Essential Personal Effects

The old man remained idly inside the door to his flat, racking his brain for memories that seemed to retreat from his grasp like minnows, ribbon-like and slippery. 

Civil Control Station. 8:00AM on Saturday. Essential personal effects.

His mind whirred fruitlessly, grasping at these wisps of cloud and trying to tie a thread from one thought to another. Saturday. 8AM. It was Friday afternoon, a brisk March day typical of this lower end of San Francisco. Kiyoshi could always note the afternoon hours by the lances of clean light that cut through the blinds, leaking in at an angle from the surrounding apartment building that huddled side-by-side. 

Friday afternoon. This something will take place in less than 16 hours. Essential personal effects?

Kiyoshi rocked uncomfortably back on his heels, lacing his fingers in front of him and scanning his small one-room flat for clues. He traced the dull and peeling eggshell paint from the walls, the small spare kitchenette with its dulled collection of cookware, the toilet the color of coffee-stained teeth and the simple mirror above the chipped standing enamel sink. His cursory gaze skimmed the rickety thin iron bedframe hoisting a mattress, sagging under weathered springs. Movement in his periphery drew Kiyoshi’s gaze and simultaneously muddied his concentration, the minnows parting once again in a scatter of ripples. Tsukiyo wove herself through Kiyoshi’s legs, purring in feline delight. The old man bent hesitatingly, patting the silvery head in greeting and then, with some effort, placing the prepared dish of warmed milk from the stovetop onto the floor. Watching Tsukiyo lap greedily from the dish, Kiyoshi had the disquieting sensation that he should be busy with an important undertaking.

“Oh, Tsukiyo,” Kiyoshi sighed heavily as the cat blinked attentively back, “I need your help. I am forgetting things again. I know I have an important task at hand but cannot remember what it is.” 

The old man closed his eyes, which felt heavy with the effort of remembering. He traced a tentative finger along the lines of his forehead. Tsukiyo’s soft chirp startled Kiyoshi from the fog of his mind and he noticed that the cat had made her way across the room and into a compact suitcase laying open on the bed. He had not noticed the suitcase from the doorway, it was  nestled into the deep curve of the time-worn mattress. Kiyoshi crossed the room in four quick strides, Tsukiyo leaping aside playfully at his approach and batting at a slip of paper upset by her antics. The old man quickly snatched the note, being long-familiar with her affinity for shredding wayward scraps. The ruffled document was a list written in his own distinguishable hand, narrow and increasingly unsteady.

Civil Control Station. 8:00AM on Saturday. 

Bring:

• Bedding and linens
• Toilet articles
• Extra clothing
• Dinnerware
• Essential personal effects

No pets.

Some small flare alighted behind Kyoshi’s temple. 

Civil Control Station. Mrs. Watanabe from the corner market this morning - what is it she had said? Take only what you can carry. Leave everything else behind.

Unease bubbled in the old man’s chest as he remembered the scene from this morning. Anxious onlookers gathered around flyers papering the door. Mrs. Watanabe insistently shooed the crowd blocking the store’s entrance and murmuring fermented tremors from one to the other. Kyoshi paid no mind to the throngs, but the shopkeeper’s normally stern facade vibrated with inquietude like a live wire. Just then, her gaze fell on him and he thought he saw her eyes well momentarily. 

“Mr. Mori, you need to go home. Something very bad is happening and you must be ready to leave tomorrow. Go home. Take only what you can carry. Leave everything else behind. Have you got a piece of paper?”

The old man blinked his eyes with the dimming bloom of memory still playing in his retinas. He glanced at the list in his hand now.

“I had better get packing, Tsukiyo.” 

The moonlight-colored head blinked slowly at his words. Inside the suitcase were some of the items from the list: a thin sheet and small cushion that Kyoshi used for his morning meditation, toothbrush and paste, a tsuge wood comb. A spare lapelled shirt, slacks, socks. He only had one pair of shoes, he noted lamentingly, which he was currently wearing. 

So that leaves dinnerware and personal effects.

