Intro to Novella

The Lies We Keep

Her country still seemed beautiful when she looked at Mt Fuji through the train window. Japan’s mighty mountain had continued to rise above the lies creating the friction for the birth of this needless of war. It had loomed over the country’s leaders whose intense desires to dominate were finally overcome by a more powerful force. People had died in insurmountable ways: through sacrificial plane crashes, starvation because of leaders that wouldn’t feed their citizens, American guns and weapons that the Japanese couldn’t compete with. Then there were the bombs; the bombs that she had only heard rumors about, ones of utter horror.  When it was all over many were shamed into suicide in attempts to regain some reminisce of dignity. Yet there the mountain stood as it always had, softly curving to the heavens, despite the sharp edges of this new existence. Japan had lost the war. It had failed to move ahead in the world despite having violently conquered its neighbors. They had been bound into submission by a country whose power they had longed to emulate. In this hour of embarrassment and anguish Japan awaited to be punished by the Americans insurmountable will. It was as if the mountain’s presence was a sign that not much had ever changed, but it had.

Maybe the spirits would finally look down from the mountain to smile upon her people Miyako thought while gazing up at the peak as the train pulled her alongside it. Then reality clawed its way back to her heart and squeezed.

 No. We are among the dead. The spirits haven’t helped us and still they will not. But this is not how I will let this end.

She wasn’t ready to die yet. That’s why she had done it. Then she left her family behind.   She felt that her ancestors would never forgive her for what she had done and neither would her family if they knew. At least he had been nice to her.

She had let him touch her in places and ways that she never knew that people could. Maybe it was something only Americans did, or only Japanese did not. It had felt strange yet beautiful and good. The fact that her country had been defeated didn’t matter anymore.  And for a few moments she had forgotten everything that had happened.  He had even left her some money after, enough to get on the train to Tokyo.

She felt different afterwards, like she was mourning something that she had lost in herself, which was funny because she thought there was nothing else to be lost. Then she got on the train. She had dishonored her family but she wondered if she still cared about anything. Neither her ancestors nor the spirits helped her family or her country. Japan had been the best and then had suddenly fallen. Her family had promised to take care of her and they had failed. Her father and brothers had promised to win the war and they had died and left her. Why did it matter anymore? She didn’t owe them anything.

All that mattered now is that she was going to survive without them.