Mirai's Destiny

Mirai came into the world with a vague sense of disillusionment, directly attributable to her parents, who had neither the time nor the inclination to deal with a second child. You see, Mirai was the result of what her parents privately whispered between themselves was an unfortunate accident.

That attitude trickled down to Mirai’s sister Amata, born four years earlier, who didn’t show an ounce of interest in Mirai either. Amata and her parents had already formed a magical bubble and there was clearly only room for the three of them inside that bubble. Mirai was an outsider, an interloper. She watched with sadness as Amata and her parents joked, laughed, and practically spoke their own private language – a language Mirai would never understand.

Mirai often peered out the windows at the bustling world below, hoping there would be a place where she belonged out there. She looked forward to the day she’d start going to school and find her own special circle of friends. During her first week of kindergarten; however, she disappointedly discovered that children aren’t very nice. They poked fun of the freckles the sun had painted across the bridge of her nose. And Amata’s hand-me-down clothes, which were always too baggy and limp over Mirai’s slim frame, did her no favors either.

Every time Mirai passed the girls soccer team while walking home from school she saw the girls laughing and high fiving each other and couldn’t wait until she was old enough to join the team. They would definitely become her circle. Alas, when she was old enough to join, Mirai soon discovered she was quite terrible at soccer and quickly became a bench-warming outcast, feeling more alone than ever.

By high school, Mirai noticed her classmates were starting to couple up. They held hands as they walked down the halls and leaned up against the lockers kissing between classes. She daydreamed about the boys in her class, assuming every time a boy simply acknowledged her existence, he would call and she’d soon have a boyfriend. But when that didn’t happen, she reassured herself that her life would begin in college.

In college Mirai met a boy at a party who didn’t seem totally bored talking to her. They took a walk around the lake on campus and kept talking until nearly dawn. From that point on they were inseparable and within a few short months they were engaged. She dreamed about their wedding and couldn’t finish college fast enough. She added classes to her already overloaded schedule and went to summer school to hurry up and marry the first boy who actually talked to her for more than five minutes.

Finally, her wedding day arrived. “The first day of the rest of my life,” she thought to herself with a smile. But it was extremely anticlimactic. “That’s it?” she thought. But she put on a happy face in the days that followed, now married to a man with whom she no longer had anything new to talk about, and frankly, she found a little boring and irritating.

Mirai turned her focus to her exciting fashion industry career that was about to commence. She’d been looking forward to it since the day she was dropped off at college. Within a few months she learned; however, that the world of fashion was not the whirlwind of design houses and fashion models she had expected. It was nothing more than endless drudgery and very low pay. Gravely disappointed, she left her job and became a “Kelly girl,” temping as a typist or receptionist at local offices, and surprisingly earning better pay than she had in her glamorous fashion career.

“So, this is it? This is my life?” she thought. “I answer phones and come home to a husband who barely talks to me?” 

Mirai soon realized the only solution to mitigate the tedium of her life was to have a baby. A baby would be her soul mate and make her life complete. So she carefully planned and turned their spare bedroom into a beautiful nursery. And within a year she had a newborn infant who would not stop screaming and crying no matter what she did. This was nothing like the happy-smiling-baby scenario she had envisioned. She, at the very least, had hoped that having a baby would bring her closer to her parents and her sister, who now had three children of her own. It did not. 

“You live too far away for us to come visit,” her parents said, adding, “We’re too old to travel now.” 

“I’m too busy with my own children,” Amata said to her. “Figure it out yourself,” she added sarcastically.

Once again, Mirai felt completely alone. She found herself looking forward to the day her daughter started school so she could go back to work and actually have adult conversations again. To keep her mind occupied she dreamed of buying their first house and she ventured out to open houses every weekend and perused real estate listings online every night. She just knew that if they moved out of their apartment complex and its revolving door of short-term renters, she would finally have a real circle of friends in her neighborhood.

After they finally bought their first house; however, Mirai soon discovered homeownership was not at all what she had anticipated. Her neighbors did little more than annoy her, always wanting to chat about things she cared nothing about. Not only that, her roof leaked, appliances broke, and the carpet was dirty no matter how often she shampooed it. Homeownership was simply a never-ending stream of hassles and drudgery.

Mirai soon found herself dreaming of the day she’d receive her portion of the inheritance from her wealthy parents so she could afford a brand new home in a nicer neighborhood. So when the news came that her parents had both succumbed to a terrible illness, she knew it wasn’t exactly civilized to get excited, but she did immediately start perusing real estate online to figure out exactly where she wanted to move. 

“Now my life can begin. We’ll have a nice house, our daughter will be heading off to college, and my career will be in full swing. 

What Mirai hadn’t known was that her parents had never even thought to add her to their will after she was born. She was the extra child – the child they had never really wanted. So, all of their assets went to Amata. When Mirai questioned Amata about it, and suggested she share, Amata simply responded, “Obviously, this is what they wanted. Besides, I have three kids and you have only one, so I need it more.”

Mirai resigned herself to the fact that she always had been and always would be an outsider, unlike Amata who apparently was perfect. And Mirai would constantly dream of and hope for a better day that was likely never going to come. 

After all, her sister was named Amata, or beloved. 

And she was named Mirai, or the future, the time that is yet to come.