. She’d rather die. She’d rather jump in front of the train, than go back to how her life had been before. Devoid of hope or pleasure. Alone. No, she wouldn’t. she couldn’t. It was impossible.

But the telephone call had come. She’d gotten the job. She was going to Hawaii. She was going to the USA. She’d replaced the telephone receiver back onto its cradle and fallen to her knees onto the tatami floor sobbing deeply. Tears of… She didn’t know exactly. She’d never cried so passionately in her life.

She’d thought later, that she had been crying for the death of her old self. The young, weak girl, slaving away in the ramen shop kitchen with no happiness and no future. That girl was gone. Ashes, and Hinako had been reborn. She was going to America. USA! USA! USA!

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