Dream
Last night, I had a dream I haven't had in a while. In the dream there was me and you, we were standing on a snowy plain in the dead of night. We were both still young, as young as we were on that summer day when a whole world depended on us. You were standing a little ways away from me, standing there as still as a statue. Before I knew it, you were walking across that snowy plain, you were walking away from me. I called out to you then, but my voice couldn't reach you and you kept walking. So, I ran after you, but I couldn't catch up to you.
You were walking; you were walking with purpose when I felt like I didn't have a purpose. You were walking with determination when I wasn't determined. You were walking with strength when I felt I didn't have any strength. But, I wanted to catch you so I kept running, yet I still couldn't reach you. You were older suddenly, your hair a lighter brown, and the goggles missing from your head and the gap between me and you only deepened excruciatingly. And I called out to you, but my voice fell on deaf ears yet, again. Then, before I knew it I'd stopped running, I'd stop chasing you because I couldn't keep up with you.
My voice was still unable to reach you and you raised your hand up as if to wave goodbye. As you did this, again you got older, taller and the bush of hair on your head was gone and cut off. You looked over your shoulder at me and the brown eyes which I'd admired always; I couldn't see them.
Letter
We fall so that we can learn how to get back up. We fail so that we can learn how to succeed. We live to die in the end, but in that death we are able to assert a certain meaning to living. I don't want to fall, I don't want to fail, and I don't want to die, even at the expense of what I can learn from it all. I don't know what I want, I just want to live, but why do I want to live? There's a reason somewhere in there, yet for some reason I can't grasp it. Is it because I'm unwilling to fall, to fail, and to die?
There's no where I'm really actually going with this, with these words, and with what I'm telling you. Because, to you it probably doesn't even makes sense. But, what ever makes sense in this world? Truthfully, I don't even know why I'm writing this to you, because you won't read it. You'll never read it and I've come to accept that. I want to meet you again. I want to meet you again when I'm someone you'd be proud to know.
I left there with those thoughts in mind, because I want to become some you will be proud to know. That's my desire and that's my wish. So, am I selfish for desiring that; please tell me. And again I don't know where I'm going with this, with any of this that I'm writing. Then again, that's the life I've been living-sadly enough-I'm just directionless and don't know where to go. I had an aim, I had a desire, and I had a dream and I lost all of it. So, maybe that's what makes me selfish, losing sight of what I want to do and becoming unable to accomplish my dream.
And as I'm writing this, my chest is hurting, and I can't really breathe; so should I take some Tylenol? Tears are coming down my face and its irritating-not because I'm crying-no because I'm getting the paper wet. The paper that you're supposed to read, but I know you won't read it. Because, you'll never get this, because I won't mail it to you, because I don't know your address, and because you've probably forgotten about me, as I want to forget you.
Love, me
Son
The worst thing about it is not being alone and lonely, it's knowing you'll be forgotten by a person you'll never forget. That thought alone, kept circulating through out his brain day in and day out. Laying there on the white sheets of his bed, staring at the blank ceiling all day; nothing else seemed to go through his head. The memories of before and those feelings which all had come to pass, he didn't know which struck him hardest. But, he still found himself in the same situation day in and day out. Staring at that ceiling seemed to be all he was interested in. My father, had been a broken man, yet I didn't understand back then.
Walking through those halls, I felt as if I would suffocate from the tension that had been building. The black book bag my mother had set me off with had suddenly grown heavy and felt like a weight attached to my back. The letter in my hand, which I'd promised mom I wouldn't read, was getting wet from the sweat on my palms. Before I knew it, I was there, standing in front of that big black door with the four zero five, stuck to it. If there's anything I had wanted to do the most back then, there was only one thing. I wanted to turn around and run and keep running. Run all the way to the air port and go back to Osaka, Japan.
Yet, I couldn't because I'd long run out of the money needed. Then, with great contempt, I knocked on that black door. The seconds, in which I stood there felt like hours, and as that long span of time passed by, I could feel the strength leaving my legs. Then, in almost an instant, the door quietly opened and he stood there. He's was tall like I'd imagined, and his hair was brown and cut short unlike the bush on my head. And strangely enough, although I couldn't see a resemblance, I knew this was him.
"Who're you?" He asked bluntly, but not harshly. It was a reasonable question, but I still felt my heart sink at it.
"I'm Taiki," I responded smiling as I did, "and this is for you." I handed him the letter in my sweaty palms and he opened it-reading through it with confused eyes. For a moment we just stood there, and his hands dropped as he stared at me.
"Uh come in," he told me in Japanese to which I quickly did. The apartment was small, not unlike the one I had lived in with my mom. It was a mess though, with papers of all sorts scattered about as well as dishes and fast food containers. He told me to take a seat at the couch which I did dropping the heavy book bag below me. There was an in-table beside the couch and on it was a picture. It was an intriguing picture, because it was him, but younger and wearing goggles on his forehead as well as soccer gear. Beside him was a girl with orangish-brown hair and a smile; they looked happy.
"Is that mom?" I asked rather naively when he came in with a cup of water sitting across from me on the love seat.
"Not at all… so Taiki right?" I nodded my head once. "I guess we have a lot to talk about. How old are you?"
"Eleven," I responded earnestly, he chuckled a little bit. "You're my dad, right?" He sighed tiredly and rubbed his brown eyes which had bags under them.
"I guess I am…," he grumbled before picking up a cell phone. "Listen, Taiki, I have to make a phone call, so hold tight. Alright?" And with that, I had Taiki Inugami had begun living with my estranged father; Taichi Kamiya.