My vacation to Japan was not the relaxing escape that I needed. In fact, after going there, I should probably go to therapy. I can’t risk it though. I’d get thrown into a straight-jacket the minute I told my story to any mental health professional. Keeping this to myself is sort of eating me up inside and none of my friends or relatives would take me seriously if I told them what really happened. So here I am reddit. Try not to think I’m crazy. I’m questioning my sanity enough as it is. I guess I should start at the beginning with a small introduction. I work in IT as a database administrator and while I make a good living I’ve been pretty stressed out with the long hours and short deadlines. This would be bad enough if I lived alone and was able to unwind after work, but I’m a single mom. My five-year-old daughter Elise spends all day in daycare or with her grandparents, so as soon as I get home I try to fit in as much quality time with her as possible. Unfortunately work has ruled my life lately, and after not using any vacation time for nearly a year, it was coming to a point where I either needed to use my three weeks off or lose it at the beginning of July. (My official anniversary at work is July 7th.) Besides, I needed to spend some time with my daughter that wasn’t just feeding her dinner or putting her to bed. I wanted to get far away from work, family, Wisconsin, everything. Japan has always seemed beautiful and peaceful to me, and peace was just what I needed. So I searched until I found a small vacation rental facing a large river in Osaka. The pictures of the house provided on the rental’s website were gorgeous. It was simple and traditional, with a grid of wooden rectangles making up the outside walls; tatami mat flooring and sliding doors on the inside. It had only the one bed, which looked like just a mattress on a floor, but for my daughter and I it was perfect. The real attraction was outside of the house though. It faced a wide and beautiful river. To the right of the building was a small koi pond with a bridge that went over it and into a walking path through a forested area. Best of all; it was secluded. I booked it right then. Elise wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the trip when I told her where we were going on vacation together, but when I told her there would be a fishpond and that we would go into town and get her a beautiful kimono she got pretty excited. She insisted she was going to meet Mulan there. (Yes, I told her Mulan is from China, but she would not be dissuaded.) The time at work between booking the vacation and actually going was pretty tortuous. I couldn’t wait, and Elise was eager to go as well. We even had a countdown to vacation on the refrigerator. Now I wish I’d let the vacation time go to waste. First we flew, then took a train, and finally a bus, and we arrived at our destination. The owner met us at the home entrance. He was a seventy-something-year-old man wearing a wrinkled button-up shirt and jeans. His modern clothes looked odd against the backdrop of the beautiful old house. When booking the reservation the manager (who was also the owner’s daughter) explained that her father didn’t speak English, but that she would visit with him for check-ins to see if we needed anything. Something must have held her up today. He held out a bag of colorful candy to Elise. “Konpeito. Can-dee,” he said slowly. Elise looked up at me. “It’s okay to take it, remember your manners though,” I said. She took the bag, holding it as if she were afraid the little candies would break. “Thank you,” she said. The old man handed me the keys, bowed quickly, and left. “Well, ready to go in?” I asked. ]Elise nodded, but didn’t look up at me. She just stared at the colorful candies and yawned. Dragging our over-packed suitcases; we trudged up the three stairs to the front door and let ourselves in. Immediately Elise spotted the bed and headed straight toward it. Two sets of slippers sat together in the entryway. I was pretty sure we were meant to wear them inside the house, but Elise was exhausted and had already slumped onto the bed and kicked her shoes off on the floor. Thankfully she hadn’t tracked any mud in, but after a long day of traveling I’m not so sure I would have had the strength to be annoyed if she had. “Mom I think it’s time to go to sleep,” Elise said. It was only 6:00 pm Japan time, but we were both exhausted. “I think you’re right about that. Let’s get you into jammies and brush our teeth first too.” “I have to go pee,” Elise said. I led her to the bathroom, which thankfully had a western style toilet and returned to the bedroom to go through our luggage for her pajamas. “Elsa!” Elise called from the bathroom. “I want to wear Elsa.” I sighed and put back the My Little Pony pajamas I had just found and started the search for her Elsa nightgown. Not even sure why I brought anything non-Frozen themed. Elise was