The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto

Author:Banana Yoshimoto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2023-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

*

I hadn’t been on a night train in a while.

Tetsuo was fast asleep against the window in the seat opposite me, his long lashes cast down. In his school uniform, with his schoolbag and a plastic shopping bag in the wire rack overhead, he looked like an exhausted runaway.

Thinking back, I felt like he and I had always stopped just seeing each other as members of the opposite sex, using the fact that we were siblings simply as an excuse to be good to each other. When our parents were out we’d linger at the table after dinner, taking our time over dessert and drinking tea. The time we could spend alone together had always felt incredibly sweet.

The feeling had always seemed to be mutual.

Now that we were alone again, it felt all the stronger.

Shining lights sped past through the dark outside the window. Each time the train stopped and the doors opened, tendrils of the still, cold night streamed into the carriage. Gradually, the darkness deepened, and I looked up at the distant moon feeling somewhat uncertain, feeling like I was a long way from home.

But my mind was no longer clamoring for my attention. No matter how the wind rattled at the window or how swiftly the scenery flew past, even if an enigmatic night lay in wait all through the quiet carriage, I’d never again be driven by the overwhelming sense that there was something I needed to recall. I was fulfilled by the knowledge and the comfort of having found myself. Someday, somewhere up ahead, tonight would only be another scene from a long-ago dream. I wondered at the strangeness of it. I gazed at Tetsuo.

He’s so adorable when he’s asleep. Just look at how long his eyelashes are, I thought.

He looked like a slumbering god.

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