Kiyoshi made his way carefully to the kitchenette, rubbing his upper lip absently as he considered his small collection of dishware. After some deliberation, the old man returned to the suitcase with his chawan and chu-zara, the matching dishes gifted to him by his mother, all hand-made in Japan. He left the ko-zara. The small rice bowl and plate were both embellished with intricate blue brush strokes that snaked around the dishware like smoke clouds. Memories came to him through the clouds now, billowing from the abyss of his mind. Slurping miso soup or pinching at soba noodles from these same dishes, stealing furtive glances at his stoic mother as his naughty younger sister tried to make him laugh with her dinnertime antics. 

Kiyoshi placed them gingerly in the suitcase, wary of these thoughts tempting him from his focus. 

Personal effects. What do I bring when I do not know where I am going?

The old man blinked absently around the room, landing on the beautiful tansu in the corner. The box, fashioned from true Japanese chestnut and emblazoned with carvings of intricate blossoms, opened easily to Kyoshi. Time had not worn away the carefully lacquered surface nor stymied the elegant drawers within which the old man drew out all its contents. Yellowing documents curled with age, ancient tea leaves delicately fragrant, strands of eucalyptus embalmed in green pallor, spare photographs steeped in reminiscence. He also removed the radio, which he had forgotten that he stuffed into the tansu after the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor the previous winter. As the body count climbed and Kyoshi’s memory receded more and more, he wished himself to curl into the tansu. Contraband in this strange new world. He tucked the radio there instead.

The old man rubbed the tea leaves and eucalyptus between his fingers thoughtfully before gently placing them back into the box. They would not make the journey in his cluttered suitcase. The documents and identification papers were quickly fastened in the case’s inside pocket, unnoticed by Tsukiyo as she busied herself with cleaning her paws. Kyoshi turned his attention to the photographs. One of his family as it was in his childhood: mother, father, sister, and he in their kimonos, staring soberly into the camera. Another of his sister, the bloom of youth still settled over her open features, gazing slightly off the page with a look of somber disconnection so distinct in her later years. It was with a sharp pain in his chest that the old man realized he did not know where his sister was now, whether she was even alive or not. His father was dead by the time this picture was taken, that he knew. As he searched his mind for traces of his sister, Kiyoshi found only barren landscape punctuated by snatches of distant memories confined in these photographs. The last photograph was of Kiyoshi in young adulthood, staring balefully upwards at the camera, his chin tucked consciously against his chest. This was a copy of the photo pasted onto his Certificate of Residence papers tucked into the suitcase. Suddenly, the old man became breathless with the potency of each photograph. Hazy glimpses charged with longing for bygone days left him trembling, like waking from a dream of which he would not remember in the morning.

Civil Control Station. 8:00 AM. 

Kyoshi startled awake as fat slices of morning sunlight landed across his face, this phrase headlining in his mind repeatedly. He did not remember going to sleep but these days, he struggled to remember many things. Tsukiyo chirped in greeting, her short legs tucked under her silver body from where she perched atop the suitcase. With halting movements, the old man got dressed quickly and quietly. Though he scanned his memory for hints as to today’s destination, he could only recall that he was meant to show up to the Civil Control Station in thirty minutes with his suitcase carefully packed. Kyoshi cautiously picked up the handle of his suitcase and was relieved by its manageable weight. He silently thanked his past self for having the presence of mind to finish packing. 

The old man quickly made his way down the stairs and out to the street below, ignoring Tsukiyo’s plaintive mews at the indignance of a missed breakfast.

“I am sorry, Tsukiyo, I have to leave you for now.”

No pets.

Outside, a strange tension crackled in the biting air and Kyoshi was glad that he decided to bring his long overcoat. As he paced hurriedly in the street, he noticed other neighbors, some with suitcases and some grasping trash bags against the wind that cut through their worn coats. There were several children among the travellers, many of whose strangled cries carried across the sharp wind. Some of the others glanced around them anxiously, asking questions with their eyes. Kiyoshi did not know the answer. Most stared straight ahead, bent in the same direction. 

The old man clutched his suitcase to his chest, suddenly fearful of its contents of which he could not remember. Kiyoshi felt an icy tendril of fear pierce his chest behind the suitcase. As he plodded forward, his mind receded like the ocean tide and for once he did not seek its edges.

Wherever we are going, I hope it is warm there. 

He smiled to himself, forgetting the cold beyond.