all about Elsa. After locating the nightgown at the bottom of my carry-on bag I grabbed our toothbrushes, toothpaste and Elise’s stuffed pig, Bacon. (Yes she named him herself.) We brushed our teeth, put on pajamas and practically fell into the bed. The absolute comfort of a mattress after a long day of travel cannot be overstated. We both fell asleep immediately. Unfortunately, waking up was a lot less peaceful. I woke up in my own sweat with a ray of sunlight coming from the only window not shielded by drapes and shining directly on my face. I sat up and grabbed the window flap to shut it. The light was strong, and I didn’t want it to wake up Elise. That’s when I noticed I didn’t hear the steady rhythm of her breathing, a sound I had memorized after years of waiting by her bedside until she fell asleep. I turned to look at her side of the bed, and it was empty. “Elise?” I called toward the bathroom. No answer. Maybe she just didn’t feel like answering me, or maybe she didn’t hear, I thought, but when I checked, she wasn’t in the bathroom. I slid the door open between the bedroom and the kitchen, trying to remember the map of the house I’d seen online. There was the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the empty room upstairs that I had been warned to stay out of due to a pair of territorial swallows who had apparently nested up in the rafters. She wasn’t in any of the rooms. Panic set in and I screamed out her name as I frantically double checked the bedroom and bathroom and finally headed toward the front door. It was already open a crack. I swung it open and ran outside. There she was, alone, standing at the edge of the river. I called her name, but her gaze remained fixed on the water. Relieved to see her, but still concerned, I ran to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. “Elise?” I said. This time she turned toward me. “Hi mommy,” she said. “What are you doing out here alone? You know you’re supposed to ask before going outside,” I said. “Honey I was so worried. I searched everywhere.” “The river wanted me to come play,” she said. “It was singing to me.” My stomach unknotted and my heart slowed to a normal pace. It was just her imagination at play. She hadn’t drowned and no person had lured her from the house. If I had known then what I do now I would have grabbed her hand and headed back to Wisconsin and never looked back, but hindsight is always 20/20. Despite the rough start to the morning, the day went well from there. The manager of the vacation home had stocked the kitchen with the foods we had selected on our rental agreement. For breakfast we had eggs and bacon. It’s not that we weren’t ready to try the local food; we would definitely do that when we went into town and had access to restaurants. But since I was cooking myself, it was going to be simple and something we could recognize. In addition to food for my daughter and I to eat, I’d also checked the boxes on the form requesting koi food. After a bit of searching I found a container of mealworms in the fridge, and let Elise feed the koi in the pond. They were beautiful swimming through the clear water. Elise fed them slowly, and together we watched for a good thirty minutes. I could have stayed there for hours, but five-year-olds are not known for their infinite patience. We decided to head into town to do some shopping and get something to eat. The bus stop was a half-mile away, but we didn’t mind. It was a relaxing walk and an outlet for Elise’s excess energy. Between a delicious ramen lunch and kimono shopping we had a great time. We grabbed a few more food items at a convenience store and took the bus back. When we arrived at the vacation house it was nearing dark and fireflies began to appear. Elise ran around catching them for a while, but once the mosquitos came to play we headed inside for the night. We went to bed pretty quickly after a dinner of convenience store curry rice and chicken. It’s crazy how much earlier I was willing to go to sleep without a phone to browse the Internet with. I know it sounds a bit crazy in this day and age, but my phone was a huge reminder of the job I wanted to leave behind for a few weeks, and I’d made the decision to leave it at home. Besides, there was no Internet out here anyway. Before we crawled into bed I reminded Elise that she was not allowed to go outside without me. She seemed to understand that I really meant it, and we both fell asleep soundly and without worry. The battery powered alarm clock I’d set by the bed showed 4:00 am when I woke up to Elise leaning over my body to peer out the window. I put my hand on her back for a hug. “Are you watching the fireflies?” I asked. “No mommy. Listen,” she said. For a moment I looked at her wondering what she meant, but then I heard it. Outside, someone was singing.
Submitted July 05, 2016 at 09:16PM by CommonGrackle http://ift.tt/29n0efQ nosleep
No comments:
Post a Comment